American Hustle Spoiler

The film starts on April 28, 1978. In a suite in the Plaza Hotel (New York City), a man named Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) is elaborately fixing his hair in a comb over to hide his huge balding spot. This goes on for several minutes. He finally hairsprays it in place. Irving leaves his room and walks into an adjacent hotel room where a surveillance team is recording the video and audio of another room. Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) enters and exchanges an angry look with Irving. It’s broken up by the entrance of Richie Dimaso (Bradley Cooper) who begins arguing with Irving, saying he got them a suite at the Plaza Hotel and mentions that he’s never touched Sydney (there is obviously some jealousy between Irving and Richie over her). As Richie and Irving quarrel, Richie messes up his comb over, leaving the hairpiece sticking straight up. Sydney, in her British dialect, rushes to fix it. Sydney and Irving meet at a party and con people into giving $5,000 in exchange for a $50,000 payout that never comes. They are trapped by FBI agent Richie DiMaso who agrees to waive all charges against Sydney and Irving if they help him entrap four other con artists. Their plan is to coerce these men into deals by flaunting a multimillionaire sheik in front of them but one of Irving’s friends suggests they convince the sheik to invest in Atlantic City with New Jersey mayor Carmine Polito. Irving befriends Carmine, who really has the town’s best interest at heart, but does some unscrupulous deals to save money, including involvement with a mob boss named Victor Tellegio. Afraid for their life, Irving and Sydney arrange a scheme where their friend poses as Victor Tellegio’s attorney and provides evidence that convinces the FBI to wire two million dollars into an account (to prove Tellegio accepted a bribe). But it turns out the account belongs to Sydney and Irving, who use the money as leverage to demand immunity and a reduced sentence for Carmine. Throughout the film, there are love triangles between Sydney, Irving, and Richie, as well as Sydney, Irving, and his wife, Rosalyn. Rosalyn falls in love with a member of the mob, leaving Sydney and Irving free to be together; Richie is left alone and a laughing stock at the FBI.

Domestic Danger Storyboard

Domestic Danger

Domestic Danger is a short film sequence that I have made. The plot is about a woman who has mental health issues which causes her to kill. I got the idea for my film sequence from the popular TV series Dexter, as in the opening titles there is also links to food and drink being referred to murder and blood. The different reference to blood and murder include the squashing of the strawberries, straining of the raspberry tea and the colour of the raspberry tea. I asked my sister to play the role of the murder victim in the shadow shot. I filmed from an iPhone so I had to find different methods of getting the camera straight. In order to make the film more interesting I used different camera angles and played with different lighting effects.

The Dark Knight Rises Title Sequence Analysis

The opening title sequences are very dark in order to conform to thriller conventions as it ties in with the enigma and voyeurism themes related to thrillers. There is lots of non-diegetic sound through the mood music. It is quite dramatic and eerie which, when combined with the close up shots throughout the titles, gives a sinister look to the film, developing thriller conventions as it develops the ideas of enigma to a new level. There is lots of close up shots and the only part of a human we see is hands. This is used to emphasise the control and manipulation from this character. This is also seen through the fact that the characters is moving and distorting the other characters pictures throughout the sequence highlights the manipulation he has. Most of the camera shots are canted to show how unorthodox the situation is. This develops thriller conventions as, although there is a lot of mystery, there is a physiological element to it through the canted angles disorientating the audience. The ‘Batman’ symbol is seen a lot throughout the title sequence as well as some newspaper cuttings to show the semiology. This could lead to the audience thinking that the hands in the title sequence are coming from ‘The Batman’ as he clearly has a lot of control over the city and over other characters. 

The final scene is very different to the rest of the title sequence. It shows a very white setting, with a lone, black Batman mask in the middle. This highlights how alone some characters feel in thrillers, both complying and developing conventions as it isn’t usually the hero who feels alone, but in this case it is. This shows how maybe everything isn’t as it seems, again complying with thriller conventions as it highlights the enigma. The director cleverly controls the mise-en-scene by including a lot of editing in this sequence. The high amount of editing shows that nothing will fit together and everything is as a blur. This is also seen through the camera shots as when they smash cut sometimes it is difficult to see what is in the shot. This develops thriller conventions as it both highlights enigma but also develops the voyeurism as nothing can be seen properly, even in the light. Towards the end also, the newspaper cuttings are torn up and linked together very quickly and match cut is used as a pose to smash cut. This shows how quickly time can move on and, due to the manipulation representation through hands, challenges conventions as characters aren’t supposed to be controlling, but deceitful.

Trance Spoiler

Trance, director Danny Boyle’s latest film, is a story about a young man, Simon, played by James McAvoy, who works in a high profile art auction house and who during a robbery heroically attempts to protect a Goya painting from the robbers.... Except that (previously) he has amassed some serious gambling debts and has let these debts be cleared by an accomplished criminal, Franck, (played by Vincent Cassel) for which in return he agrees to help Franck and his henchmen steal the Goya painting from the London auction house where he works. Except that he tricks Franck and steals the painting himself. The protagonist is also in on the robbery. 

Except that previous to the robbery Simon has gone to a hypnotherapist, Elizabeth Lamb, played by gorgeous Rosario Dawson, to help him overcome his gambling addiction. However she then breaks professional protocol and they begin a relationship which then devolves as Simon becomes obsessively and violently in love with her.  And so she, in order to get him out of her life and take revenge, has put him back into his gambling addiction and programmed him to steal the Goya painting so she would eventually get the painting herself, her “compensation” for the torment he has caused her. 

Except that Simon got hit on the head during the robbery and having stolen the painting can’t remember where he'd hidden it. Now he has Franck torturing him and Elizabeth lamb delving into his mind to dig out the truth.

Side Effects Spoiler

Side Effects is an unusual murder-mystery in that the main question isn't about who the killer is. Instead, we wonder whether the motive of the killer - Emily(Rooney Mara), a depressed woman dealing with her husband’s release from jail—might have been some unpleasant side effects from a new antidepressant she is taking. Those who have already seen the movie know that’s not exactly the full story: that the “sleepwalking” was premeditated—and all of the typical movie-mystery questions are unraveled by her doctor (Jude Law) at movie’s end.

But was Emily really faking illness all along, or is there something wrong in her head beyond mere greed and anger? And, if she was faking it, how should the audience feel about where she ends up—committed, in a Kafkaesque twist that dooms her by her own protestations of healthiness, to a mental institution. Emily winds up right where she belongs which becomes the ending for this film.

Thriller Sub-Genres

I made this Prezi slideshow to show the different Thriller Sub-Genres. Originally, I made this for my group production to show the research that we have done in order to have a feel for what we could do for our own Thriller Opening.

New TV Drama Blog

I have created a new blog for the TV Drama part of my AS Media Studies course. I share this blog with Liam who is my partner in our TV Drama lessons. So far I have added a post about Ethnic Identity and Regional Identity.

Ethnicity

We have chose a section from this episode of New Girl, that shows cultural differences and ethnicity. I would say that this episode include an exotic ethnicity because of the bright colours and costumes.

http://www.promptfile.com/l/605AC0E1D7-C8B0D3E761

9 Frame Title Sequence Analysis

Catch Me If You Can

In this title sequence they focus on the actually movie title it self “Catch me if you can” and the reason why it is in cartoon form is being when you hear this phrase you automatically think of “the Ginger bread man”. Furthermore we see in the first shot the main character appears as if he has just landed at the airport then we see a change of identity which suggests he has got something to hide also suggesting he is involved in some form of criminality. He then walks into a crowd of females and is spotted by which looks like security and starts to blend in and the security follows. This tells us where his run starts.

The security is left clueless and the main character has managed to blend in with the crowd of females, this revealing to the audience how cunning this character comes across. We then see a taxi being chased by a police car, yet again more evidence to suggest this character is on the run from doing something bad and in the last shot he is coming out of a swimming pool with his clothes on. This tells us that he is willing to take any kind of route no matter the risk just to get away from whoever is chasing him. Also the woman is this last shot could be telling us along his journey he does tend to come across attractive women as she is placed right where he comes out the pool.

Gravity Spoiler

After a major calamity, astronaut Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) is trapped in space and must find a way back to earth. The script starts out with her and a team working on preparing the Hubble Telescope for reentry to Earth along with the shuttle Atlantis. It's theorized that the Russian launched a missile to destroy one of its own satellites, when debris flying everywhere at rocket speed destroys everything in its path. After a series of setbacks and losing her whole crew, she manages to engage the craft and drift away from ISS, but the ropes of the parachute remain connected to the main station. 

Tethered to the Soyuz, she uses a drill to loosen the bolts and disconnect the rope. All the while, she must dodge debris that has begun flying around again. ISS is hit which results in an impact producing a hole that sucks the fire right out of it. 

As she reboards the Soyuz, the ISS splits in half after a crash. A tiny morsel hits her fuel tank creating a hole which reseals itself from the escaped liquid freezing. “I hate space,” Stone comments to herself. Losing fuel, she manipulates the thrust systems and sets her trajectory towards Tiangong 8, which is orbiting at a lower level than it should be. The engine module catches fire and she engages separation of the modules, leaving her in the cabin detached from the airlock, set in a direction where she will miss Tiangong 8. She makes radio contact with an elderly man speaking an unintelligible language. Though they can’t understand each other, Stone finds the man’s voice consoling. She loses contact with him and breaks down in tears. Thumbing through the operating manual of the Soyuz, she learns the craft has a breaking system, which she implements to improve her trajectory towards Tiangong 8. Once closer, armed with the fire extinguisher, she opens the hatch and is sucked out into space. Injuring herself and enduring a great struggle, she utilizes the extinguisher until it’s empty, and, eventually, manages to establish a hold on the station. 

She enters Tiangong 8’s airlock and depressurizes the cabin. She takes off her helmet and navigates the station to the docking module of the Shenzhou. She has a limited amount of time, as the station is dropping elevation towards Earth’s atmosphere. On her way, she saves a live amphibian, “No frog stays behind.” She boards the escape pod and takes a series of guesses to get the craft up and running. Flying debris finishes off the station, as Stone makes her escape. She breaks through the atmosphere and deploys the parachute. She celebrates and the thrust system softens her fall, as she lands in a lake. 

She releases internal smoke by launching off the hatch cover. However, the Shenzhou takes on water. She swims from the bottom of the lake, but her spacesuit drags her down. She watches the frog escape, as she is about to become ensnared in the parachute. She frees herself from her spacesuit and swims up to the surface and makes her way to shore. She is finally free.

Group Production Blog

For our group production blog, I chose the name Rainbow Production. To go to the blog click on the image above. Together with Kieran, Harry and Stephen, the blog has been added to over the space of two months. I have contributed to this blog in different ways, for example in November I created the logo and title introduction for our thriller opening.

Prisoners Spoiler

Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), attends a Thanksgiving dinner with his family at the house of their neighbors, the Birches. After dinner, the families' young daughters, Anna Dover and Joy Birch, go missing. After a police hunt, an RV that had been parked in the neighborhood is found outside a gas station next to a wooded area. When Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) confronts Alex Jones (Paul Dano), the RV's driver, Jones tries to speed away, but crashes into the trees. Alex is revealed during Detective Loki's interrogation to have the approximate I.Q. of a ten-year-old and is released due to lack of evidence.

Gyllenhaal (Detective Loki) soon finds a rotting corpse in the basement of a convicted pedophile, who tells the cops that he didn’t know the man’s name, but that he was a serial child killer. The corpse has a maze-shaped pendant around its neck, and eventually, maze motifs start popping up in the film, though it takes Gyllenhaal—who apparently has a bad visual memory—an agonizingly long time to connect the two.

Once he does, though, the movie effectively cancels out its themes. Hugh Jackman, the obsessive born-again vigilante, was right all along: Dano really is connected to the crime. (Leo is the culprit.) Torture turns out to be just as effective as police work; in fact, Jackman solves the crime first. The movie’s hints at the moral decay beneath Jackman’s family values—which range from the rotting childhood home where he keeps Dano prisoner to a somewhat heavy-handed close-up of Jackman accidentally crushing his daughter’s doll house while scuffling with his son—turn out to be for naught. The final twist vindicates him, and when Leo describes the crimes as “a war with God,” all of Jackman’s religious self-doubt gets annulled. The global war against Evil is real, and all measures are ultimately justified.

Jackman—who comes close to being the film’s villain, especially once he starts misdirecting Gyllenhaal—ends up a hero. His final descent into a hole in the ground, which echoes of the ending of George Sluizer’s The Vanishing, again briefly hints that his character may be destroyed by hubris; however, the movie’s closing shot cancels that interpretation by all but spelling out a happy ending.

Visit to the BFI

9 Frame Title Sequence Analysis

Shutter Island

Click to enlarge 

The opening title sequence is created for the 2010 Martin Scorsese film. The imagery uses a mixture of live footage and digital rendering. The approach of the titles helps to draw the audience into the film, playing with the idea of a distorted reality which the main character goes through.

Midnight Express Spoiler

Based on the true story of Billy Hayes, this film made in 1978 shows the harrowing story that he had to go through. Although this film made not need a spoiler as people may have already heard of the story of Billy Hayes, it can still be considered as a thriller because of the ruthless acts of violence and suspense.

The film Midnight Express is adapted from the book Midnight Express, written by Billy Hayes himself. There has been criticism from this film, even from Billy Hayes, mainly to do with the portrayal of the Turks, because they are portrayed differently in the book. The film shows the true story of how Billy managed to escape the Turkish prison, or what prisoners call 'catching the Midnight Express'. There were several failed attempts to escape the prison throughout the film, mainly by Billy's accomplice Jimmy. 

Dragged to the prisons sanitarium he is faced with the guard who's been torturing him in prison. When faced with fighting off the guard after he tries to rape Billy, he pushes the guard onto a clothes peg which brutally pierces through his head and kills him. Although the death was horrific, it was certainly deserving for the character who was the antagonist of our protagonist. Billy then dresses himself in the guard's uniform and reclaiming his money, Billy walks through the prison unnoticed to the front door. 

As he walks out of the sanitarium, another guard stops him and throws him the keys to the door telling him (in Turkish) to remember to lock up when he checks out. Billy walks out to the street, slowing down only briefly when a police jeep rushes past him. He runs away, the frame freezing on him as he takes a victorious leap. A title card tells us that on the night of October 4, 1975, Billy was able to cross the Turkish border into Greece and flew home to the United States three weeks later. The final shots of the film before the closing credits show Billy reuniting with his family and Susan, his girlfriend. In my opinion it was a very rewarding ending because for me I hadn't heard of Billy Hayes story so I didn't know the outcome of his story. So for me I wouldn't consider this a biography but more of a true story.

Audience Research

Runner Runner (2013): The new film starring Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck show that the average vote is 5/6 out of 10. The results are not as positive as previous audience research as Runner Runner has only just been released.

The film reviews show that the films starts progressively slowly which results in the viewers lack of interest throughout the film. There's a similar pattern in Runner Runner as there is in the film Fight Club. This means that because of the violence and action in the two films, it appeals more to men, as seen by the rise in votes from men.

What are enigma codes?

Enigma codes are questions that are not immediately answered and thus draws an audience into a text.Eg. a body is discovered at the beginning of a tv detective drama. The killer's identity is an enigma. We watch to find out who the killer is.

Enigma codes are used often in films. Two examples of where a question is answered later could be Inception and Shutter Island.

Audience Research

Fight Club (1999): I obtained these results from IMDb that show the ratings of viewers. They show that the average vote out of 10 is 8.8, which shows that there was positive feedback about the film Fight Club, especially since the film was nominated for an Oscar.

The chart below shows votes based on their gender. On average men voted 0.2% higher than women. This is probably because of the amount of violence that is contained in the film. Even more so, there are higher votes from people aged under 18 than people aged over 45. This is based on the fact that the film would appeal to a younger audience who can relate to release their frustration through violence. Plus studies show that an action-packed film can be a more appealing one.

                         

Thriller Location Ideas

Opening:

By using a figure on one of the pictures I took of my location, I am able to show how I would want the start of my thriller opening to me. The idea would be someone running through the woods. It's hard to show this with a 2D image but I hope that the idea comes across. I would also like to have close ups of the running in various camera angles.

For this second video I had the idea for the runner to come from the trees and become out of focus so that the idea is less obvious yet it still helps tell the plot of a thriller. In this video it shows that idea that I want to get across yet there still could be tweaking as the transitions aren't as smooth as I hoped. 

Although it may be hard to see but this video shows a long shot idea in which the runner runs from the left side of the wood and the right side of the wood. It would also help to show a low angle shot of the runner in between so that my opening has variety.

More Thriller Locations

To take to these pictures I went inside my chosen location which was at the back of Brands Hatch. I used my iPhone to take these pictures and chose various different camera angles that showed my selected location. I used a filter again to darken my images to show the genre that these images are for. I believe the location that I chose is suitable as a thriller location because it consists of mystery and contains a contrast of lighting.

For my thriller opening I'd like to try out different ideas. For example, I'd like to do various shots with the runner in the background. This picture below with a tree in focus is an interesting shot because it shows rule of thirds.