Lightening Exercise

Lightening exercise 

Before we started filming we had to learn how to set up the lights, we learnt a "standard set up" which is a basic way of setting up the lights and it looks like this. 

Throughout filming the short sequence we used three types of different lights, them being, a key light, a back light and a filler light. We used these to create a number of different effects for example,

•  Under lighting 
• Top lighting  
• Back lighting
• Low key lighting  
• High key lighting 

Different shots are created for different effects for example a low key light effect is used in horrors a thrillers because it gives that sense of fear.

A top light is used to make actors/actresses look glamourous and youthful even if they are 89 this       

lightening can make them look 49.

Throughout this short sequence it demonstrates all the different types of lighting and how they effect the appearance of people.

Sound Exercise

we filmed a short sequence of film trying to add in all the different sound types we had learnt.we included most of the sound techniques for example diegetic sound and non diegetic however we couldn't include a sound bridge because we didn't have the right equipment.
We made the sequence into a short horror because that's what we believe makes it easier to add in all the different types of techniques.
The first shot we had was of one of our actresses Michelle sitting in the room alone listening to music making her look like a vulnerable target.
Then all of a sudden the door slams shut capturing our on screen sound and diegetic sound,on screen sound is when the audience can see where the sounds coming from.
We then shoot a point of view shot looking around the room to see if anybody is there.
When the camera is facing the white board and we see the writing, we added in an evil laugh over the top to capture our non diegetic sound.
The final scene we have blank and you can only hear whats happening, this is off screen sound, and this means the audience cannot see where is coming from.

 In my opinion we captured the sound effectively because we most of the shots and they worked to an extent, as we was limited to what we could do due to equipment and the environment we was in.

I think we captured the sound well however next time we could try using a different setting and more sound techniques.

The Birds

TheBirds 

Trailer for the film-
the trailer shows us many aspects of the film and parts of whats going to happen, it contains some aspects of what typical thrillers withhold in the film, for example there is a deep voice narration talking over the top of the video to give it a frightening affect.

The Birds is a horror/thriller and is directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
In many horror films there is usually a villain in this films case the threat is from the birds,
in normal Hitchcock's films there is no where to hide in this case it is Bodega Bay.

Thrillers are characterised by fast pacing frequent action, there are some key scenes of this in the film for example,

This is a massively important scene in the film because is so fast pacing with all the children running away from the bird the viewers are paranoid and anxious wanting the children to get away.

It is said in thrillers that the heros are to be more well equipped than the villains, however in this film its not the case because the birds end up getting injuring and killing some of the people before the hero actually escapes.

This scene is great for the audience to play with their feelings because it is full of suspense and tension.

There is a dramatic irony in the film, a dramatic irony is when the audience know something the characters in the film do not for example, we can see the birds gathering but the characters can not and this is the dramatic irony in the film.

Hitchcock uses a technique where he has the schoolyard scene where the children are singing a sweet nursery rhyme and in contrast to this evil nature being the birds are beginning to gather.

The scene at the end where Tippi Hedern took a week to shoot the bird were attached to her clothes by nylon threads so they could not get away.

When the premier of this film was being shown, they audience were being greeted by screeching bird sounds, because loud speakers had been hidden in the trees.

Psycho

Psycho 

Psycho is another one of Hitchcock's famous thrillers, the screenplay was by Joseph Stefano and the Novel was written by Robert Bloch. The stars of the Film were Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles.

One of the famous Maguffins!

A office worker Marion Crane has a lover called Sam and wants to get married however they cant because Sam has to give most of his money away in alimony.

On one of her shifts she is trusted to take $40,000 to the bank by her employers, however she takes the money and beings to head towards Sam's California store seeing this as an opportunity to start a new life and get married. After a long Drive Marion gets caught in a storm and pulls into The Bates Motel.The motel is managed by a nice young man called Norman who seems to do everything as his mother tells him.In “Psycho” the audience  think the film is about $40,000 and suddenly the murder occurs This shock makes the audience apprehensive for the rest of the film.

All the audience know is that there is a murderer in the house, they don't know who they are or if they will strike again but to be suspenseful they must know it could happen any minute. Hitchcock stressed that as the apprehension increases there is less and less violence on screen.

In    In the film the threat is from a man thats gone mad even though he seems sweet and innocent. However we see a different side to him when he is peeping at Marion having a shower then he murders her whilst she's showering.

Thrillers are characterised by fast pacing frequent action. so whats makes Psycho a thriller?
Scenes in the film make it a Thriller for example when Marion's sister is on the stair case and Norman comes in, the audience are scared for her as they think his going to catch her a she will die. 

In thrillers the heros often have to be better equipped than the villains, in psycho this isn't the case,  because the villain (Norman) still got to kill the other people it's not until the end Sam is the hero and saves Marion's sister from getting killed by Norman that he becomes the hero, in a way he is better equipped because he caught him however its not until the end.
Hitchcock believed thrillers allowed audiences to put their toe in the cold water,this was because you was kept in suspense and wanted more.
In my opinion nobody can re make the film, Hitchcock planned it perfectly and captured every scene perfect nobody can recreate that.
Psycho is a very famous film known for the shower scene,  when somebody mentions the name psycho you imagine somebody being hacked to death in the shower and in other thrillers the music that was used in psycho is used to make them think about psycho.
The film doesn't actually show you much about what happened in the scene it just lets your mind fill in the blanks and lets your imagination tell you whats going on.

North by Northwest

Analysis of the trailer:

This trailer for the film would appeal to the audience because it makes the film look attractive, using cliffhangers and making the audience wanting to watch it and find out what happens next.

The film advertised in the trailer is called 'North by Northwest' and is about an innocent Newyork man looking for a way to survive whilst he is being portrayed as a villain to the other characters in the film, in the film there is also a romance between the man and the woman trying to help him survive who is a spy. The women is also portrayed as a villain throughout some scenes in the film and it isn't until later in the film the audience discover shes is actually trying to help him.

The director of this film is a very famous, his name is Alfred Hitchcock, the writer of the film is called  Ernest Lehman and the film was written in 1959, the main stars of this film are Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason

Hitchcock used to always visually plan the scenes and learn the dialogue by heart so he didn't have to look at the script he also never used to look at the camera, he used to pretend he was looking at the movie screen. 

Thrillers often are fast pacing and have frequent action, making North by  Northwest a thriller we see this in the scene at the end when the two characters are climbing over mount Rushmore and the audiences hearts in their mouth!

Usually in films heroes are often more well equipped than villains, however in this film this is not the case, the villains are more equipped than the heroes, but the hero still manages to win.

In the auction scene a lot of suspense is used and also a red herring, a red herring is put in to miss lead the audience and make them think something different to what is actually going on in the film.

The main actor makes it seem like his 'love' in the film was only spending the night with him to help the villains, however towards the end of the film we actually find that she was doing it to help him all along.

The crop dusting scene is crucial  to the film it is filled with action and suspense. In my opinion it is one of the most tense scenes in the film. Its such a iconic action sequence because it is fulfilled with tension and makes the audience cringe with excitement waiting to see what happens next.

A thriller has to have a villain making plots up to overthrow the good guy and somehow the good guy will have to over come them and win. In North by Northwest this is the case, Roger Thornhill (the main character) has to find a way to over come the Villains and that what he spends the majority of the film trying to do .

The crop duster scene is a massive scene in the film because it keeps the audience on edge throughout it, the audience are cringing at the tv screen because they want to know whats going to happen is he going to get caught by the cropper duster or not?, no matter what language the film is in you could still understand what was going on and be stressing at the film.
Mt Rushmore is a symbol of order, Hitchcock throws in disorder.

 

Camera Exercise

Camera Exercise:

In our short clip we was learning different camera techniques and how to use them, we used a wide variety of camera shots throughout our clip some of them being,

• long shot 
• medium shot 
• close up
• extreme close up 
• point of view 
• over the shoulder 
• low angle 
• high angle 
• pan 
• tilt 
• crane shot 

we was trying to create a short horror clip with our actress (Lauren) as the main character, she was being watched round the building and being haunted by our other actress Michelle. 

In our clip we tried to incorporate as many of the shots as we could, however some of them we couldn't use in the video, for example the tracking shot, we didn't have the right equipment to film that so we had to leave that out of our video.
Also we had to leave out the over the shoulder view because that didn't make sense in our video as the character didn't have anybody else she was talking to.

Furthermore we created a short story board of each shot we was going to do, some of the shots we tried to put in didn't fit because some of them had to be cut out of the video clip.

All of the shots we included had reasoning behind them, we used shots such as a closes ups for dramatic effects. At the very end of the clip we filmed people from a high angle, this showed the people looking small and defenseless against the monster what was inside the building.
Many of our shot choices were successful because they were filmed to the best of our ability and fulfilled their purpose of why the was in our video clip.

Some of shots weren't held steady and them shots we edited out, we used the tripod however whilst filming we kept knocking it making our shot fuzzy.

Overall in my opinion we edited our video clip well and chose the background music well to fit the clip. Next time i think we should be more careful when filming to get the shot perfect and incorporate more shots.