Conventions of the Genre:Psychological Thriller

The genre that our production group will be filming our short clip in, will be in the style of a Psycological Thriler. In order to portray our chosen genre to the audience, we decided to find out some of the stereotypical conventions of the genre.

Stereotypical conventions:

• Sub-genre of the collective genre thriller.
• Focus's and plays on the mental state/unstability of the characters mental and emotions
• Can also usee mystery to play on the unstable mental state.
• A first-person narrative is often used, so that the audience feels more involved with the character and the action happening in the film, wich also helps the audience to understand the mental state and unstability more.

Themes that can appear:

• Reality
• Death
• Perception
• Mind
• Existence
• Purpose

Examples of Psychological Thrillers:

• Black Swan- Darren Aronofsky
• Se7en- David Fincher
• Zodiac- David Fincher
• Fight club- David Fincher
• Vertigo-Alfred Hitchcock
• Rear window- Alfred Hitchcock
• Psyco- Alfred Hitchcock
• Donnie Darko- Richard Kelly
• The Shining- Stanley Kubrick
• The clockwork orange- Stanley Kubrick
• Memento- Christopher Nolan
• Inception- Christopher Nolan
• Shutter Island- Martin Scorsese
• Taxi Driver- Martin Scorsese
• The Sixth Sense- M. Night Shyamalan
• The Others- M. Night Shyamalan
• Unbreakable- M. Night Shyamalan

The films highlighted in green are films that I have seen, and so I know some of the techniques that the directors have used, and so can take inspiration from.

Black swan:
Black swan is the story of how Nina, a professional Ballet Dancer, who is cast as the lead part in the production of Swan Lake, gradually starts to lose her sanity as she struggles to compete with a fellow ballet dancer, who fits the part of the Black swan, as she is more sexy and sassy, whereas Nina is the perfect example of the white swan, as she is more pure and innocent  The pressure of the role, and trying to perfect herself so that she fits both roles, which are very contrasting, slowly but surely start to take their toll on her, and cause her to  lose her grip on reality.

I think this film is very successful, as it plays on a theme that most people can relate to; trying to be perfect, even if it means trying to be someone you are not. The film concentrates on some of the key themes in Psychological thrillers; Death, although in this film, the death part does not come until the very end, but there is also an element of suicide and self-harm. The film also plays around the theme of reality, as most of the goings on are happening as a result of her mental instability and so would not have happened in reality. 

Se7en:
Seven is about an experienced, about to retire detective, whom is partnered with a newer, younger, more hot-headed detective, to solve the case of a murder. As the plot unfolds, it is discovered that the murderer is infact a serial killer and all of his murders and victims depict on of the seven deadly sins: Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy and Wrath. the story follows the two detectives through their cat and mouse chase of trying to solve the murders. 

The film is so successful, as it plays on people's genuine fears, of murder. We also go along the path of the film with the two protagonists:the detectives and are initially shrouded in ignorance and mystery as they are.  

Donnie Darko:
Donnie Darko is a very highly regarded film. It tells the story of a teenage boy, Donnie, whom is "mentally disturbed" and his story following the incident of an aeroplane engine falling onto his house and destroying his bedroom, which he narrowly escaped death, as he was not actually in the house, but woke up instead in the middle of the road atop of a hill overlooking his neighbourhood.  Donnie was awoken by a figure in a "horrific" rabbit suit, named Frank, whom tells him that the world will end in "28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. The film follows his journey over this time period and his trying to decipher the meaning behind his starnge visits from Frank. 

I believe that this film is so successful because it leaves the audience surrounded in enigma; you never truly understand what the film is about, but you can take away from the film what you like, and there have been many different interpretations of the film, as it can mean something different to everyone who watches it. I have watched the film about five times now, and i still do not fully understand it, but the more times i watch it, the more i take away frm it. Some of the shot that they use are also very intresting and captivating to the audience, such as the scene where the camera starts on the ground facing sideways, and then as Donnie steps out of the bus, the film turns so that it is upright, and starts to tilt upwards and track him. 

Memento:
Memento is a psychological thriller about a man whom has short-term memory loss and has to track down the man whom raped and murdered his wife. The problem is that all of the information that he discovers, he has to either take a photo and leave himself a note, or tattoo his own body, in order to remember. 

I believe that this film is so successful, as it is shown in reverse, you start at the end of the film, and work your way backwards, so only small parts of the plot are revealed at a time, and it is only in the last few minutes that the story is revealed, so the audience is kept guessing right up until the end. 

The Sixth Sense:
The Sixth Sense is about a child pschopherapist, Dr. Malcome Crowe whom, after being shot by an ex-patient, returns to work and begins working with a young boy, Cole, who claims that he can "see dead people". At first Crowe believes that Cole is delusional, but following his path through the film, he discovers that thhe young boy is infact telling the truth, and this is the same issue that the ex-patient that shot him had. |I wont give the ending away, because i believe that it will ruin the film to anyone who has not seen it.

I believe that this film is so sucessful, as there is a suprise twist right at the end of the film, which is the common convention of all of M. Night Shyamalan's films, which changes the audience's perspective of the whole film. Another reason that the film is such a success is the fact that the audience is draw to, and genuinely feels for the young Cole, as he is the only poerson who can see the terrors that haunt him, and so he is isolated from the world and feels all alone. This along with the brilliant effects, sound effects, non-diagetic music and the jumpy elements that the ghosts bring themselves all combine to make a fantastic film; and the audience can really relate to at least one of the characters in the film; Crowe-struggling to balance his work life and marrige, which is slowly falling apart, all the while battling his self demons. Cole-who is teriffied of the world and of being alone with his fears, whilst also trying to connect with his mother. Cole's mother herself, whom is trying very hard to understand her young, troubled son, whilst struggling with the task of being a single mother. Being able to connect with these very realistic and human characters helps to make a very effective Psycological Thriller.

As our film's genre is Pshycological thriller, after watching all of these films, there are many points that we could take inspiration from. These points that i believe we could use as starting points/ inspiration for our peice have been highlighted in blue.

Filming Journal

1/10/12: Day one.

On our production day we planned our piece. We made a list of all of the things that we needed to plan in order to make our filming more effective and easy to film.These included:

• Location
• Set
• Characters
• Shot list

Location: 
On our script, it states that the scene is set interior, so we knew that we needed to film indoors, or at least make it look like it is indoors.

Set:
We decided to use one of the empty offices at our school, as it looks very similar to an ordinary office, and with a bit of readjustment of the furniture, would also be a very easy and convenient place to film, as it is in an area of the school that is not that busy, so we would not get disrupted whilst filming.

Characters:
In the script there are three listed characters:

• BAZ- the main character
• ANNA,-the receptionist at Simon and Garfunkel's, the law firm that BAZ has gone to.
• MR RIPLEY - an unseen character, whom you only hear the voice of.

Shot List:

• Our shot list consisted of all of the shots that we needed to film in their chronological order that they will be shown in the final cut, but due to continuity, we will not film them in this order.
• Our original idea was for the first shot to be a point of view shot of my character (BAZ) walking up the stairs. We filmed this using a handheld camera, held at eye-level, and we decided against using a Steadicam  as we believed that the more raggedy look added to the effect we were trying to create for our psychological thriller.

Problems that occurred whilst Filming:

Whilst filming, as it was our first attempt and experience of filming, there were a few issues that we had to overcome. Some of these included:

• Reflections: As one of the shots we used was a close up of a hand opening a door, in our first recording, we noticed that we could see the reflection of the camera in the glass, so had to overcome this by slightly moving the camera so that it was lined up with the wooden frame, and consequently out of shot.
• Continuity: As we had to film over  a number of days, we had to ensure that all of our factors included in the frame were identical to how we had it before. these included costume; hair and make-up; positioning of subjects; positioning of camera etc.

Day two (9/10/12).

We decided that the original opening shot that we filmed was possibly not the best choice. The original was a point of view shot from BAZ's perspective. We, as a group decided to re-shoot the scenes we had filmed previously, as we wanted to be able to introduce the charcter to the audience before introducing the point of view shots; however we wanted to maintain the initial enigma surrounding the character that the point of view shot created. We did this by using close-ups of different parts of the characters body; for example, in the shot where she is walking up the stairs, we used a tracking shot to follow her, whilst using a close up to show just her feet from behind. This way it is still clear to the audience that the character is walking up the stairs, but is also a lot clearer in the shot point, as it is a smoother shot, due to the Steadicam  and there is still an air of enigma, as you have not yet been properly introduced to the character, as the audience has not yet seen her face. We then went on to film the scene in the corridor, which we had originally planned to start with a close up of BAZ's hand (empty in present-day, or holding the parcel in the flashback) to emphasise the difference, and then zoom out to a whole body shot whilst also moving back in a tracking shot. Unfortunately the corridor in which we were filming was too short for us to be able to do the whole of our shot. We overcame this problem by deciding that instead of zooming out we would stay focused on the hand, to draw the audience's attention to it even more than we had originally planned, and instead follow the hand thorough the corridor. We did this by using a combination of the camera on a  Steadicam-cam, and the cameraman sitting on a wheelie-chair, being dragged by another member of the group, to enable that it was a very smooth shot.

Problems that occurred whilst filming:

• Sounds of footsteps: It was fine for there to be one set of footsteps in the scene, as this would be part of the diagetic sound elements, as the shot was a close up of the feet of someone walking up steps. However, we realised when we were watching the playback, that we could also hear the footsteps of the cameraman.To overcome this problem we decided that the person operating the camera should take off her shoes, so that her footsteps were not as heavy, and not as audible.

Production day- Creative Process

On the production day we also got to use some practical skills, and got to practice some of our new found skills. 



Steadicam: We learnt what a Steadicam is, the disadvantages and advantages of how it could help us in our film-making processes, and we got to have a first hand experience with how it works and how we use it.

• Steadicam is used to get rid of all of the "jerky" movements that could occur if the camera was just hand held, an so creates a more smooth and flowing shot.
• It is often used for tracking shots, mainly when the surface on the ground is very uneven, and s tracks cannot be used.
• However the Steadicam cannot totally remove all movement.

Our Storyboard:

Production Day-What I learnt.

On Monday, we had a Production day, where we were taken off time-table, and spent the whole day working on our media, and started developing our ideas for our short-film, and eventually started to film some of our shots. In the morning of the day, we had a "mini-workshop" with one of the teachers at our school, as he has over 25 years experience in the film-making industry, where he worked as an assistant director of a number of different films. He taught and explained to us a few key techniques that we could use to help us to improve our shorts, as well as helping us to understand what working in the film industry is actually like. some of the things that we learnt about were:

• Continuity
• Focus
• What a "set-up" is
• How you can use zooming in and out, combined with moving the camera backwards and forwards on a track to make an effect.

Continuity: In order to make a film believable for the audience, everything in the frame, or the "Mise en scene" must be correct, otherwise the audience will notice these slip ups and so will pick faults with, and believe the film less. By making sure that everything in the scene is consistent, and, if the shots change, everything in shot is exactly the same in all of the takes, so that, for example, if a woman has her hair down in one shot, and then in a different shot, her hair is tied back, without the time for her to tie it up, the continuity would be awful, and so the movie would not be believable.



Focus: We learnt two different types of focus: Sharp and Soft focus. The differences in focus are used to draw attention to and from certain subjects in the shot, as to portray different meanings.



Soft Focus



Sharp Focus (the leaves)

What a Set-up is: All of how you arrange/position the subjects in the frame, the lighting, the camera angles, the zoom etc. is the set-up. Everything in the set-up is done for a reason, and has a meaning or purpose for doing so. If even the smallest detail is changed/ altered, even in the slightest, can make a huge difference to how the frame is interpreted.

How a use of a combination of techniques can create effects:

You can use zooming in and out, combined with moving the camera backwards and forwards on a track to make an effect. For example, In the Alfred Hitchcock movie Vertigo, in order to overcome the problem of being able to portray to the audience the sensation of vertigo. As the film was made in the 50's, Hitchcock did not have all the fancy technology that we have nowadays, and so had to figure out a way to overcome this glitch. He did this by moving the camera back and forth along tracks and zooming in and out at the same time. The effect he created has since been used in a number of different films. The effect can be seen in this short clip below:

Overall the day was a lot of fun,but at the same time i also learnt a lot. Thanks to Gerard Wall who helped us all alot. 

Knowledge Vs Creativity

 We were asked the question "Does the amount of knowledge you know and skills you have restrict you creativity?" at first it was a simple "Yes" or "No" answer, and we either agreed or disagreed with the statement. But then as we discussed our opinions as a class, we discovered that it wasn't as simple as that. Some of the  things that we figured out were that:

Agree:

• You get into habit and routine of doing things a certain way, so do not try to be more creative and imaginative.
• You could be taught a certain way, and so, because you have been taught this way, you believe that is the correct way, and so do not attempt to do it any other way.

Disagree:

• If you know more knowledge and skills, then you will gain the confidence to go out of your comfort zone, and become more creative.
• Going through and learning how to do a process "properly" you may become inspired by it, and therefore become more creative in what you do with your knowledge.