Thursday, 23 October 2014
Wednesday, 22 October 2014
ISL Week 6
Timeline showing key thriller movies from the past 50 years
These are the Top 10 Thrillers to this is day and the reason why they had an impact on Thrillers now days:
1. The Third Man (1949)
Dominated by Orson Welles' extended cameo as the charming Harry Lime, believed dead in post-war Vienna but returning to befuddle his old friend Holly Martins (Josepth Cotten), Carol Reed's noir thriller is one of the great British suspense films. Debate constantly rages as to how much of Welles' performance was either written or directed by him - including the famous 'cuckoo clock' monologue - but this speculation is a disservice to Graham Greene's excellent, cynical script. Beautifully capturing the atmosphere of a world where nothing seems to count any more, the film is helped immeasurably by Anton Karas' zither score.
Top thrill: The final chase through the sewers, where Reed, Welles and Greene brutally play with our sympathies.
2. Rear Window (1954)
Had Rear Window been made by a director like Truffaut, it would have ended up being a meditation on voyeurism, the role of the cinema and that of the auteur behind it, and the participation of the audience in the relationship. As it was made by Hitchcock, it is all these things, but also a gripping and exciting thriller revolving around wheelchair-bound photographer LB Jeffries (James Stewart) and his suspicions that his neighbour Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Hitchcock moves from light social comedy to edge-of-seat suspense with alacrity, and is helped by a positively luminous Grace Kelly as Stewart's girlfriend.
Top thrill: Grace Kelly goes searching for clues in Burr's apartment, as Jeffries and the audience watch, helplessly.
3. The Usual Suspects (1995)
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.' With this showy Baudelaire quotation, Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie announced their intentions from the off. Beginning as a fairly standard thriller - the aftermath of a massacre sees the sole survivor, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) interrogated by police - the film slowly acquires mythic dimensions as a legendary crime lord, Keyser Soze, becomes the pivotal figure in flashbacks of a heist planned by a gang of ne'er-do-wells, including Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) and McManus (Stephen Baldwin). Finally, one of cinema's most iconic twists reveals what, precisely, has been going on.
Top thrill: When we finally find out who Keyser Soze is - or do we?
4. The Silence Of The Lambs (1990)
Although repetition in inferior sequels and prequels has somewhat lessened the shock value of Anthony Hopkins' performance as Hannibal Lecter, there's no doubt that Jonathan Demme's tight and disturbing thriller shows the character at his most fiendish. Although Hopkins is only on screen for something like 20 minutes in total, he dominates the film entirely - his 'quid pro quo' scenes with Jodie Foster's tough but vulnerable Clarice Starling are exceptional. But then even the 'other' plot of Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) and the FBI's desperate struggle to stop him is beautifully paced and heart-poundingly executed.
Top thrill: Lecter escapes from his confinement. "Ready when you are, Sergeant Pembry."
5. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
One of the best directorial debuts of all time, Tarantino's supremely confident, supremely stylish hello to Hollywood managed to simultaneously herald a completely distinctive new talent while magpie-ing all the best bits from the thriller gods of yore. A smartly inverted diamond heist plot laced with nods to Mamet, Kubrickian ultra-violence, Scorsese and Losey, to name a few, is combined with a knockout colour-coded ensemble cast including Keitel, Buscemi, Roth and Madsen, all set to a stupidly cool soundtrack and cut at 100mph.
Top thrill: Here the thrills lie in what we don't see, and Tarantino's clever cutting: we don't actually see the heist.
6. Old Boy (2003)
The second in Park Chan-Wook's 'revenge trilogy' has gained the greatest iconic status since its release, due perhaps to the chillingly mysterious plot. Middle-aged salaryman Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-Sik) is mysteriously kidnapped and imprisoned for years, only to be just as unexpectedly released and told he must find his captor in five days, or suffer the consequences. From this, Chan-Wook constructs a plot with all the warped elegance of Jacobean tragedy, building to a horrific and unforgettable finale as his captor's grand plan finally becomes explicit. Apparently it's to be remade, but there seems to be little way of topping the brilliant original.
Top thrill: Oh Dae-Su is confronted with a hallway full of baddies. Never mind, he has a hammer...
7. North by Northwest (1959)
In the midst of Hitchcock's great American film period, beginning with Rear Window and ending with The Birds, North by Northwest stands out as being the most purely entertaining, possibly of all Hitchcock's films. With a suitably ridiculous plot involving advertising executive Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) mistaken for a government agent by spies led by the unctuously sinister Philip Vandamm (James Mason) and embroiled with femme fatale Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), Hitchcock turns the innuendo, iconic set pieces and witty dialogue up to 11.
Top thrill: Thornhill's near-fatal encounter with a crop duster. As remarkable for what doesn't happen as what does.
8. Se7en (1995)
The film that established David Fincher's apparently inseparable relationship with the darker side of human existence, this bleak, bleak film noir sidesteps the cliches it appears to bury itself in (two mismatched cops, one black, one white; the old-timer on the edge of retirement; a brilliant serial killer with a twisted Biblical methodology) with fierce intelligence, manifested both in an unusual density of literary reference and through exceptional performances from a fine cast, with Morgan Freeman's haunted Somerset and Brad Pitt's feisty Mills more than ably matched. Then of course there's that ending.
Top thrill: Either the pulse-pounding foot chase midway or the final revelation of John Doe's grand plan.
9. The Departed (2006)
The film that finally won Scorsese his long overdue Best Director Oscar, as well as Best Film, The Departed is nominally a remake of the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, but with entirely different emphases and twists. Perhaps surprisingly for Scorsese, this tale of a cop posing as a mobster (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a mobster doing the same (Matt Damon) is often as laugh-out-loud funny as it is suspenseful, with great comedic turns by Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin as the police and a wonderfully OTT Jack Nicholson as Costello, the head of the Boston mob.
Top thrill: Damon and DiCaprio finally meet, and the results are unexpected.
10. Fargo (1996)
For many, the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men (2007) is their greatest thriller, but its existential meanderings can't compare for heart and soul to their snowbound murder fable Fargo. Revolving around the failed attempts of inept car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) to have his wife kidnapped and collect her ransom, the Coens neatly balance laughs with high-wire suspense. Best of all is Frances McDormand's marvellously humane performance as the heavily pregnant cop, Marge Gunderson, for whom solving murders is all in a day's work.
Top thrill: Carter Burwell's magnificent score, which is simultaneously epic, elegiac and witty.
These are the Top 10 Thrillers to this is day and the reason why they had an impact on Thrillers now days:
1. The Third Man (1949)
Dominated by Orson Welles' extended cameo as the charming Harry Lime, believed dead in post-war Vienna but returning to befuddle his old friend Holly Martins (Josepth Cotten), Carol Reed's noir thriller is one of the great British suspense films. Debate constantly rages as to how much of Welles' performance was either written or directed by him - including the famous 'cuckoo clock' monologue - but this speculation is a disservice to Graham Greene's excellent, cynical script. Beautifully capturing the atmosphere of a world where nothing seems to count any more, the film is helped immeasurably by Anton Karas' zither score.
Top thrill: The final chase through the sewers, where Reed, Welles and Greene brutally play with our sympathies.
2. Rear Window (1954)
Had Rear Window been made by a director like Truffaut, it would have ended up being a meditation on voyeurism, the role of the cinema and that of the auteur behind it, and the participation of the audience in the relationship. As it was made by Hitchcock, it is all these things, but also a gripping and exciting thriller revolving around wheelchair-bound photographer LB Jeffries (James Stewart) and his suspicions that his neighbour Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Hitchcock moves from light social comedy to edge-of-seat suspense with alacrity, and is helped by a positively luminous Grace Kelly as Stewart's girlfriend.
Top thrill: Grace Kelly goes searching for clues in Burr's apartment, as Jeffries and the audience watch, helplessly.
3. The Usual Suspects (1995)
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.' With this showy Baudelaire quotation, Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie announced their intentions from the off. Beginning as a fairly standard thriller - the aftermath of a massacre sees the sole survivor, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) interrogated by police - the film slowly acquires mythic dimensions as a legendary crime lord, Keyser Soze, becomes the pivotal figure in flashbacks of a heist planned by a gang of ne'er-do-wells, including Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) and McManus (Stephen Baldwin). Finally, one of cinema's most iconic twists reveals what, precisely, has been going on.
Top thrill: When we finally find out who Keyser Soze is - or do we?
4. The Silence Of The Lambs (1990)
Although repetition in inferior sequels and prequels has somewhat lessened the shock value of Anthony Hopkins' performance as Hannibal Lecter, there's no doubt that Jonathan Demme's tight and disturbing thriller shows the character at his most fiendish. Although Hopkins is only on screen for something like 20 minutes in total, he dominates the film entirely - his 'quid pro quo' scenes with Jodie Foster's tough but vulnerable Clarice Starling are exceptional. But then even the 'other' plot of Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) and the FBI's desperate struggle to stop him is beautifully paced and heart-poundingly executed.
Top thrill: Lecter escapes from his confinement. "Ready when you are, Sergeant Pembry."
5. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
One of the best directorial debuts of all time, Tarantino's supremely confident, supremely stylish hello to Hollywood managed to simultaneously herald a completely distinctive new talent while magpie-ing all the best bits from the thriller gods of yore. A smartly inverted diamond heist plot laced with nods to Mamet, Kubrickian ultra-violence, Scorsese and Losey, to name a few, is combined with a knockout colour-coded ensemble cast including Keitel, Buscemi, Roth and Madsen, all set to a stupidly cool soundtrack and cut at 100mph.
Top thrill: Here the thrills lie in what we don't see, and Tarantino's clever cutting: we don't actually see the heist.
6. Old Boy (2003)
The second in Park Chan-Wook's 'revenge trilogy' has gained the greatest iconic status since its release, due perhaps to the chillingly mysterious plot. Middle-aged salaryman Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-Sik) is mysteriously kidnapped and imprisoned for years, only to be just as unexpectedly released and told he must find his captor in five days, or suffer the consequences. From this, Chan-Wook constructs a plot with all the warped elegance of Jacobean tragedy, building to a horrific and unforgettable finale as his captor's grand plan finally becomes explicit. Apparently it's to be remade, but there seems to be little way of topping the brilliant original.
Top thrill: Oh Dae-Su is confronted with a hallway full of baddies. Never mind, he has a hammer...
7. North by Northwest (1959)
In the midst of Hitchcock's great American film period, beginning with Rear Window and ending with The Birds, North by Northwest stands out as being the most purely entertaining, possibly of all Hitchcock's films. With a suitably ridiculous plot involving advertising executive Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) mistaken for a government agent by spies led by the unctuously sinister Philip Vandamm (James Mason) and embroiled with femme fatale Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), Hitchcock turns the innuendo, iconic set pieces and witty dialogue up to 11.
Top thrill: Thornhill's near-fatal encounter with a crop duster. As remarkable for what doesn't happen as what does.
8. Se7en (1995)
The film that established David Fincher's apparently inseparable relationship with the darker side of human existence, this bleak, bleak film noir sidesteps the cliches it appears to bury itself in (two mismatched cops, one black, one white; the old-timer on the edge of retirement; a brilliant serial killer with a twisted Biblical methodology) with fierce intelligence, manifested both in an unusual density of literary reference and through exceptional performances from a fine cast, with Morgan Freeman's haunted Somerset and Brad Pitt's feisty Mills more than ably matched. Then of course there's that ending.
Top thrill: Either the pulse-pounding foot chase midway or the final revelation of John Doe's grand plan.
9. The Departed (2006)
The film that finally won Scorsese his long overdue Best Director Oscar, as well as Best Film, The Departed is nominally a remake of the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, but with entirely different emphases and twists. Perhaps surprisingly for Scorsese, this tale of a cop posing as a mobster (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a mobster doing the same (Matt Damon) is often as laugh-out-loud funny as it is suspenseful, with great comedic turns by Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin as the police and a wonderfully OTT Jack Nicholson as Costello, the head of the Boston mob.
Top thrill: Damon and DiCaprio finally meet, and the results are unexpected.
10. Fargo (1996)
For many, the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men (2007) is their greatest thriller, but its existential meanderings can't compare for heart and soul to their snowbound murder fable Fargo. Revolving around the failed attempts of inept car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) to have his wife kidnapped and collect her ransom, the Coens neatly balance laughs with high-wire suspense. Best of all is Frances McDormand's marvellously humane performance as the heavily pregnant cop, Marge Gunderson, for whom solving murders is all in a day's work.
Top thrill: Carter Burwell's magnificent score, which is simultaneously epic, elegiac and witty.
Analysis Of Opening Titles In Thrillers
Analysis of the opening titles in Snatch.
Film titles are used in TV and film to present their productions and introduces important members of the creation of the programme or film, such as: cast members, directors, producers, artists etc.
The main things I thought made this opening title stand out were and the Mise En-Scene included in it:
The title which is the most important part of the movie this goes without saying if this wasn't in the film the viewer wouldn't know if they was watching the right movie or not. The MeS included in this is very simple it is just the main object in the movie which is the diamond this is included because it is the object everyone is fighting over.
This is the first character that gets introduced, this tells the viewer that he is the most powerful and the most important. The text that is used is very western style this could connote the genre of the film. the blue background could also connote that he is a good guy. Also the MeS that is included is the suit that he is wearing this could signify wealth.
Film titles are used in TV and film to present their productions and introduces important members of the creation of the programme or film, such as: cast members, directors, producers, artists etc.
We can split film credits into two, there is the ‘Title sequence’ and there is the ‘Opening credits’. Opening credits are nothing but a series of text introducing important members of the production. The title sequence is similar however normally presented with use of visual and sound editing.
The film opening can consist of many credits, such as: Production Company, studio, producer, director, actors, title, music, designers, editors, book influence, and writers.
Not only is the credits just a list of names, it can also hint the genre through its typography, for example, quite sharp and brittle lettering can connote it is a serious film maybe a thriller or horror full of danger. Also with the use of background action it can also show us characters and what they may be like and set the scene by adding location. The editing side of the credits can influence what film may be like and intrigue the audience more to watch further into it, for example a plain slide of text may give expressions that the film is quite dull and not well thought out.
Snatch
I choose Snatch to analysis because it uses the conventions well and sets the scene straight away. an example of the conventions it used were things such as the text type used which was very western which connotes gangs and violence. Also the way they introduced the characters was clever because they passed a special object across to all the important characters. we get the idea that the objected being passed along is important to the storyline.
The main things I thought made this opening title stand out were and the Mise En-Scene included in it:
The Same with Sol, The typography used is very western style themed and black and white this could connote the western style theme. The props used such as the cigarette this could connote a gangsta style theme also which could link to the genre of the film. The typography like the last screen shot is the same western style theme. When they introduce all the rest of the characters they use the same typography, colours and actions this is to show a sense of format.
In between each character they show the audience a bit before to represent what the character is about an example of this would be before they move on to gorgeous George they show you a bit about him such as what is hobbies are and how he acts and what he's got to do with the story line. With gorgeous George he was punching a boxing bag this tells us he is a boxer. In the background there is a caravan this tells us he is also a gypsy.
Monday, 20 October 2014
What makes a thriller thrilling (Analysis Of Green Street Fight Scene)
What
makes a thriller thrilling?
What makes a thriller thrilling? this could be anything but it is all down to the editing. The things the editor will have to think about when editing a movie would mostly be creating tension. Tension is key in Thriller movie. To get a better understand on how editors create tension using different techniques such as mise-en scene i will analysis a scene out of a thriller move and describe what makes a thriller thrilling?
Green Street Fight Scene 1
This is a very violent film which includes good editing to increase the tension. The first time we come across a thrilling part is right at the start this is when the young defenseless man is being surrounded by a gang. The way the camerawork is being used in that section of the scene is clever because they place the camera so it looks like we are part of the gang attacking this attract the viewers feelings because it seems like the viewer is the one doing the damage to the young man when the viewer should be feeling sorry for him. Then we the young mans friend comes in and helps him and it turns into a massive fight the editing becomes quicker this is to create tension and also to create a feel off uncontrollable violence, this works well because it gets the viewer suspended to knowing whats going to happen as the camera work makes it seem like its all over the place. The camera man also focuses on one man this is to point out to the viewer that he is the most important and influential person in the movie and scene. Also what makes a thrilling is the location, the location can set the tone of the scene for example in Green street we know that it is gang related movie which focus on football violence so they put the fight down an alley way this will also connote violence because it is out of the way and no one will see.
Key words for making a thriller thrilling
Heart-pounding Emotional.
involvement (Involving the viewer).
involvement (Involving the viewer).
Tension.
Not knowing what will happen next.
Suspense about what will happen next.
WHAT EXCALTY DOES MAKE A THRILLER?
Thursday, 9 October 2014
Shot numbers for Production
|
Shot number
|
Location
|
Shot description
|
Framing
|
Action
|
Dialogue
|
Actors
|
Props
|
|
1
|
D Block
|
Feet running across floor
|
Low angle close up rule of thirds
|
Being chased
|
None
|
Harry/Pete
|
None
|
|
2
|
D Block
|
More feet across floor chasing
|
Low angle/ close up/ rule of thirds
|
Chasing
|
None
|
Zombie mob
|
None
|
|
3
|
E/D block
|
Door opening / character dashing through/ hand on door
|
Mid-shot
|
Going through door
|
None
|
Harry
|
None
|
|
4
|
F-Block
|
CCTV Camera/ tracking shot
|
High angle/ Long shot
|
Being chased
|
None
|
Harry/ Pete
|
None
|
|
5
|
F-Block
|
Man running into camera
|
Mid-shot
|
Being chased
|
None
|
Pete
|
None
|
|
6
|
F-Block
|
Persons face shows emotion
|
Close up
|
Emotion on face
|
None
|
Pete
|
None
|
|
7
|
F-Block
|
Camera pans
|
Mid-shot
|
Character meet
|
None
|
Harry/ Pete
|
None
|
|
8
|
F-Block
|
Close up or other characters face
|
Close up
|
Gaze into each other
|
None
|
Harry
|
None
|
|
9
|
F-Block
|
Characters talking to each other
|
Long shot
|
Talking
|
Yes
|
Harry/Pete
|
None
|
|
10
|
F-Block
|
Two characters talking
|
Over the shoulder
|
Talking
|
Yes
|
Harry/Pete
|
None
|
|
11
|
F-Block
|
Two characters talking
|
Over the shoulder shot
|
Talking
|
Yes
|
Harry/ Pete
|
None
|
|
12
|
F-Block
|
Characters talking
|
Mid-shot
|
Talking
|
Yes
|
Harry
|
None
|
|
13
|
F-Block
|
Same shot as latter just it pans
|
Mid-shot
|
Talking
|
None
|
Harry
|
None
|
|
14
|
F-Block
|
Zombies
running at harry and pete
|
Long shot
|
Running
|
None
|
Zombie mob
|
Masks and toy guns
|
|
15
|
F-Block
|
Showing emotion on characters face
|
Close up
|
Horrific faces
|
None
|
Zombies
|
Mask
|
|
16
|
F-Block
|
Camera fades into zombie
|
Mid-shot to close-up
|
Going into zombie
|
None
|
Zombie
|
Mask
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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