CONVICTION - thriller analysis (previous TCC work)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8AjkNoC4Hw

what is revealed to the audience?
An innocent man stumbles upon a crime scene where a girl has been shot several times. As he approaches the body another member of the public notices. She panics when she sees the blood on the man's hands and phones the police, certain that she has caught the murderer.
During the opening we see the man writting a letter, explaining this situation and how the accusation has destroyed his life. Once the letter is complete, the man stands and raises a gun to his head. The screen fades to black before we hear the gunshot.

What is conventional?
- the action stems from an average member of the public who is pulled into the path of danger. In this case an innocent bystander being falsely accused of murder.
- low key lighting
- high tempo music
- simplistically animated, white on black titles
- we are immediately introduced to the main character
- the protagonist is male

What is unconventional?
- a voice over is used throughout the openning. The voice is that of the protagonist and it depicts what is being written in the letter/suicide note
- the action switches from colour to back and white when the flashbacks are introduced
- there is no clear antagonist
- the 'thrilling situation' is created by the domestic claustrophobia, instead of a large scale action sequence in the 'outside world'.

How has it inspired me?
This thriller openning has shown me that flashbacks are a very effective tool for starting a narrative in an ambiguous fashion and that although black and white shots are unconventional, they do not hinder the verisimilitude of the piece, nor the professional finnish.
One of the only weaknesses in this thriller is the clarity of the dialogue. This means that I will take extra care of our own voice over is recorded so that it is clear and realistic.

THRILLER ANALYSIS - Till death us do part (previous TCC work)

What is reveled to the audience?
All you see is a young man all alone and then its flash backing back and forth from him being alone to him with a girl. The next part is him going after the girl.

What is conventional?
- more questions are asked than answered
- use of music
- main male lead is introduced
- use of straight cuts

What is unconventional?
- red writing on a black background
- you don't no whether the male lead is an antagonist or a protagonist
- use of all the abstract colours
- heavily animated and flashing

How has it inspired me?
It as made me realise that we will be able to all of our flash backs in the amount of time that we have been given. Also I like the way that it goes slowly into the action and then suddenly gets into. I like the way that they made it really complex and did this through colour changes, sudden straight cuts, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfPjbSH3Y9o

THRILLER ANALYSIS - The Sacrament (previous TCC work)

1. What is revealed to the audience?
A man is seen in a car, with a lot of papers, folder and information surrounding him.
It becomes clear that he is killing off a family, and has figured out the last victim.

2. What is Conventional?
More questions are raised rather than answered.
The male lead's face is not revealed to the audience.
Use of music.

3. What is Unconventional?
The male lead is quite possibly the antagonist instead of the protagonist within the storyline.

4. How has it inspired me?
The slow camera movements, and slow pace of the opening in general. The props are well thought out, but wouldn't stretch a budget or cause any problems.

Location Shots

The pictures above are the are location shots of where we shot 3 short scenes in town. This was at the Atheneum but we shot it so it could have bee around the corner from the house where the other scenes are shot.

These pictures are of Mr.Alison's office and this is where we were thinking of filming the office scene. However, after looking at it closely we decided not to use it as it would have been too difficult to have filmed the shots that we wanted.

These pictures are of the kitchen, study and running up to the house. These were important locations as we wanted to include certain shots and whether these shots would work or not depended on the location.

New Script

After researching for our voice over, we decided that we would get a girl to be the voice over. This is because we didn't want our audience to think that it was our actors thoughts, so stop this confusion we got a girl instead of a boy for our voice over. The girl we got was Zoe Button as she gave it her all and really got into the character and the personality that we needed.
Today we decided the right person that fits the role best for our voice over. We recorded with the previous script which was 'I don't care who this guy is; he knows too much! If this gets out the whole damn Government will go on trail... you have 48 hours... I want him DEAD!!!' Even though the recording we got of this script were brilliant, when we uploaded it and matched it to the action, we found that it was too short (only lasted 8-10 seconds).
Because of this reason we then had to adapt the script to make i longer as we would have liked it to be 23 seconds long. So our new script is:
'(phone rings)
Hello?...
Home affairs office...
no...no you don't understand!
I don't care who this guy is; he knows too much.
If this gets out the whole damn Government will go on trail...
...no...he's too much of a threat to be left alive...
...I'm sick of your excuses...
...you have 48 hours...
...I want him Dead!!!'
Amazingly Zoe actually manged to get it 23 seconds long, so tomorrow we will edit it a bit to make it fit better, but we are all really pleased with what we have got.

Audience Feedback

Although we are no where near finishing our thriller course work, we thought it would be a good idea to ask someone what they thought of our film so far. We told this person what our plans were for the rest of it and asked them to comment on our film with the improvement still in mind. This person that we asked used to actually do Media Studies so they would be able to give constructive points. This is what she wrote:

'I like the match on action with the drawers and eyes. The difference between the black and white bits and the colour bits, it adds emphasis on the differences which is good. I like the amount of post-its on the notice board. Its good mise-en-scene use, suggests he's very intense,the black and white also makes the thriller seem more serious and political. Overall its very good so far.

Bad thing - 1. Continuity to 2nd shot, thew mouse is moving2. Some of the shots seem too long.'

This is very useful to us and we need to consider our audience though out the whole process of it. After we have completely finished our thriller, we are going to get her back to comment on it so we can compare the results she gave us and also to see if we have dealt with her criticisms.

THRILLER ANALYSIS - Reminiscence (Previous Thurston Work)

1. What is revealed to the audience?
In this opening sequence, a girl appears to get up, and get ready for the day ahead several times over. Following this, an argument is seen, where an unknown woman kicks over a plant pot. After the title has flashed up, the girl is seen sitting down in the centre of Bury, with people milling around her whilst she remains motionless.

2. What is conventional?

-The use of music (which I was unable to hear for some reason)

-The opening raises a lot more questions than it answers

-Lighting is fairly dim and naturalistic

3. What is unconventional?

-The use of repetition throughout the opening scene

-The use of a female lead


4. How has it inspired me?
Since this is a film done on a similar scale to the one we are making, it has shown me what is achievable within the time frame and budget etc. we are given