Our Thriller ‘Angel Café’ was inspired by many Thrillers and the key influences that the thriller conventions have on the mise-en-scene of a film. The Third Man was a key aspect in the ‘noir’ style to our film – with the strong shadows and key lighting at some points. Also the wonderful cinematography used by Carol Reed, the director, influenced our tilt shots – such as the tilt shots used on doors and windows, of which is echoed in our film by the tilted window shot and also other tilt shots used. The tilts shots are used in The Third Man to connote mystery and to represent Harry Lime as the enigmatic figure as he does not enter the film until half-way through it.
The enclosed space of the café and the freezer where the female character is locked in is very similar to the enclosed and claustrophobic spaces such as the toilet scene in 'Witness' where the young boy witnesses the murder. The dim, chiroscuro lighting was something that we tried to show and use in our own film. With the lighting only being from inside the café, it is ambient lighting, just like in Witness.
Other uses of claustrophobic spaces include:
Other uses of claustrophobic spaces include:
- The shooting of Beaumont Livingston in Jackie Brown where Beaumont is forced into the boot of a car and driven to his death - like the journey of life ending, the last journey. Again here, the strong key lighting is used to add mystery to the situation, but also focus on the victim character.
- The Bride in Kill Bill Vol. 2 when Bud forces her into a coffin and buries her alive underground and she has to force her way out. This is a very key reference to our film because she is a Femme Fatale, much like the girl in our film and they are both fighting against male dominance.
- The scene in Essex Boys where Jason kidnaps the man from the fish market, throws acid on his face and throws him into the back of his van is used to show Jason's dominance and also lack of morality, but the enclosed space is used to show that the man has no escape, much like the girl being trapped in the freezer in our Thriller.
- The shower scene in Psycho when Marion Crane is attacked is a key reference also because she is a Femme Fatale that is killed, much like Eve is Once Upon a Time in America. The shower is very much like the freezer we used in our own film. We also used black-and-white which is to reference the classic Thrillers, much like Hitchcock's intention was with Psycho.
- The shot of Darcie in the freezer is to reflect all of these claustrophobic spaces and show her to be the Femme Fatale. It is filmed with a tilt to connote mystery about the shot because the audience now knows that the man has locked her in and that he is following her, but they don't know why or what's going to happen next.
The costume for our Thriller was inspired by the costume in Carol Reed's 'The Third Man'. The sleek black coat and wide rimmed hat, which is typical of the 1940s Thriller, was a key influence in the costume of our own thriller. We thought that it creates an enigma due to the man being able to hide himself under his clothes - making the audience not know who he is - remaining enigmatic.
This outside tilt shot of Adrian in the cafe is a reference to when Holly Martins is in the cafe in the Third Man - used to connote mystery. However, ours is used to show mystery about the man himself, Holly's mystery is about Harry Lime. The 'Night Safe' poster in the left corner of the shot was an accidental addition to the shot, but we thought that it added much more depth and a sense of irony to the shot because he is the person that is making the night not safe and the shot was filmed nearing night.
Also the tilt shot of when Adrian locks the door is used to show the mystery behind the character. It also creates an enigma around Adrian because the audience does not know his intent or why he is locking it. The tilt also suggest danger and the danger is inflicted towards Darcie because Adrian is the person in the tilt shot - bolting the door.
The Femme Fatale in our film is presented when she steals money from the till. This is reference to the crime of Marion Crane in Psycho when she steals money for herself. However, we know that the result of Marion doing this is that she is killed in her own shower and the freezer in our Thriller is very much like a shower - so it shows the audience who know the Thriller genre that these two films could have very similar story lines and that the two Femme Fatales may 'end' up in the same way - dead.
Also the use of the Femme Fatale challenges many stereotypes of females - showing that they can be main characters, interesting and also deviant, something that the Thriller genre tends to show a lot.
Another Femme Fatale that is a key reference to our film is Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She is a powerful woman who gets raped by a man and therefore has to overcome that. Although the girl, Darcie, in our film isn't as strong as Lisbeth, she definitely has aspects of the Femme Fatale which show her to be very similar. 
Another Femme Fatale is Eve from Once Upon a time in America. She goes from looking like a classic Femme Fatale in the chiaroscuro lighting of the lamp with her pearls and costume, then is killed and lies dead on the bed - no longer a threat or a 'Femme Fatale' to the men that killed her. 
However, the opposite is true with the girl in our film. Her initial costume of a waitress connotes responsibility and slight power because she working at the establishment. She is seemingly harmless at the start, but as soon as she puts on her leopard print coat, things change. It would seem to the audience that the coat itself makes Darcie more animalistic and just like an animal she is having to fend for herself and get money from where-ever she can - adding more depth to her character and therefore showing the she is a Femme Fatale.
Sound is used in our Thriller to firstly work with the ambient sound as we put a piano (http://www.freesound.org/people/imaginaryband/sounds/79418/) in the background, it is quite unnerving, but it works well with the situation of the film so far. Just like in Psycho, the music changes as the action of the film happens. As Adrian bolts the door and Darcie steals the money, the music starts to change (http://www.freesound.org/people/ERH/sounds/30306/) adding more suspense to the film and telling the audience aurally that there is something about to happen in the film - just like the use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound in the shower murder scene in Psycho.
The title of our film is 'Angel Café'. We chose the name because the name of the first cafe we filmed in was called the Angel Café and we thought that it worked well because of the ironic nature of the name. The girl isn't an 'Angel' by any means because she steals the money and she also has a stalker, so she may have done something to warrant being stalked. Also if the name of the café was the Angel Café then it would be even more ironic that something as demonic and evil as stalking and the voyeuristic nature of the man is very un-Angelic. The font for our title was influenced mainly by the bold serif font of 'The Third Man'. Using a similar font could be seen as a tribute to the classic 1940s Thrillers as well as the use of black-and-white to tribute it also. I also liked the sleekness and elegance that the font has kind of complimenting the elegance in the costume of the characters although the action is not so elegant.
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