Monday 26 March 2012
Sunday 25 March 2012
Question 1: Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
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.
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.
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.
Question 6: Evaluation
What have you learn about new technologies from the process of constructing this product?
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzQRgvDU668
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VGanq-ReE0
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9mNW8IKVY8
Although, just like YouTube, I had encountered and used IMDb before using it on this course to find information, it never failed to give me detailed information about films and recommend different films - proving useful to find films similar to ours. Working with a digital camera proved difficult at some points due to the tripod getting in the way of the shot or the getting camera shake due to the using the camera handheld.
The biggest problem with our filming was our first attempt. Some of the tilt shots were too much titled. The handheld shots were very shaky and the small surroundings proved near to impossible to worth with.
The main problem was lighting and that we didn't have enough of it. With the lights out the darkness meant that near to nothing was visible in the shots - rendering them useless.
(raw footage)
When we did our next shoot we made sure to use a tripod more often and we also used a reflector and a better torch to bounce some light back onto the subjects when working in dark conditions.
The editing software we used was Adobe Premiere elements, which is just like any other generic editing software so I came to grips with it pretty quickly. We changed the volume of the ambient sound so that it was the same volume throughout because we had to film twice - therefore the sound was different each time.
Making titles was easy as I am competent in Photoshop so I was able to make the title look like it had a halo around the 'A' and also made the animation of Lunar Films. The hardest part about titles is where to place them. The initial titles at the start of the film were placed so that the appeared with the sound of the piano - making the visual and aural aspects of the film happen in sync with each other.
We used effects in our film to transition across to new shots or titles. We used 'dip-to-black' in 'Effects' section to fade the titles into each other and also when Darcie takes the money from the till - creating short snaps of clip to shock the audience.
We also used cross dissolve to dissolve to clips across each other and therefore connect them, such as when the clip of Darcie taking the money from the till dissolves into Adrian watching her - showing the audience that he saw her do it.
Question 7: Evaluation
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
The preliminary task taught me about the 180 degree rule and that as a film marker you must not go over the imaginary line of 180 degrees around a subject or the audience will get confused. However, some film makers use it to confuse the audience on purpose.
Match-on-action was also something I was taught in the preliminary task - that each shot has to follow on to the next shot in chronological order, meaning it makes sense for the audience.
I also learnt the importance of shot-reverse-shot, shown by this scene in pulp fiction. It is used to create a relationship and connection with two characters - used in our film when Darcie walks over to Adrian to take his coffee mug.
Our first attempt at filming our Thriller opening proved more difficult that we first thought. We has badly planned what we were going to do so we spent a lot of our time trying to think of the best way to do the shots.
The location also proved very difficult to use because it was very small and also the lady who owned the café couldn't let us use it for long - so we were very rushed for time.
We also had a continuity error in that the man who played 'Adrian' took his hat off halfway through the shoot therefore some of the shots didn't have the hat, but then the end shots did - thus changing the continuity of the film completely.
Due to the café being so small it proved difficult to use a tripod so we just use the camera handheld - which was a big mistake as we got a lot of camera shake and knew we had to use a tripod next time we filmed.
The biggest problem was trying to film the scenes after the girl has turned off the light because there was only one main light in the café, therefore once we turned it off it was pitch black. We tried using a torch and the light on the camera but the footage was unreadable and film failed so we had to re-film.
We went over our idea again and made more detailed storyboards (here) and a final shot-list (here). We made sure to use these on our actual shoot after fully checking the café we were going to use the second time - location shots (here).
We used the costume to relate to The Third Man by Adrian Doyle's costume as a tribute to the 'Noir Thrillers' of the 1940s. However, we planned Darcie's costume to be classic, but modern at the same time so that the target audience could relate to her.
Our narrative sequence is generic to the Thriller genre because of the aspects of the mise-en-scene we incorporated. The use of tilt shots connote mystery and confusion because the audience don't quite know what's going on because they are unable to tell good from evil - a Thriller convention, just like in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the audience cannot tell if Lisbeth is good or bad in some parts. We also used many close-up shots to give direct contact with key aspects of the mise-en-scene and also show the audience exactly what they should be focussing on. Also close-ups are a key Thriller convention.
The halo around the 'A' in 'Angel Café' reinforces the idea of irony,
thus making the audience think outside the box and work out the
meaning behind the title for themselves without too many blatant clues. 
We decided to put the titles for the actor names like this because it is bold and also interesting. The audience will have to tilt their heads slightly to see the first name of the actor, then straighten back up to see the surname. This is used as a metaphor for the tilt shots in the film and that it will be confusing at first, but once the audience understands the narrative they are able to think more clearly and think for themselves. At times editing proved difficult when the shots move where you don't want them to be or the sound didn't quite fit with the shot you were trying to work with. It was a learning curve for all of us and we managed to help each other out and get what we wanted in the end.
The main problem with editing was when all of our files corrupted, meaning that we had to start again and the files had to be re-converted. We think this was because we used Emily's digital camera and not a camera from the school, so the file type was different.
The final problem was changing all of the heights of the shots to 75% of the original height, because we shot in widescreen on Emily's camera it meant that on a square screen our shots looked very vertically stretched and by reducing that the shots looked much better.
Overall, I think that we worked well together, but our planning wasn't so great. The key to filming a great product is planning all the time, however we know shots are bound to change on-shoot, but planning in advance is always useful and I think that is definitely where we lacked. I feel my strengths in this process lied in editing, ideas and camera work. However, my weak points were planning and making sure I know exactly what I'm doing before we go to shoot the film so then the shoot can run smoothly - if we did so I think we might only had needed to shoot once or maybe twice at the most, lighting and shooting with the right equipment also were a weak point - using a tripod more often would have helped a lot. I am overall very pleased with the finished product and think that it works well as a final edit and also the narrative works well - and still stand by the decision to put the film into black-and-white because not many contemporary films are in black-and-white and therefore it would definitely give our film an edge over other films.
The Third Man (1949) - Analysis
The Third Man was directed by Carol Reed in 1949 and is considered to be the original 'Noir' Thriller of which many, if not most, of the contemporary Thrillers are based off of. The music used in the film is called 'Harry Lime' which is also the name of the main character, who isn't actually introduced until halfway through the film.
The location of the film is Vienna and usually it is thought to be a very glamorous and beautiful city, but in this film it is shown to be unglamorous, dirty and the centre of a black-market. This is because we are presented with post-war Vienna. The use of dead bodies and a broken society makes it seems more real to the audience and also adds a shock aspect.
Carol Reed's cinematography is beautifully presented in this film through the mise-en-scene. The main use is camera angles because many tilt shots are used in this film. Titl shots are used to connote mystery and danger. The tilt shot of the doorway with the cat in between Harry Lime's legs is used to scare the audience because Harry Lime is believed to be dead. It also adds a real element to the film because Holly Martins is finding out Harry Lime is still alive just as the audience are. However, the tilt shot is mainly used to connote confusion because the audience and characters are confused about the situation of Harry Lime.
Planning: Costume
Target Audience
The primary audience for our media product will be people aged 16-25. This is because they can relate to the main character the most and therefore are able to put themselves in her situation.
It is also due to the collective fear of being stalked and this is what makes the Thriller genre so popular because it deals with real fears and emotions.
In the digital age we live in people are constantly worrying about who is looking at their information online as 'hacking', stalking and grooming is all too common over chatrooms or websites such as Facebook.
Although the 'Noir-Thriller' is usually a very adult genre, our film 'Angel Cafe' would appeal to a younger audience as well as the adult audience due to the nature of the narrative and characters - being quite easy to follow, but subconciously knowing that there's something evil about Adrian and fearing for the life of Darcie.
Similar films to ours would be Animal Kingdom and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and would show up as a 'recommended film' on websites such as IMDb and Amazon.
Our audience would also shop in modern places like H&M and TOPSHOP and use websites such as Facebook and Twitter - thus the exposure to the internet causes the fear of stalking.
It is also due to the collective fear of being stalked and this is what makes the Thriller genre so popular because it deals with real fears and emotions.
In the digital age we live in people are constantly worrying about who is looking at their information online as 'hacking', stalking and grooming is all too common over chatrooms or websites such as Facebook.
Although the 'Noir-Thriller' is usually a very adult genre, our film 'Angel Cafe' would appeal to a younger audience as well as the adult audience due to the nature of the narrative and characters - being quite easy to follow, but subconciously knowing that there's something evil about Adrian and fearing for the life of Darcie.
Similar films to ours would be Animal Kingdom and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and would show up as a 'recommended film' on websites such as IMDb and Amazon.
Our audience would also shop in modern places like H&M and TOPSHOP and use websites such as Facebook and Twitter - thus the exposure to the internet causes the fear of stalking.
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