Spooks (Focused on crime to help with ideas)

*Often use hand held cameras and lots of quick cut close up shots
*Close ups on photographs and characters faces
*Shadows

Props
*Mostly dressed in black
*Speak to each other through ear pieces
*CCTV
*Brief cases

*Suits
*Mobile phones
*Listening devices
*Cable ties to tie hands
*Masks




All these aspects fit with the plot and help the audience to understand the genre of the programme.

*Font dissolves in and out
simple but effective


*Fast unsteady zoom ins on important information   again hand held



*Blue is the prominent colour
*Computers computer software holding important information
*Panning shots of buildings and cities

Interesting lighting. Blue being the prominent colour. The lights create a ring around the person being captured, making the audience focus on the character in the middle. The lights are bright although a lot of shadow is still created.

Sound
Silence or fast paced music when someone is trying to get somewhere drums.  

The collector (film) Genre:Thriller,crime,horror

The Collector Film Trailer       Theatrical Trailer:

Introduced to the house, grand house, big, no neighbours, isolated, child's bike outside. A birds eye view of a car driving into a wooded are again shows the isolation.We're shown it in the dark as opposed to the daylight. The fact that we are shown the house in the evening when it is dark tells the audience this is a horror film. The house is secluded so the audience already know its going to be hard for them to get help if they are in trouble. The child's bike outside demonstrates a sense of innocence and the audience immediately feel sorry for the family as they have a small child who is going to get caught up in horrific events.
The next shot is a close up shot of someone picking the lock so the audience are aware someone is trying to enter the house who is not welcome there and the audience then assume that the person trying to break in is the enemy.
*We're introduced to one of the main characters in the next shots. We see him trying to unlock a hidden safe so the audience now know he is the thief and we think badly of him.
*The audience see the reaction on the thief's face when he hears someone being tortured the audience feel involved in the film because of the fact that they hear the noise at the same time the main character reacts to it, and they understand his reaction.

*The subtitles within the film introduce the audience to the characters. The subtitle "but someone worse got there first" followed by the image of another person in the house who is masked and shown mostly in shadow, tells the audience that the thief is now not considered the villain in the film and the thief is now in danger.


*Torch light is used within the trailer. This makes the audience feel tense as they cannot see everything in the scene, only what is being lit up by the torch.
*Quick cut editing is shown when the audience see fast paced images of blood and people being tortured, these images involve great use of shadows.
*The later subtitles tell the audience that this film was created by the writers of saw, so the audience immediately have expectations of what the film will be like, and these expectations are are fulfilled within the film, but not quite to the extent of the 'Saw' films.
*Towards the end of the film, the editing becomes even more fast paced as the audience are introduced to more characters, and the methods used to kill the characters. The lighting in this section of the trailer is very low key and blue is a prominent colour. The images are also more frequently interrupted by one or two word title slides.
*At the very end of the trailer we are told the name of the film, and shown one last image of the killer.

*The title slides have a black background and the writing appears as the torchlight gets brighter, this helps the audience understand that this is a horror film as it fits with the codes and conventions of shadows.
*The movie website link is also shown at the very end of the trailer.
*The images in the trailer are fade in and out to a black screen.
*Sound The beginning of the trailer features mainly diegetic sound, that is emphasised and drums are added in and irregular pattern to create more tension and suspense
*The noise that comes from the sound of weapons such as a knife is used, even when the audience cannot see an image of the weapon.
*The bang of a drum is used as the title slides appear.
*A fast paced non-diegetic sound of a guitar is used to create tension and action
*The drum beat gets faster as the trailer progresses.
*The sound in parallel, as the pace of the sounds complements the speed at which the images move.






*During the film opening the main colours shown are red orange yellow and green, these colours create an intriguing atmosphere to the film as they are not usually the colours featured in films.
*Spiders are shown because many people have a great fear of spiders, but within the film the villain rescues and releases a spider rather than killing it which the audience expect him to do so the audiences expectations are subverted in this sense.
*There are images of someone suspiciously moving boxes which is immediately intriguing for the audience. The images are either close up so it doesn't show the whole image so the action is left up to the audiences imagination, which can be far more scary and powerful than images that are put in front of the audience. Or the image is blurred and out of focus so the audience cannot see any details, once again their imagination has to be used to create the image they want to see.
*The conventions of shadows, mirrors, flashbacks and tense music are features


Ideas that can help with our trailer
*During the film, sounds are often heard before images of where the sound in coming from can be seen.
*Traps are set up all around the house so the audience know there are no means of escape.
*A blue tint is used inside the house, this make the house appear col and unwelcoming, adding to the tone of the film.
*A green and yellow tint is used inside the basement, the colour tints used in the basement are on the same side of the colour wheel, where as the colours shown elsewhere in the film are complementary colours, this helps create a sense of balance within the film.
*The hostages are kept in a chair and a bath, both household objects.
*Tied up with handcuffs and chains.
*Villain is dressed in black, common feature in horror movies, and is wearing a mask which is a code and convention of the horror/slasher genre.
*Woman held hostage in the bath is blonde, and wearing a pink silk nightdress, appears very feminine.
*The thief is hung up by fish hooks, this helps the audience relate to the fact that this film was written by the 'Saw' writers, as this is something you would expect to see in a 'Saw' film.
*A promiscuous teenager often shown in horror film and are always seen to be naive
*A small blonde girl, appears innocent, hides from the villain, doesn't get hurt
*Twist ending
*Features stone walls and a cellar
*Low key lighting and quick cuts

"Here's Johnny!" - The Shining

One thing I noticed whilst watching The Shining is the recurring use of long shots. The audience is almost made to act as a bystander or observer by being distanced from the action; as seen in the still frame above. This use of camerawork also creates intrigue and adds to the "Pandora's box" narrative idea when Danny is told to "stay away from room 237". The long shots mean we cannot see a lot of the action and we are out on edge by our vision being obscured. This plays on our innate curiosity.
The very slow editing in some parts adds to this.

 The camera often focuses on Jack Nicholson's character Jack Torrance to highlight his descent into paranoia and madness. He converses with other characters (or himself) but the camera remains on him for a long time which becomes very unnerving for the audience. We want to see the other character's reactions but are not allowed to, putting us on edge; as do the very slow zoom ins though out.
Whilst the idea of simply holding one shot for a prolonged length of time is very simple and effective I'm not sure it will work for our teaser trailer. We shall have to experiment.


Sound

The opening scene of the film shows how effective sound can be. Without any sound we are merely shown an idyllic scene. However the use of contrapuntal sound completely changes the whole interpretation of the setting. This clashing and contrapuntal sound is used throughout to continue to distort pour understanding of events.
However this idea progresses when the non-diegetic sound changes from being music to simply noise (high pitched squealing sound) which puts the audience on edge even more as you want to sound to stop but are forced to continue watching.


Mise en Scene
The idea of opposing elements is continued. Scenes are deliberately created to clash and be in juxtaposition to each other. i.e. a man we believe to be psychotic dressed in a tailored suit at a party, a glamorously dressed woman with a blood stained hand print on her dress and a river of blood pouring though a stylish

This works particularly well for a psychological thriller as it echos the complications and confusion in the mind.

Thriller Genre

These are some of our notes from the presentation we created on the thriller genre


Codes and conventions

• Mirrors are used as a means to reflect and see into one's soul and inner self
• As are photographs (particularly in black and white) (The Shining)
• Low key lighting (or very bright, stark lighting) both act to create a sense of paranormal (Inception)
• Obtrusive editing, either very quick or very slow to create tension and progression or great unease (The Shining)
• Flashbacks to add to the narrative of the character's past and the distortion of time (Saw)
• specific to psychological thrillers is the idea of two or more characters preying on one an other's minds.
• One key example of this is in The Shining with the main male character and the waiter.

Ideas such as lighting, editing, mirrors etc. we will be able to use in our trailer, however because this is a trailer and not a small section of the film ideas such as flashbacks may not be portrayed as effectively as they could be, giving the restraints of the trailer conventions.


By watching and deconstructing various films such as "The Shining" and "Silence of the Lambs" we are able to see how these ideas translate into film and how they aid the narrative and reading of the piece. These deconstructions will appear throughout our blog.