Woman In Black review

The opening sequence of the women in black was presentedwith monotone colours. Greys, whites and blacks were used to creature a mysteriousand dream like atmosphere so you question the realism of the story/plot. Thedarker colours also represent gloom, which could link to mystery and somethinghidden, in the case, very early on symbolising the woman in black.

Compared to a romantic comedy film which would often openwith red’s and pink, stereotypical ‘love’ colours highlighting passion or evenjust bright colours like yellows and greens, suggesting natural emotions. The china dolls are a motif which symbolise the supernatural genre of film which continues. The dolls are significant as the film is based around children and the supernatural element makes the dolls seem scary and therefor influence the fear. Straight away at the opening of the film tension is built as we watch 3 ghost like girls jump out of their bedroom window together. As an audience this makes us want to find out what has happened for them to do this as they seemed very fictional. The effects used of the fading tradition make the opening seem very dream like which again signifies perhaps a dream and an element of mystery.

Lauren Baxter and Lauren Gibbens  

Our new ideas

For the beginning of our thriller we are going to create our production company credits, we have decided to create this by writing the production company title 'JLJL productions' on a piece of paper. We are then going to rip the paper up.
When we go onto editing this we will speed it up and then reverse it at the end of the ripping to create added effect.
As a group we have come up with a few alternative ideas which we had brainstormed down onto paper however we all decided this idea would be the most suitable and effective. We are hoping that the timing for this will take no longer than 25-30 seconds.

Lauren Baxter

Script

Script
Jae – (knocking on the door) It's Ann again Lauren, is it okay for me to come in now? (Walk into the room)
Lauren - (sitting on the floor, not wanting to talk)
Jae – Lauren what is this? (Picking up the photo's in shock)
Lauren – (not looking at Jae/opposite direction)
Jae – Lauren what have you done?


Our thriller consisted of minimal speaking, we thought this would give a greater effect to the thriller.
 
Jae, Lauren Baxter, Lauren Gibbens

Change of Plot

On the 20/03/12 we decided to change our plot as we realised that our last idea wasn't achievable because of the casting we needed. It was a lot easier to base our plot around an older main character, a female around 17 years old, than rely on a young girl who may not be 100% reliable when it came to filming. We have changed the genre of our film from psychological to supernatural which is easier to do as 'the thing' doesn't have to be seen and there's an element of unreal or the audience is able to decide what they believe 'the thing' is rather than create a specific thriller image. Our new idea is coming together nicely, and hopefully we will be able to start filming sooner now because of our character change and progress with our project.

Lauren Gibbens

Final Cut Express

To edit our work video clips we have been using software on the Mac computers called Final Cut Express. It is the consumer version of Final Cut Pro and is designed for advanced editing of digital video as well as high-definition video, which is used by many amateur and professional videographers. Obviously being amateur videographers we have being using online help to enable us to get full use of the software. The Apple website is the main source of the information that we need, but there are many YouTube and miscellaneous webpage’s that we have been using. Final Cut Express has many different key tools that we need to edit our thriller to the best of our ability, these include:

§  Dynamic RT, which changes real-time settings on-the-fly

§  Motion path keyframing

§  Opacity keyframing

§  Ripple, roll, slip, slide and blade edits

§  Picture-in-picture and split-screen effects

§  Up to 99 video tracks and 12 compositing modes

§  Up to 99 audio tracks

§  Motion project import

§  Two-way colour correction.

§  Chroma key

This particular video has been extremely helpful to us during the making of our preliminary task and editing our overall piece of work:

No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men is a thriller by the Coen Brothers starring Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and Kelly Macdonald to name but a few and is a story of an ordinary man to who

chance delivers a fortune that is not for him. In the opening ten minutes of the film many people die which makes the audience want to continuing to watch the film in anticipation of who is murdering the people. The film is set in an isolated place, almost a desert scenery which is common in thriller films, giving an ‘out of the ordinary’ and scary feel to the setting.  The murder is a sinister and ominous man; he gives nothing away as to what he is thinking or reasons why he killing the people he does. The sounds at the beginning of the film are non-diegetic giving the sense that the sheriff is speaking directly to us, the audience.  

CLAMPS (costumer, lighting, action/actors, make-up, propps, setting) of Anton Chigurh the villain No Country for Old Men:

Costume – dark black clothes, this gives nothing away about his character. Shows no emotion through his clothes, the colour may reflect his mood and mind, maybe evil. Black often represents the villain, dark and portentous.

Lighting – nothing is given away about him, he is a neutral character that has no emotion. He has no extra light to the natural light; he has a large shadow a lot of the time due the high sun. This may represent his dark nature.

Action/Actor - Only the villain is shown in the first sequences to the thriller. He creates the action by killing people, but the action isn’t of a high impact, it seems mellow.

Make- Up – His face is extremely pale and his eyes are dark, this is a common characteristic of the villain.

Propps – the villain uses that looks like an oxygen tank to kill his victims. It seems to be an innocent object but when we see what it is used for it is obvious that its used for a lot more.

Setting – An isolated desert area, it is obvious to the audience that if something bad happens it is going to take a long time for anyone to realise anything dreadful has happened. 

Jae Bennett

North by Northwest

North by Northwest is an Alfred Hitchcock thriller starring Carrie Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The film is a tale of mistaken identity of an innocent man, (Carrie Grant), is chased across the United States by agents of an organisation who want to stop him interfering with their plans . North by Northwest is an action thriller that is face paced and exciting, with an array of cliff hangers and not just metaphorical ones! 


This scene is well known for its brilliant use of tension and suspense. It is viewed as the best sequence in the film.The scene begins with a high angled, extreme wide shot, setting the scene. This tells the viewer where the action is taking place.

Jae