To be able to do this task I had to find 4 thrillers, as my family and I are not a fan of thrillers, I went to the library to find a definition of what made a thriller a thiriller and this is what i came up with. Thriller: 1) A book, play or film that has an exciting plot involving crime, mystery or espionage. 2) Somebody or something that thrills people. I also found out that they couldn't involve the supernatural, paranormal or si-fy (things that are not human). To get the 4 thrillers I went to Blockbuster and asked them to choose 4 thrillers to rent so that i could watch the first 5 minuits and write about it here on my blog.
1) Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Camera Work
Ø Close ups of the old mans face, this is to show his emotions to the audience.
Ø Close up of action of opening the package, this is to egsagerate the process.
Ø Establishing shots of the object in the package, to make the audience wonder what the object would play in the story.
Ø When the man opened the package they were P.O.V shots at a high angle to show us the audience what he was seeing as he was opening the package, other times they cut to and shot at eye level.
Ø Not fast actions, slow actions, this shows percisness of the opeing of the package.
Editing
Ø Fade between man and girl, this shows that they are connected.
Ø Cuts between the differnt shots of him opening the package, this could be used to create suspence because they are prolonging the opeinging of the package making people want to know what is inside.
Ø Sound bridge to show connection.
Sound
Ø There was a sound bridge between the older man and a woman, this shows that they are connected in some way and the rest of the film is about the relation between these two characters.
Ø There was suspence music which indicated to us as that there is something not right epecialy with the package.
Ø The above point was non diagetic witch means that the sound doesnt match the action that is going on in the film (music not sound effects).
Mise en Scene
Ø The man is waring gloves witch shows that he is being careful with the package and that there is something important in there that needs to be carefuly handled.
Ø The knife that is used to open the package, this is clean which also shows neatness of the opening of the package.
Ø Not a modern home, looks like he has lived there for most of his life, i cant imagin him with artifacts and old delicate things.
Ø Books, this shows knowlege.
2) Eagle Eye
Camera Work
Ø Many close ups are used at the begining of this film, this helps us establish the characters.
Ø Shallow depth of feild is used, this is because what is on the computer screen and the people behind him is not important to this part of the film.
Ø A long shot is used to show a group of what looks like important men, the most important man is at the front, i knew he was important because he is the one the phone to the men in the control room.
Editing
Ø Cuts between the man on the phone in the long shot and the man on the phone, this shows connection and shows the audience who he is on the phone too.
Ø Cuts between the different men in the control room, this is to egsagerate and show the amont of people on the case and involved.
Ø There were some shots that were made to look like they were through benocuares and another shot was made to look like it was through a camera.
Ø In this film i thought it was cleaver that they had a shot and then edited it to look like they took a picture of it and went into their computer system.
Sound
Ø I noticed lots of diagetic sounds such as cars driving, camera noises when they were trying to zoom and computer sounds when they were putting things into the system.
Ø Non diagetic sounds were played throughout, such as suspence music.
Mise en Scene
Ø Computers to make the room look like a control room, they made it seem it was a secret HQ.
Ø Military uniform, this shows us that this is important and something bad is going to happen.
Ø Cars, these seem out of place because it is in a desert and there arnt any other cars around. This tells us something is going to happen.
Ø Shows poor people, and what people ware in the area, it seems like its in a muslim society.
3) The Happening
Camera Work
Ø Clouds and different shots of differnt types and colours of clouds.
Ø Long shot of location, and establishing shot to show the audience where everything starts taking place.
Ø Long shot of two women on a bench and zooms in on them, this show something is going to happen between the two characters.
Ø When the woman takes her hair pin out of her hair, there is a close up of this action and follows the following actions of her hand.
Editing
Ø As clouds pass along the screen they pass quickly showing passing time, the clouds also change colour showing us that something is going to go wrong and dark.
Sound
Ø Non diagetic, music that mirrors the movement and colours of the coulds, the clouds start off bright and the sky blue, this is when the music is calm, as the clouds get greyer and sky gets darker, the music becomes more angery and faster.
Ø Diagetic, lots of noises of the wind, taxi, people talking around and dog sounds.
Mise en Scene
Ø Two normal average women talking on a bench with people doing activities in the park such as walking their dogs, jogging and walking someplace.
Ø Close up of dogs, especialy when people start going mad and dying, this shows they didnt get effected by what was happening to the people.
Ø I ended at a building site where people start throwing themselves off the scafolding.
4) Lakeview Terrace
Camera Work
Ø Establishing shot of the neighbourhood, then it would cut then another shot but in a closer shot. This keeps happening slowly untill close up inside bedroom with man on bed.
Ø Close up of family members dad, son and daughter having a disagreement, this shows how each person is feeling about the sistuation.
Ø Tracking of daughter and son walking to go to school talking about the fude and come accross the new neighbours.
Ø P.O.V shot of the father looking at the new neighbours, there seems to be alot of shots of the new neighbours but there is no resons why yet. This shows is a thriller because it is making the audience wonder why they are so significant to this part of the film.
Editing
Ø Once an establishing had taken place, there were short blank screen between each shot.
Ø Shots of the family put together establishing the family and their relationship.
Sound
Ø Digetic sounds such as music from daughters room, TV and the weather, general noices made while eating breakfast and the ipod when the daughter took them out of her ear.
Ø Non diagetic when the childeren leave for school and he is alone doing the chores, music is played that I would concider as sad, lonely music.
Mise en Scene
Ø Exspencive looking house, and when shot in his house in his bedroom his bed and bedding looks extravigantly exspencive.
Ø Picture of wife/girlfriend/him and a woman lying down, he puts it up looks at it and then gets up. This could be his wife that has dyed and he is a single father.
Ø The family who drives past the children in an exspencive car, which implys that they are rich so they must live in a wealthy area.
