Analysis of The Sixth Sense, The Village and Lady in the Water by M. Night. Shyamalan

During a lesson at school, we analysed the opening of three thriller films by M. Night. Shyamalan as a class. We carried out this task in order to see what real thriller openings look like in comparison to the work we had produced. We also wanted to see what they all had in common and what the general codes and conventions were of these three openings to see if our thriller openings followed the same conventions. By doing this, we would get a general idea of what we needed to improve, change, include and not include in our thriller openings and also this would give us an idea of how professional our final thriller openings look in comparison. These included The Sixth Sense, The Village and Lady in the Water.

The Sixth Sense, The Village and Lady in the Water are all very different films in terms of narrative, however they are all very similar in the way in which they use the same conventions such as quiet music which builds up, includes a shot that is held for a long time at the beginning and slow paced titles all of which contribute to building up tension, creating suspense and as a result keeping the audience engaged and interested.

The Sixth Sense

• Quite ambient sound
• Slow paced editing
• The quiet music builds up, gradually getting louder and faster
• Background music – spooky, innocent, sinister, scary – creating suspence
• Sound introduced before images – creates impact
• Slow paced fading titles
• Titles - white font against dark black background
• Engaging music leads the sequence
• Long held first shot – helps the audience to identify the main character and engage with them
• Very few shots used – mostly titles – doesn’t give to much of the plot away
• Titles – transitions- fade in and out

The Village

• Creepy/high pitch music - goes into loud banging sounds
• Suspenseful background music
• Sound introduced before images – creates impact
• Flashes of trees bleeding through background
• Title - white font against dark background – appear through trees
• Music gets louder/faster towards the middle of the opening (builds to a climax) – this slows down towards the end – more quite before film opening starts
• Music pace quickens, titles shorter
• Slow paced editing
• Long held first shot – helps the audience to identify the main character and engage with them - low shot establishes character
• P.O.V shot of man and coffin – zooming in and out
• Very few shots used – mostly titles – doesn’t give to much of the plot away

Lady in the Water

• Quite music – creates suspense
• Titles - white titles over dark black background
• Black and white animation - contrasting - similar to titles
• Voice over – keeps the audience engaged/informed – tells story
• Long held first shot – helps the audience to identify the main character and engage with them
• Black background screen held – screaming introduced
• Cuts to next scene – close up of man’s face introduced – camera is in cupboard
• Mid shot shows family – introduces them as charecters
• Very few shots used – mostly titles – doesn’t give to much of the plot away
• Pace of music starts of slow - increases after the main title -therefore is very effective

From analysing these three thriller film openings, The Sixth Sense, The Village and Lady in the Water by M. Night. Shyamalan, I have learnt that they all include the following:

• Quite music – creates suspense - gradually builds up in pace and volume - common to the thriller genre
• Sound before action – creates suspense – builds impact
• White titles over dark black background
• Long held first shot – helps the audience to identify the main character and engage with them
• Very few shots used – mostly titles – doesn’t give to much of the plot away
• Pace of music starts of slow - increases after the main title - therefore is very effective
• Main focus on one particular character in beginning of opening- this character has the longest amount screen time

In conclusion this activity has made our group reconsider some of our choices on sound and shots in our opening. As a group we believe that we can make some huge improvements to our work, e.g. by changing our background sound as it is too much and very in your face rather than following the common conventions of quiet ambience sound that gradually builds up. As well as this, also from analysing these three thriller openings it has become clear to the group that our opening is deficient in slow pace music in order to build up suspense, consists of to many shots, giving to much of the plot away and finally isn’t creating as an effective amount of suspense as it could do with a few changes.

Improvements Discussed By The Group

Improvements we discussed as a group:
- Production Company with a very quiet sound of running water in the background
- Move titles to the beginning
- Remove music - maybe introduce it at the character
- Increase the length of the shot of the eye or move the shot
- Titles after Jonny washes his hands?
- Replace music with an ambiguous music
- Creshendo music at the end
- More focus on Jonny and his environment. More shots - less of Abbie.
- Music is overpowering - make it more subtle
- Slower zoom to the door
- Move the tilt of Jonny before he washes his hands
- Hold the shot of Jonny looking in the mirror (1-2 seconds longer)
- Running shots are ineffective - remove.
- Use different angle of shots for Jonny
- Jonny - show where he's going as he leaves the bathroom. Follow him into a room
- Include a mirror in the room - reflection of Abbie seen - links in with the title
- Shorter flash backs

Group Practical Feedback

Here is a copy of the feedback our group received from our teacher regarding the first draft of our two minute film opening, Reflections.


Mark: 38
Level 3
Grade: C/D

Feedback:
- Camera work is controlled and steady throughout most of the extract
- Framing of shots is mostly well conceived with elements included / excluded as appropriate
- Shot distances are varied throughout the extract
- The material is appropriate to the task set, however it becomes quite repetitive. This results in the later half of the extract losing focus.
- Mise-en-scene has been clearly thought out with effective use of location choice, colour and lighting throughout the extract.
- Editing is competent - there is considerable scope for improvement here which will also improve pace and continuity. Particularly, in the development of the duel narrative.
- Shot transitions are effective but need to be better timed towards the later stages of the extract.
- Both diegetic and non-diegetic sound have been used effectively throughout the extract. However, as the editing falters towards the end of the extract, the match-on-action loses focus making the mood of the extract inconsistent.
- Titles are well made and feel appropriate to the genre, however they could be more evenly paced across the extract.

Targets for improvement:
- You need to include Production Company etc. at the beginning and hold a single frame of black for longer.
- I also recommend introducing the running water sound earlier and even more gradual - raising the volume very slowly - this will develop the mood of your opening more effectively.
- Later you have lost your way - some poor choices of shots have been included.
- Also, some shots need to be held for longer.
- Your titles need to be more evenly spread across the piece.
- Finally, you need to add more focus on to the antagonist as that is whom you are trying to establish.

Reflections - First Draft

This is the first draft for our two-minute thriller opening, which we titled ‘Reflections.’ We had to change the name of our thriller from our original idea, which was ‘Portraits of Obsession.’ This was due to the fact we cut out the shots liking this title to the narrative of the film to the title. We originally had shots of our main male character looking at a wall of pictures of his target, the female character. We decided on the name Reflections which was suggested to us by another group member and agreed by our teacher which they linked to one of our new shots in which the main male character looks in the mirror seeing his reflection, thus prompting and reinforcing the name reflections, hence he was directly looking into the camera.

Darkening Footage

For our final two minute thriller opening piece, we decided as a group to change certain shots by darkening using them Adobe After Effects as they were far to light and because the lighting wasn’t very good during filming. We did this by giving them a darker, red colour.

The group decided that this looked much better and improved our piece as we think the effect helps the footage meet the codes and conventions of a thriller genre. The red tint added to the footage symbolizes blood, which reinforces danger, which is common to thrillers. Consequently creating an impact on the audience and creating a tense setting. Overall it links very well with the setting and the narrative of our opening.

This darkening effect was used in our final opening and the colour for example it is used to make the outside woods scenes darker, to give the effect that the film is set a night.


Original Footage:


Darkened Using After Effects:

Continuity Task

Due to the fact I was ill for this area of the coursework i was unable to partake in the filming with the. As a result it was unfair for me not to contribute to the task and expect to be allowed to use it in my coursework. However a classmate of mine, who also is a friend was absent on this day when the continuity task was carried out as well, so she was in a similar situation with her group. Therefore we decided to team up for this section of the coursework and film our own continuity task, as we didn’t want to lose marks on this section.

Initially we had to write up our shot list and our script, the shot list of which had to include a certain number of specific shots given to us by our teacher. After we had decided on our final shot list and script for our actors we had to draw up our story board so we could see what out final shots would look like and also see what camera angles/positioning, props and costume we wanted to use. Then we cast our actors. For this we chose two drama/media students form the year above, year 13 as. This benefited us in two ways as it meant that the acting would be professional, they would know how to take direction and their media knowledge would also be beneficial to us as they could give us tips or advice if needed.

Considering we had only used a camera for a filming task once before and considering we wasn’t very experienced in the practical side of the coursework i feel that our filming ran smoothly, which allowed us to produce an effective amount of successful shots. With an excellent level of communication between my classmate, our actors and myself this task was enjoyable and completed very well. This enabled us to work together as a group efficiently; hence we managed to produce a relatively good piece of footage as the group dynamic was excellent.

This good chemistry allowed us to film in a comfortable, self-motivated and relaxed environment and considering myself and my classmate didn’t know the actors we used, we all got on very well which made everyone feel confident and comfortable with each other, hence which made the group work together much better. This feeling was reflected then in our work thus ensuing in a final set of footage that we were all happy with.

After we had finished our filming we then had the task of editing and bearing in mind neither of us had used the editing software before we both picked it up very quickly and between us managed to complete some fairly effective editing. This process was good as we got to see our first bit of lengthy footage come together which allowed us to eliminate and bad, shaky unsuccessful shots and made sure we used the best footage to its full potential in order to produce the best possible continuity task.

Teacher evaluation

After we had finished our continuity task we gave it to our teacher to look at and evaluate in order to get back some feedback on our work so far and get a rough level at what our work produced is at.

Level: 2

Negative points:

• Bad lighting
  
• Poorly framed shots – need to be wider angles
  
• Shot to is to short in terms of length
  
• ‘Hand tapping’ shot doesn’t capture some reactions a CU was needed
  
• Wider variety of shots could have been used
  
• Ending lacks quality
  
• Doesn’t finish
  
• Editing is a bit choppy
  
• Diegetic sound is lost at one point
  
• CU of phone is very badly framed (sideways on)

Positive points:

• Good camera work
  
• Good use of reaction and shots haven’t broken the 180 degree rule
  
• Effective close up
  
• Balance of sound is both clear and effective
  
• Juxtaposition is good
  
• Easy to follow narrative
  
• Mise en scene
  

Evaluation Notes

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

- Title, character, date

- Refer to animatic

- Codes and conventions

- The female character being portrayed as the weaker sex and the victim – common in thrillers.

-  The Stereotypical representation of men and women

- How the use of sound, lighting and props/costume/location etc have been used to create suspense and tension

- The narrative is very similar to most thrillers with the subgenre of physiological/horror

- The way in which men are portrayed and represented in our film as the more dominate, strong and aggressive sex – portrayed in a negative way through killing people.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

- Men dominant – female passive

- The classic ‘white male stalker/killer’

- Classic ‘brown haired pretty female’

- Female youth represents being young and stupid, fear and confusion

- Male youth represents obsession, jealousy and protectiveness over women

- Highlights the actions and emotions of young people

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

- TV Movie

- Holds a good level of narrative and is of a high enough quality to go into the cinema – many films with similar narrative have made it to the cinema – Friday 13^th, House of wax.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

- Audience research – BBFC

- Film competitors

- What other films are similar to yours, who do they relate to?

- Both male and female audience

- 15+ audience as this is who we aimed our thriller at, hence the content level. Also they would understand the storyline and could relate to the actions, possibly the experience and emotions involved.

- People who are the same ages as the characters in our thriller

 

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

- Researched the themes linked to our chosen genre - psychological thriller

- Created and carried out a questionnaire - asked our target audience what they would like to see etc

- Watched and analysed other professional openings of the same genre. E.g. Those by M Night Shyamalan.

 

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

- The software used Premier Pro and Adobe After Effects used was very useful and effective for editing and adding extra effects to our film opening

- The differences in quality of cameras - high definition cameras compared to normal

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

- Using different shot angles and shot types

- Getting rid of shots that aren’t necessary

- Adjusting or changing shots can be extremely effective and can look so much better

- Using the woods as location can be very repetitive if not filmed correctly and can be very over used. 

Progress

At the beginning our As media course when our coursework task was first explained to the class by our teacher, i was very excited and enthusiastic about the task and I thought it would be fun compared to our usual based essay coursework assignments. I also felt quite confident at the beginning and believe I could perform will in this task as i had taken media studies at GCSE Level and got a B in my results and so I felt I had significant knowledge about the theoretical side of media. I thought that with my knowledge already i had an upper hand in the coursework and felt that I would be able to contribute well to the group especially as two of my group members hadn't taken Media at a GCSE level. From my previous knowledge, I felt that I understood the codes and conventions of films well and knew the effective ways in which to engage the audience and ways in which to build up tension and suspense as I have studied this at GSCE Level. Therefore this would be a huge help within this task. However when we was put into our groups I immediately changed my mind about this and felt unconfident as it seemed that there were certain group members who over shadowed others and liked to have things there way, as well as try to take over the workload. Also as I didn’t know anyone within the group I was very quiet at first. This quickly made me become unenthusiastic about the task.

On the other hand in spite of this previous knowledge i felt I had incompetent knowledge and skill in the practical side, which made me worry and become nervous and feel rather unconfident as I had never filmed anything before or used an editing programme, so had no experience of what to do whatsoever. Nevertheless after using the editing program and camera equipment for our first intro camera task, the continuity task and with some help and advice from Andy I progressed quite a lot from being nervous to a bit more confident. And I now know I can help out a lot more with the practical side of things. As well as this after a few weeks of working together as a group I began to find it easier to get involved more, contribute and communicate with my group, as I felt more confident working with the people. I started feeling more positive about my ideas and working well within the group and as we worked on our animatic and so as a result felt much more enthusiastic about the work.

As a result of this, I now enjoy working with my group and helping out with the practical side of things, as well as with the written side of the task. I am still not as confident as other members of the group or as confident as I’d like to be with the software, but in spite of this I do feel I can help out effectively with it.

Alternatively, I do feel that there are certain individuals within the group who choose to take too much responsibility and do not like to share the practical side of the work load either because they feel as they have the best sufficient knowledge in the group they and so want to and enjoy doing it or because they feel others do not have a good enough ability to do so. For example, I would like to be involved and given more opportunity in the practical side of the task a all though a have done some I would like to do a little more and believe I could progress my practical skills further with a little help and more opportunity to do so.

Lastly I also struggled greatly with keeping the written side of my coursework, which is my blog, up to date at first as I felt the workload was huge and so as a result I soon became behind. I am much stronger on the written side of things and failed to see at first why I wasn’t performing to my best ability. I soon stopped updating it regularly after a while and tried to avoid doing so as I became confused with what to do and what to write about as well as trying to keep up to date with other coursework I really began to struggle. I found it hard to manage my time effectively to begin with and began to prioritise my work so therefore I neglected my blog. However after my teacher putting it into perspective for me and saying how we only have a week left I started to realise this was an important part of my coursework and not doing it and leaving it till last minute was both stupid and not an option. So as a result of this I started working hard in the week or so I had left in order to finish my blog to the best possible standard I could and dedicated a lot of my spare time and effort into doing so as I wanted to get the best marks as possible on this work. I can now honestly say I am extremely pleased with every aspect of my written coursework so far and that every blog entry I have made is to my best ability. I may have left it late to do some of the work but however this did not lead me to rush what I did neither did it mean I didn’t produce the work to the best of my ability as I genuinely worked hard to complete my blog and get it up to date. I am really proud of this progress and feel that my writing skills have improved further and am pleased that my time management skills have also now improved as a result. I am now very happy with my blogged work and am doing well in keeping it up to date regularly.


In conclusion I feel my theoretical knowledge has improved further and practical knowledge has progressed steadily through practical experience with help from the tasks set, teachers comments and advice as well as members of my group. My confidence has progressed since the beginning of the coursework and i feel I have eventually developed the effective skills needed to carry out a practical task. I have gone from being very unconfident with myself to working well now as both an individual and in a group and am more confident with working on the editing software. To me this is significant progress and I am pleased with the way in which I have progressed so far.

Conclusion of the thriller films analysed

From my research of looking at and analysing five openings of different thriller films it has become apparent that there are many common codes and conventions that the majority of thriller openings follow. For example in all of the films analysed, the titles are similar; they are all white font and centred over a clip or black background in order not to distract the audience from what is going on in the film and also for simplicity and ease to read. Also one character is always established first in the opening, which suggests they are the main character, in addition to this there is also very little dialogue used. I found that in most thriller films very little dialogue is used and often the character is established and introduced to the audience through the use of camera shots and emotions, which are recognized through facial expressions, along with the non-diegetic background music that enhances the tension.

Non-diegetic sound is another common convention used in thriller films. It is used very effectively to create suspense and build up tension, either fast past or slow paced. In addition to this suspense is also created through successful editing. Suspense is efficiently created through short takes with longer pauses when a title appears. This immediately tells the audience what the genre of the film is within the first few minutes and what conventions to expect.

Furthermore, the pace of editing differs in various films. Some thriller films have slow pace editing while others have fast pace both of which either juxtaposes the scene or links in with the scene. Slower pace editing creates an eerie, strange and almost supernatural atmosphere.

The camera plays a very important role in thriller films as straight cuts and jump cuts are commonly used a lot through out the film in order to create suspense and tension and also to juxtapose the surroundings. Moreover in some thriller openings there where a variety of camera angles and distances used however they mainly related to the sub genre of thriller.

Conversely mise-en-scene is used to introduce and add to the character, mainly through the use of facial expressions, emotion and props, which is reinforced through the variety of mid-shots and close-ups of the character. The mise-en-scene in a thriller also depends on the sub genre of the text. However the colour of text in thrillers chosen is often white or red, as both are conventionally associated to Thrillers. This is due to the typical connotations and meanings connected to them. For example red has connotations of blood, danger and love all of which are associated with Thrillers. Then white has connotations of innocence and purity, which often symbolizes the ‘good guys’ of the woman who is also good in a thriller film.

Finally from my research i have also found that each sub genre of thriller has a specific and definite style all following common codes and conventions of the hybrid in the opening sequences of the film. E.g. Western thrillers often have the titles superimposed on to the image, which is now a common association with Western thrillers.

Therefore in conclusion, from the five thriller openings that i analysed, I can undoubtedly see that the codes and conventions of a thriller are used in order to create suspense and tension and to introduce the narrative of the film, as well as to engage the audience subconsciously and instantly. Furthermore, the very little narrative and dialogue shown is used with the intention of introducing the establishment of the surroundings, the character and their emotion, which allows the audience to get an insight into the tone, genre, narrative and the character themselves.

Shoot 3

Our next filming shoot was on Thursday 5th. Today’s filming wasn't as successful as I had hoped, as all though we was very organized in booking out equipment and all though our first shots were ok, due to the timing our later shots soon began to get very dark and couldn't be used. On the other hand we did manage to find a better new location as suggesting in my shoot 2 analysis.

We needed to find a more wooded area that had many more trees and woodland, so instead of shooting out footage in the small wooded area near Georgia's house we decided to relocate and film in Black Park instead. Before we started filming we also took photos of this new location to add to our blogs. We started shooting at a slightly earlier time for this shoot and started filming at 5 just as it was getting dark in order to get better lighting conditions in our film.

However it took us quite a while to film these shots and as a group we changed our mind about some shots so re-did these also as well as adding new shots and before we new it, it started getting dark making the lighting conditions very bad which means that some of theses shots are being rescheduled to be redone. Even though we worked well as a team and discussed these new ideas well which was very good, consequently this also had a down side as it slowed us down and delayed time a lot. From this experience we have definitely learnt that timing is vital when filming.

In order to sort this problem with the lighting, will have decided to re-schedule a shoot during the middle of the day when there is constant light and use Adobe After Effects to make the footage darker.

Overall even though one group member could not attend this shooting session, i still feel that the rest of the group members worked very well as a team and communicated well especially when it came to making decisions and changing shot ideas.

Final Animatic

Audience Research - Thriller Questionnaire

1. What age category do you fit into?

16-18 19-24 25-30 10-35 36-40 41- 45 46+


2. Are you male or female? _______________________________


3.What thriller sub genres do you prefer? (Please circle as many as apply)

Action
Romantic
Crime
Drama
Medial
Physiological
Supernatural
Political
Techno
Spy
Other


4. What do you look for in terms of story with a thriller? – E.g. Twists,


5. What type colours do you expect to see? (Please circle as many as apply)

Red
Black
Green
White
Grey
Yellow
Blue
Purple
Brown
Pink


6. How much gore do you expect to see in a thriller?



7. Do you like to do some of the thinking during the film? (Figuring out bits of the story etc) Or even after?

YES / NO


8. Do you like a cliffhanger even if there isn’t a 2nd film? (Please tick one)

YES / NO


9. What do you like about the thriller genre? (Please circle as many as apply)

Confusion
Suspense
Hero vs. Villain
Twist
Cliff Hangers
Mystery
Danger


10. How do you think a good thriller should open? (Please tick one)

Death Chase Everyday Life Flashback Other


11. Which of the following thriller films have you seen?

Psycho
Seven
Silence of the Lambs
Sin City
Jaws
Grand Prix
Seconds
Hostage
Signs
Walk on the wild side


12. What is your favourite thriller film? _______________________________


This is our questionnaire. We chose these questions based on the information we wished to receive from our target audience. Firstly we used the questionnaire to establish who are target audience was and then decided to make a film classed as a 15 certificate. We also used this questionnaire to see which sub genres of are most popular and which conventions of Thriller they most prefer to see as well as what plot twist and story lines people like to see in a thriller film. We will put this research into graphs in order to see what the most popular answers were and what our audience want to see. From this information we can evaluate our ideas and make improvements to our film ideas based on our research.

Thriller Opening 5 -Signs - M. Night Shyamalan, 2002 (Sci-Fi Thriller)

Camera
There is very little camera movement in this opening sequence. The angle of the camera being straight and centralised in the middle, focusing on the characters names. Slow zooming out through he window away from the view of the garden jumps straight to a picture of a family, could it suggest they live there or used to live there. This sets the narrative. Male character is introduced in centre of the screen as he wakes up. This suggests he is the lead role in the film as he stays centralised. He walks around the house the camera follows him. This sets the scene and creates an atmosphere. Camera movement and pace speed up towards the end as the man is running around looking for someone. The camera is tracking and panning to keep the audience feel involved in what is going on and to show the audience what the man sees and what he is doing. Overall the camera movement is very slow.


Editing
Speed becomes faster in the way in which the titles come up faster, the speed of music also increases, style of the titles and music is the same, however the music is different at the start and at the end. The pace of editing is slow. Mostly straight cuts are used. As the speed of the music increases it increases the tension caused for the audience, similarly as the pace of titles becomes faster the music seems to become faster making it even more intense. Music ranges from fast to slow, indicating something might happen and that it is something out of the blue and shocking. It alerts the audience making them aware and keeping them engaged. The speed of the background music at the start of the opening is completely different from the end. This could be to signify the start and the end of the opening titles leading onto the introduction of the actual film.

Sound
The non-diegetic background music is continuous throughout and is ranging with different tempos of music throughout. It starts of quiet and eventually gets louder In order to build up suspense and create tension. This relates to the theme of thriller very well as this is a commonly used technique of thrillers. We can immediately identify that the film is a thriller due to this music as it is conventional of a thriller to have this spooky sounding fast pace music. The sound in this opening fits in really well, and links to the theme of the film. It clearly introduces the narrative and suggests to the audience that this film is going to be an action based mystery thriller hence the fast pace chasing music which when it gets quieter suggests mystery. E.g. a chase scene and the loud up-tempo music suggest the person is running and getting chased and the low tempo quieter pace music suggest that the character could be hiding.


Mise-en-scene
A continuous blue colour is used throughout the titles, giving us a calm and relaxed sort of tone to the opening. But also a mysterious sort of tone as the spotlight is blurry suggesting it is hiding something. No props or costumes used in the opening. The lighting and colour of the opening stay the same throughout.


Special Effects
No special effects are used in the opening except the spotlight effect.


Titles
Blue background being a spotlight fading in and out, with black font over lapping the blue spotlight. The titles fad in and out also in a dark blue font which connotes mystery. This makes the titles stand out to the audience and make it very clear to read. Doesn’t really link to the film, as the colours are not very significant to the sci-fi genre or to thrillers. However you could relate the colour blue to a blue light of police car sirens or to water.

Thriller Opening 4 - Flightplan- Robert Schwentke 2005 (Action/mystery Thriller)

Camera
The long shot establishes that she is alone at the train station and the close ups enable a full view of her facial expressions in order to show the audience how she is feeling. The long shot at the beginning not only shows that she is alone, but her character isn’t introduced emotionally straight away, which leaves a surprise for the audience when she is seen. This builds up suspence.
Mid shot of moving train. Long shot of the back of a character sitting down, in front of a stationary train. Camera zooms into character- but her face not yet seen. Camera switches quickly from behind to in front. Camera then zooms into her face- portraying her fear.

Long shot of the room is seen and a coffin is centred with the main character in front. Mid shot of character walking out. Low angle of a man- camera moves up. Shot reverse shot of the man and woman. Long shot of the couple at the train station- the same train station she was seen sitting alone at. Long shot as they enter the train. The long shot of the coffin leaves the audience speculating who is in there. The shot reverse shot highlights both characters expressions and juxtaposes her expression before hand. The long shot of the moving train again contrasts the speed. The shots used all draw attention to the loneliness and seclusion of the characters and the fear of the woman. Long shot of character walking towards the coffin, close up of water dripping off her umbrella, low angle of character looking at the coffin and then the camera pans and zooms in slightly.

The panning and zooming out from the train goes into a long shot of the couple walking up the stairs. The long shot of the couple outside shows that they are still alone and are possibly being watched. The camera goes round to see the character in the coffin, which adds to the shock and anxiety of the audience and as it is the same man seen at the train station, it builds up the narrative.

At the end of the opening, the long shot shows the couple outside and then birds fly up and into a black screen, which causes shock to the audience when the next shot arrives. After the black screen, a long shot of outside appears but this time she is alone and only one pair of footsteps can be seen, which leaves the audience doubting whether the man was really there. This creates suspense and builds up tension.


Editing
A mixture of slow and fast pace editing is used throughout the opening title sequence of this film, along with straight cuts. The fast straight cuts and pace contrast the shots, which connect with the character and the pase of the character. Similarly the moving train compared with the pace of character juxtapose one another.

The opening sequence has fast paced editing; shot of something unknown- possibly a train, then straight into titles. Continuous straight cuts are used from train to titles. Pace slows down. Slow editing contrasts to the music. Straight cut into character entering a room, two other characters are also present. Train moves and the camera watches as it moves off. Another straight cut into character slowly walking towards the coffin. Straight cut back to the moving train. Fading out from w the couple were walking on the street portrays the atmosphere changing. A straight cut from inside to outside, straight cut back to the room with the coffin.


Sound
Diegetic sound of the train, no music. Non diegetic music appears- quiet and tense- as the camera zooms in. The non diegetic music is tense and juxtaposes the pace of editing. A lot of diegetic sound is used in this scene, such as, the character breathing and dialogue. Dialogue appears in a non-English language and she replies in English. The tone the females voice also represents grief and fear. These emphasise this character’s unknown fear and pain helps the audience to connect emotionally. It leaves the audience guessing to why she is behaving in this way. A man’s voice appears. Diegetic sound of the water dripping emphasises the silence within the room. Nonetheless, quiet non diegetic music is used, which builds up tension and atmosphere. The effect of the tranquillity within the opening sequence helps to connect the character with the audience, it enables the audience to establish the emotions and feel for the narrative. Increased in sound volume creates tension and suspense and reinforces the change of shot. Dialogue- mans’ name introduced as David. Diegetic sound of birds, female character is startled.


Mise-en-scene
The lighting is bright inside from the electric lighting but when outside it is much darker. This creates the atmosphere and ands to causing tension. Furthermore, throughout the sequence the train juxtaposes the character. This train plays a significant role as it is the only thing that moves fast within the opening. When the camera shows the characters face, tears can be seen in her eye, which establishes the emotion of the character but leaves the audience distance and wondering what has happened. Taken as a whole, the facial expressions are fairly sinister and dark and show a lot of feeling.

Character hasn’t moved. When the characters face is shown, she seems very scared and deep in thought, with tears in her eyes. Other characters in the room change their expression quickly and break away. Facial expression alters as she sees the man- happiness, relief and surprise/shock- highlighted through her breathing. She quickly opens the door and her expression changes- she appears surprised at seeing somebody but then upset at what the character asked. Slight aggravation is shown. The dark clothing contrasts to brightly coloured yellow train.



Special Effects
No significant special effects are used.
Shadows of planes are seen over the snow- shot fades out.


Titles
Simple, white font over black.
The titles are used in this way so they are not a distraction to the audience and so they are easy to read.

Film Certificates

According to the BBFC:
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ - British Board Of Film Classification



Certificate 15

Theme
A 15 certificate rated film always has a theme, but must be suitable to the audience. Hence fourth no theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate to 15 year olds.

Language
Language is also infrequent, with a few references to strong language, and the strongest language is only justified if it is in context. Continued aggressive use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Nudity
Nudity is allowed in sexual context, but no strong detail is shown. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context in a 15-certificate film.

Sex
Linking with nudity, sexual content is also shown and is allowed to be portrayed, but with no strong detail. However there may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour.

Violence
Violence can be strong but with no focus or dwell on the infliction of pain or injury that has been caused. Scenes of sexual violence must be discreet and brief.

Imitable techniques
Dangerous techniques e.g. combat, hanging, suicide, weapons that are easily accessible and self-harming should not be focused on to much in imitable detail. Easily accessible weapons should also not be glamorized or portrayed as ‘cool’ in order to not influence the audience.

Horror
Very little gore is shown within horror, but strong threat and menace are permitted. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable.

Drugs
Drugs and drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse in anyway and once again much no glamorize this or portray it in a way that looks acceptable in order not to influence the audience.



Certificate 18

BBFC findings show that at the age of 18 a person should be entitled to see whatever they wish as they are an adult. However exceptions include the promotion of dangerous acts (both to the individual and society). certificate 18s also cannot risk harm to individuals or to society, or involve sexual violence that could support sexual assault. Explicit sexual content is only shown if the context can justify it.


The difference between a certificate 15 and certificate 18 film.
The main contrasts between an 18 certificate film and a 15 certificate is the detail and the explicitness of the context. In a an 18, sexual content is much more explicit and violence is in much more detail. Strong gore and violence is more obvious, in a lot more detail and more extreme in an 18, along with the use of very strong language. Even so, in both a 15 and 18 the content must be justified by the context.



Our work will be targeted at the classification of a 15 certificate. This is because those producing it are of similar age but slightly older at 16 and 17 years old. This means that we will know what the age range expect from a Thriller film, what to include and also will have the knowledge to know what is acceptable to be shown in the film and what isn’t acceptable. Additionally the classification will not be lower than a 15 certificate due to the fact we plan to include some suspense and violence scenes and a use of a weapon, a knife, which fall into the classification of 15. Moreover we do not plan to include any scenes of a sexual nature or any nudity or drugs in our opening. Nether do we have any scenes of bad language. Likewise the use of violence and sex etc. must be justified in the context of the piece. This means we will not include scenes of a violent nature for no reason; it will be in context with the piece.

Rough Cut Analysis and Improvements

The feedback and opinions that we got back from our teacher on our rough cut were not what we expected. Out teacher said that our footage was good and had some effective shots but however some were not quite right.

We arranged the titles in out footage at both the beginning and at the end of our footage, which we at the time thought looked good. In spite of this our teachers comment on this was that it made our footage look unorganised, unprofessional and muddled and so he commented on how this should be changed and where we could place the titles in order to make it look much better.

We took our teachers opinions and suggestion into account and decided that he was right. So as a group we decided to change the titles and design. Our new idea was to introduce the titles over footage instead, in places where the audience won’t really need to focus on as we thought this would be much more effective and successful because if we position the titles where the main eye catching footage is this will reduce the suspense and tension that we are trying to create and also will distract the audience from watching the footage as they could be focusing on the titles. Consequently our final footage would not be considered an effective piece.


Further more here are a list of improvements, which we think should be made to our rough cut after our meeting with the teacher in order to produce an effective ad successful piece:


1. Include titles over footage - allows more footage
2. Editing needs to be adjusted on shoot number 2
3. Change shot of female to over shoulder shot
4. Include more footage of Male character?
5. Classic shot of female character falling over
6. Male Character could clear up after himself
7. Last 3 titles over black

Shoot 2

Our next shoot was on Saturday 24th; Filming went well. All shots that we decided were requiring to be redone where completed and in addition shots outside where completed also. Our teamwork worked well again with successful directing from Georgia, but however the extremely poor lighting conditions made these shots unusable. As a result group needs to rethink the location chosen and the timing of the shoot. Perhaps an earlier shooting time would work better when it was lighter. We have decided to relocate due to limited woods at the original chosen location. Next filming date is 1st February.

Shoot 1

On Wednesday 21st we managed to shoot all planed shots. Filming went quite well as we managed to get a variety of shoots and most shots where steady. Our group had good communication skills and worked efficiently together which meant that we were able to establish what we needed to change, what worked well and what needed to be improved. However there are still some improvements that could be made.

These improvements included the following:

We decided that our inside shots of the corridor leading up to the door should be re-done, as they were done in too dark conditions and we feel it would be more effective if the shots were completed with brighter lighting conditions. Linking to this, we also thought that the positioning of camera during close up of hands wasn’t quite right and should be shot from the opposite side to what we did it on. The groups directing of the actor wasn't effective at all. Better acting is required when subject was washing hands and more direction needs to be given. E.g. needs to scrub hands harder when trying to get the blood off his hands.

Our slow zoom at the beginning of our piece needed much improvement in terms of speed and smoothness. In order to achieve this we plan to use a different camera with an easier zooming control. Finally we would like to improve the tilt. We plan to redo this and hold it for longer at the top to make it more effective.


In addition to this, we had also originally chosen James Hall and Georgia Bowers as our actor and actress in our film. However, neither was available for when we needed to film, consequently we had to change last minute and use Jonny Furze and Abbie Jones, instead.

However so far we are up to date, we have completed most of the outside shots and have re-done our inside shots.

Cancelled Shooting

We planned out first shoot on 17th January but however was cancelled due to the fact a group member couldn't attend the filming session and so the location wasn't available to us. This has put us behind on shooting. However to compensate we have rescheduled two shoots on Weds 20th and Thurs 21st after school.

Shot List

This is our finished shot list. We will storyboard it and then create an animatic.

Initial Ideas

Here is a brainstorm of our initial ideas. My group decided to go with the crime drama idea as we liked this idea best and we had the most interest in it. We will develop this idea further to produce a shot list and animatic to see what our idea will look like.

Practice Filming 1

On Thursday 23rd October 2008 we did our practice filming but because of technical difficulties it is not possible to upload a copy of our first practice filming. This is due to a fault with the camera. Never the less we managed to learn a lot from out first practice filming

I think that our first practice filming went quite well we didn't we didn't brake the 180 degree rule. I feel that we worked well as a group with organizing and communicating whilst doing our practice filming. This will be very useful to us when we come to do the real thing, as it is important that we communicate, be organized and work effectively as a team as this way we will get the best possible outcome. Our camera control and our use of the camera as a whole were very well done and hence effective because of this. Never the less a couple of the panning shots could of been smoother as they were quite shaky and a bit to fast. The shot in which we had to see the person walking through the door however became a bit tricky and we had to re-do this a couple of times as we could not get it quite right.


The idea of doing this practice filming task was to introduce us to using a camera and to show us how it works. I feel that we did manage to learn a lot form this task and that it will be beneficial to us when we do our real filming. From this practice we learnt that using ourselves as actors wasn't a very good idea as we weren’t very good actors and more prominently when it comes to filming the real thing we will need all of us to work together as a close team in order to make our final piece realistic and successful. So we decided that the best idea would be to find drama students to take on the role of our actors so that it s easier for us to work together.

Finally, I think that there are also some other improvements that could be made in our practice filming. To begin with our editing was not to the highest of standards as we made some of the clips too long. It could have been a lot smoother and more effective. What did not help with our editing was that the editing software was very new to most of us and so therefore we didn’t no how to use it very efficiently or effectively and so we worked at a slower pace. However we soon started to learn how to use it and began to work quicker. Introducing us to this editing software was also a good idea to include in the practice filming task as we have not used it before and so getting some practice will ensure that when we come to producing our final piece we will be more experienced and know what we are doing.

Intro Camera Task – Shot list

1. Person A walks up to a door (LS – possible tracking shot)
2. CU of hand pulling handle
3. Shot of person A walking through door (LS)
4. Shot of person B sat down
5. Shot of person A sitting down next to them
6. CU of person A asking person B if they are ok?
7. Reverse shot (CU) of person B replying?
8. Two shot of person A and B – person B asks person A a question
9. CU of person A’s reaction and answer
10. CU of person B’s response.