History of Thriller

THRILLERS:

These are types of films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension. Thriller and suspense films are virtually synonymous and interchangeable categorizations, with similar characteristics and features.
If the genre is to be defined strictly, a genuine thriller is a film that restlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. The tension usually arises when the main character(s) is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission from which escape seems impossible. Life itself is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces - the menace is sometimes abstract or shadowy.
 

One of the earliest 'thrillers' was Harold Lloyd's comic Safety Last (1923), with the all-American boy performing a daredevil stunt on the side of a skyscraper. The haunting and chilling German film M (1931) directed by the great Fritz Lang, starred Peter Lorre (in his first film role) as a criminal deviant - a child killer. The film's story was based on the life of serial killer Peter Kurten (known as the 'Vampire of Dusseldorf'). Edward Sutherland's crime/horror thriller Murders in the Zoo (1933) from Paramount starred Lionel Atwill as a murderous and jealous zoologist. And various horror films of the period, The Cat and the Canary (1927), director Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) with Fredric March, and The Bat Whispers (1930), provided some thrills.
Director George Cukor's classic psychological thriller Gaslight (1944) (first made in Britain in 1939 with Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynward) featured a scheming husband (Charles Boyer) plotting to make his innocent young wife (Ingrid Bergman) go insane, in order to acquire her inheritance. The film noir Laura (1944) told about a thrilling murder investigation (for a beautiful missing advertising executive named Laura) conducted by a police detective (Dana Andrews), with suspects including an acid-tongued columnist (Clifton Webb) and a gigolo fiancé (Vincent Price). And the eerie The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), from Oscar Wilde's masterful tale, refashioned the Faustian story of a man (Hurd Hatfield) who made a deal with Mephistopheles (George Sanders) to forever remain young.

 

No list of suspense or thriller films can be complete without mention of English film-maker/director Alfred Hitchcock. He helped to shape the modern-day thriller genre, beginning with his early silent film The Lodger (1927), a suspenseful Jack-the-Ripper story, followed by his next thriller Blackmail (1929), his first sound film (but also released in a silent version). Hitchcock would make a signature cameo appearance in his feature films, beginning with his third film The Lodger (1927), although his record was spotty at first. After 1940, he appeared in every one, except for The Wrong Man (1956). Although nominated five times as Best Director (from 1940-1960), Hitchcock never won an Academy Award.

Alfred Hitchcock is considered the acknowledged auteur master of the thriller or suspense genre, manipulating his audience's fears and desires, and taking viewers into a state of association with the representation of reality facing the character. He would often interweave a taboo or sexually-related theme into his films, such as the repressed memories of Marnie (Tippi Hedren) in Marnie (1964), the latent homosexuality in Strangers on a Train (1951), voyeurism in Rear Window (1954), obsession in Vertigo (1958), or the twisted Oedipus complex in Psycho (1960).

There were many other great thrillers out there; the acclaimed police thriller The French Connection (1971) was based on the true story of two New York City narcotics officers (Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle, and Roy Scheider as Buddy) who pursue the largest heroin smuggling group in history. The film that brought Steven Spielberg to prominence was his terrifying summer blockbuster hit Jaws (1975), a frighteningly tense and shocking thriller inspired by real life East Coast shark attacks in 1916. John Boorman's Deliverance (1972) followed the perilous fate of four Southern businessmen during a weekend's shoot-the-rapids trip. Two nail-biting films, both adult shockers, Play Misty for Me (1971) and Fatal Attraction (1987), involved the nightmarish, dangerous consequences of a philandering one-night stand - one with a psychotic girlfriend, the other a spurned lover. In Francis Ford Coppola's tense character study/thriller The Conversation (1974), a bugging-device expert (Gene Hackman) systematically uncovered a covert murder while he himself was being spied upon. A battered wife who left her sadistic husband to find a better life was vengefully pursued in Sleeping with the Enemy (1991).

Jonathan Demme's highly-acclaimed Best Picture-winning horror/thriller Silence of the Lambs (1991) pitted young FBI agent/trainee Jodie Foster in psychological warfare against a cannibalistic psychiatrist named Dr. Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), while tracking down transgender serial killer Buffalo Bill. And Jan De Bont's combination action/thriller Speed (1994) perfectly captured the heart-stopping suspense aboard a Los Angeles city bus threatened by a mad bomber (Dennis Hopper). In Michael Mann's and DreamWorks' gritty Collateral (2004), Tom Cruise plays a taxi-riding hit man and Jamie Foxx as the cabbie.



Recently, various thrillers have used twisting plots and surprise endings to capture audiences, notably:

Bryan Singer's clever and hip The Usual Suspects (1995), with Kevin Spacey as a club-footed con man and a central mystery surrounding the character of Hungarian mobster Keyser Soze.
director David Fincher's compelling crime thriller Se7en (1995), about the search for a serial killer who re-enacts the seven deadly sins.
M. Night Shyamalan's effective The Sixth Sense (1999), about a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) who sees "dead people" - this was Shyamalan's signature film with clever clues sprinkled throughout the film; also Shyamalan's spooky Signs (2002), about a disillusioned minister (Mel Gibson) who encounters gigantic, eerie crop circles on his farm.
writer/director Christopher Nolan's Memento (2000), a tale told backwards, with Guy Pearce as a tattooed man without short-term memory, who hunts down the alleged rapist-killer of his wife

 

Journey, elliptical editing

Journey, elliptical editing

History of Noir

FILM NOIR:
Film noir is a term used to describe crime drama movies from Hollywood that are often focused on sex, crime, and corruption. Film noir movies were mostly made from the early 1940s to the late 1950s in the United States, and they were usually filmed in black-and-white. this style of filmmaking characterized by elements such as cynical heroes, stark lighting effects, frequent use of flashbacks, intricate plots, and an underlying existentialist philosophy. The genre was prevalent mostly in American crime dramas of the post-World War II era.

Early examples of the noir style include dark, stylized detective films such as John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941), Frank Tuttle’s This Gun for Hire (1942), Otto Preminger’s Laura (1944), and Edward Dmytryk’s Murder, My Sweet (1944). Banned in occupied countries during the war, these films became available throughout Europe beginning in 1946. French cineastes admired them for their cold, cynical characters and dark, brooding style, and they afforded the films effusive praise in French journals such as Cahiers du cinéma. French critics coined the term film noir in reference to the low-keyed lighting used to enhance these dramas stylistically—although the term would not become commonplace in international critical circles until the publication of the book Panorama du film noir americain (1955) by Raymond Borde and Étienne Chaumeton.

 

The darkness of these films reflected the disenchantment of the times. Pessimism and disillusionment became increasingly present in the American psyche during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the world war that followed. After the war, factors such as an unstable peacetime economy, McCarthyism, and the looming threat of atomic warfare manifested themselves in a collective sense of uncertainty. The corrupt and claustrophobic world of film noir embodied these fears. Several examples of film noir, such as Dmytryk’s Cornered (1945), George Marshall’s The Blue Dahlia (1946), Robert Montgomery’s Ride the Pink Horse (1947), and John Cromwell’s Dead Reckoning (1947), share the common storyline of a war veteran who returns home to find that the way of life for which he has been fighting no longer exists. In its place is the America of film noir: modernized, heartless, coldly efficient, and blasé about matters such as political corruption and organized crime.

 

Many of the major directors of film noir—such as Huston, Dmytryk, Cromwell, Orson Welles, and others—were American. However, other Hollywood directors renowned for a film noir style hailed from Europe, including Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Jacques Tourneur, and Fritz Lang. It is said that the themes of noir attracted European directors, who often felt like outsiders within the Hollywood studio system. Such directors had been trained to emphasize cinematic style as much as acting and narrative in order to convey thought and emotion.

Controversy exists as to whether film noir can be classified as a genre or subgenre, or if the term merely refers to stylistic elements common to various genres. Film noir does not have a thematic coherence: the term is most often applied to crime dramas, but certain westerns and comedies have been cited as examples of film noir by some critics. Even such sentimental comedy-dramas as Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) have been cited as “noir-ish” by critics who find in its suicidal hero and bleak depiction of small-town life a tone suitably dismal for film noir. Such films are also sometimes designated as “semi-noir,” or film gris (“grey film”), to indicate their hybrid status.

Other critics argue that film noir is but an arbitrary designation for a multitude of dissimilar black-and-white dramas of the late 1940s and early ’50s. Film scholar Chris Fujiwara contends that the makers of such films “didn’t think of them as ‘films noir’; they thought they were making crime films, thrillers, mysteries, and romantic melodramas. The nonexistence of ‘noir’ as a production category during the supposed heyday of noir obviously problematizes the history of the genre.” Yet it cannot be questioned that film noir connotes specific visual images and an aura of post-war cynicism in the minds of most film buffs. Indeed, several common characteristics connect most films defined as “noir.”

LIGHTING AND SHADOWS:
The isolation from society of the typical noir hero was underscored by the use of stark high-contrast lighting—the most notable visual feature of film noir. The shadowy noir style can be traced to the German Expressionist cinema of the silent era. Robert Wiene’s Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (1920; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) contains one of the best early examples of the lighting techniques used to inspire the genre. Wiene used visual elements to help define the title character’s madness, including tilted cameras to present skewed images and a dark atmosphere in which only the faces of the actors were visible. This Expressionistic style was later used by German directors such as Fritz Lang (Metropolis, 1927; M, 1931) and F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu, 1922; Sunrise, 1927).

These lighting effects were used in Hollywood by cinematographers such as Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane, 1941), John F. Seitz (Double Indemnity, 1944), Karl Freund (Key Largo, 1948), and Sid Hickox (The Big Sleep, 1948) to heighten the sombre tone of films in the genre. Classic images of noir included rain-soaked streets in the early morning hours; street lamps with shimmering halos; flashing neon signs on seedy taverns, diners, and apartment buildings; and endless streams of cigarette smoke wafting in and out of shadows. Such images would lose their indelibility with realistic lighting or colour cinematography.

During the 1950s film noir continued to deal with the disillusionment of the outsider, often presenting him as a confused member of a repressive society. Nunnally Johnson’s The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1956) examined a businessman’s attempt to find meaning in his work and home life. Pickup on South Street (1953), directed by Samuel Fuller, attacked post-war American capitalism; its central character is a man who accidentally acquires a top-secret microfilm but will only part with it for a price, no matter how that may jeopardize the safety of his country. Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951) went so far as to examine the brooding outsider’s attempt to change his own environment through a murder contract with another outsider. More often, however, the outsider is an inherently noble figure in a futile battle with corruption, as in Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958), cited by a plurality of film critics as the final film of the golden age of film noir.

 

Filmmakers of the 1980s and ’90s, influenced more by the homages of the 1970s than the actual noir productions of the 1940s and ’50s, often employed elements of film noir in an offbeat context. Ridley Scott’s science-fiction drama Blade Runner (1982) revisited the use of set design to enhance the mood, an idea that can be traced back to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Richard Tuggle’s Tightrope (1984) features film noir’s theme of disillusionment in a police officer who discovers he is as much an outsider as the criminal he is pursuing. Perhaps the best contemporary examples of the genre are Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential (1997), a bleak story of corrupt cops, and Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), a similarly dark story inspired by the crime novels of James M. Cain. Both films are presented in classic film noir style, the latter in black-and-white.

 

 

Despite recognition of the elements common to film noir, most scholars and critics continue to employ their own definitions as to what constitutes the noir style. Nevertheless, the golden era of film noir—the late 1940s through the early ’50s—is regarded as a benchmark period in American filmmaking, as well as a strong cultural checkpoint for the values of post-war America.

 

Journey Edited

Group Journey edited

A brief History of Mystery

The mystery genre is a genre in which usually involves a mysterious disappearance, crime or murder that is to be solved throughout the progression of the film. The film tends to focus on a closed amount of suspects or people who may be involved, these are usually people of importance such as: Train conductors, a femme fatal and other characters that are discovered at the beginning of the story. The central character, whom is usually a detective, has to solve this of be subject to the same fate him/herself.
1800's
The history of the mystery genre started around the 1800's with many mystery books being written about the many mystery murders by Edgar Allen Poe. These books were part of the first mystery style knows as "Locked Room" these are mysteries similar to the game "Cluedo" in which a dead body is found and then the detective must guess who the murderer if from the select group of people within a mansion or on a train.
Many of these books were influenced by many Charles Dickens stories that included hints of mystery such as "Bleak house" and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" which is famous for its unsolved ending due to it being unfinished.
Late 1800's
In the later ends of the 1800's (1887+) there was an increase in literacy rate in which led people to read many books for pleasure, this fuelled many writers leading to the creation of The Sherlock Holmes series of books which added a distinctive style of deducing clues with the aid of Dr. Watson who acted as more of a sidekick to the detective.

1920's
Furthering on through the lifetime of the mystery genre, there was the golden age of mystery in both America and Britain, this led to the many Agatha Christie classics and was fuelled further by the mysteries of London, such as Jack the Ripper.
The 1930's was a unique time for the mystery genre, this is where there were very quirky and eccentric detectives.

This eventually led to the many ideas for mystery on the television in the 40's which proved to be a delight for mass audiences as it provided many enigmas in which could be used to help entertain the audience and provide a satisfaction for them when they correctly guessed many of the plot points or solutions to crimes, even when they wrong, this provided pleasure as a new twist or unexpected change in the story had occurred.
During this time the police crime fiction surfaced in which its style suited the realistic style of the genre. This was due to the real life depictions of real events or the inclusion of real life methods that the police would use.

The mystery genre itself is not limited to just one convention, many films that make you question its plots or it revolves around an enigma, this means it is a very flexible genre whilst also being very inclusive and open to stories.

Research into the genre Mystery/Neo-Noir Thriller

Thriller is a type of genre that is quoted to be "characterised by the many moods that give the users heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety"
Thrillers are the type of film that keeps the audience on the edge of their seats, as the audience is drawn into the plot that builds toward a large, twisting or shocking climax.

 The mystery genre is defined as being "A fictional genre involving mysterious death or crime to be solved". The films of this genre are full of complex stories that involve the use if puzzles and many misleading clues to try and get to the solution of those mysterious deeds and mishappenings. There is always an important and credible motive for committing the crime.

Neo-Noir: this film genre is highly related to mystery and crime genres that was predominantly made during the 1940's and 50's in which they were shot in black and white and featured many femme fatals, doomed heroes, anti heroes, and tough cynical detectives or themes.

These types of genre have many stereotypes and conventions. These conventions can be seen in many classic films such as "The man who wasn't there" released in 2001. It shows the classic chain smoking, hard and rough characters that shows the reality of a crude and hard life.

The mystery and noir genres go hand in hand as they deal both with detective themes and investigating murders in and around the  1950's, with many themes of this time, this is shown in the short series "The spoils before dying" which plays to these conventions by having jazz music, tough characters that investigate a murder. The entire plot is based upon a pianist turned detective investigating a murder in the jazz scene of the 1950's. These are all stereotypes that are portrayed through the mystery/ noir scene.



Mystery and noir pair well with thrillers due to the many changing and climaxing storylines, with similar settings and themes, such as crime events occurring within the settings of the early 1900's.

There are many themes between the genres and many conventions of each of them. These include the many fast paced, suspense and an enigma or puzzle that creates questions for the audience making them think and want answers, drawing them further into the story. This suspense can be easily built up through Noir themes as they tend to have dark, gloomy, foggy areas that create a mysterious and dangerous feeling. This is furthered through a neo noir which adds colour to either show narrative points or to provide a faded/washed out version of the world, creating a bleak or dark view. This is known as chiaroscuro lighting.

Final group idea

Dark Room
 A college student buys a camera from a local store/ finds it somewhere and is a young photographer. He takes a photo of a flower in the ground and walks away. The camera pans from him and zooms into the flower with a pull focus and it reveals that the flower is gone without the protagonist knowing that it isn't there. He carries on with his day taking more photos. He goes home and takes a picture of his cat for it to again like the flower disappear without the main antagonist knowing again. He begins to take pictures of people with each time him either looking down at the camera or walking away with him being oblivious to the fact that the objects and people that he is photographing have gone. He goes to a darkroom to develop the photos he has taken, and he notices something off about each of the photos but carries on developing them anyway. He hears subtle screams and looks towards the photograph to notice that the expressions have changed from last time he looked at them. This begins to make him anxious and begins to question the camera that he bought earlier in the day. He takes a self portrait and there is a deafening silence and flash from the camera. The camera falls and smashes onto the floor. A polaroid comes out of the camera with the main protagonist on it.

Ewan's film ideas.

1) A action/drama about an aggressive trainee boxer, the movie begins by developing the character as reckless and aggressive in his fighting style. After the title sequence the coach takes his time to teach the main character the uppercut, a technique he finds pretty hard to master through the times he trains with his coach. He goes back home in a dimly lit alleyway practicing on a punching bag he made himself using the uppercut. Each shot is short and snappy, continuously cutting shorter and shorter with each swing to capture the frustration in the character's actions, with a few cuts maybe of him shouting to the sky for some divine miracle to help him practice his uppercut. He stops and thinks over the battle tomorrow with his opponent, crying next to his punching bag. The day of the fight, and both contestants are ready, with bags under the main character's eyes. The first two fights don't start off well, with the opponent managing to manoeuvre around the main character's attacks. He attempts the uppercuts over and over and the opponent catches on with his pattern, almost knocking him out near the end of the second round. 3rd round, main character changes attack pattern to gain the upper hand. As the opponent gets backed up into the side, slow motion activates to show the main character's thoughts as he repeats the first steps of the uppercut perfectly. As everything seems to go in his favour, he misses in the last second and ends up getting knocked out in the end. The films ends bittersweet with the main character losing the fight, but feeling he has conquered himself and his mentality.

2) A comedy about an author goes on to write a story, what the story is about I don't know just yet. On the following day he becomes a major hit, but he does not know why. he continues to write his stories blindly and they continue to become cult classics. Through the movie his assistant gets more and more tired every time she's in shot, with a twist that she is the one staying up all night re-writing his stories and then sending them off to publishers to make them. Through the film I want to set up the author as a very narrow minded person who likes to shout a lot and disrespect others, including his assistant, so when he comes to find out his work is no longer his own at all, He takes it upon himself to ask for forgiveness. The film ends with the author becoming the new assistant to his former assistant, who is now the lead author.

3) The entire film is set in one location, a comedy about misunderstanding. The main character is sitting on a toilet, from the cubical next to him a man talks to him and they continue talking, and the main character opens up to the man on the other end, using flashbacks to extend the limit of mise-en-scene. It turns out that the man is on the phone to his wife and says to the main protagonist "can you please be quiet, I'm talking to my wife"- the main character widens his eyes to the realisation he interrupted on an entire conversation that wasn't his own with clapped hands over his mouth and under the rim of his nose, as the other man leaves his cubicle, and the movie fades to black.

Ewan's Short Film Analysis.

"Standby" is a short comedy film about friendship and routines, set entirely in a police patrol car. It lasts 5 minutes and 5 seconds long before the credits start rolling, and has been known to be a BAFTA-nominated film screened at the Toronto International and London Short film festival.

 

Cinematography: There isn't much to be said about cinematography as the entire film is captured on a single spot, the two shot of these two people. This can compose the repetition that being on a routine like this captures. It also brings the two people on equal level when talking to each other, when one is never above another.

Editing: Each shot perfectly captures the events that happens every day with these two policemen within the car. From the awkward silences to the conversations with the criminals, from eating cake in the car to singing together to some royalty free rap music.


Mise-en-scene: The movie captures the importance on what is needed within a film like Standby. It can also be sort of stereotypical with it's character choices, such as the hard-headed police driver and the newbie policewoman who is taking her experience as a policeman for the first time. Above is a reaction shot from the aftermath of a crime, and her reaction of being, almost sickly from the view of whatever happened outside. Mise-en-scene continues to be constant even outside of shot, such as the flashing lights outside of the car.

Sound: The majority of all of the sound shown in Standby is diegetic, meaning that it matches the video shown on screen. There might have been some edits with non diegetic sound in order for everything to sound clear and loud enough for the audience to understand, such as the rap music, that appears near the start of the movie, reappears half way through it, and then again in the credit title sequence.

Genre: as titled by Short of the Week, "a Comedy about Friendship in Live-action". the comedy naturally comes from the key moments in these two policemen making conversation with each other, naturally developing a bond that eventually breaks near the end of the film, which covers the "friendship" genre of this film. Comedy I believe wasn't that strong for my tastes, with the funniest parts being the conversations with the criminals, the joke about "having one candle on the cake instead of setting the whole car on fire", and the end of the film where the new recruit get's the coffee wrong, asking for 2 sugars instead of 1.

Narrative: "Standby" tells the story of Police officers Gary (Andrew Paul) and Jenny (Alexa Morden) and how their bond develops as they spend more and more time together in their shared, cramped “office space”. Cleverly jumping through key moments in their relationship, the film takes you through the duo’s cold beginnings to their emotional “break-up”. Regan says the film was inspired by “dads that struggle to verbalise their love but show it so clearly in their subtle actions” and it’s certainly the connection between her two main characters (and the performances from her lead actors) that gives the film its impact.

Title sequence: At first glance there isn't much added to this 4 second title sequence, with police sirens going off in the background mixing with some flashing imagery from police lights, in my opinion this may have to represent the "cold beginnings" as the white title is blinded by the police lights in the background, representing Gary's view of Jenny as another assistant to his job, until the movie continues on to build up the relationship.

Credit sequence: The reoccurring rap of the film, sang by Leon Cunningham, plays over the end of the Credit sequence to remind the audience that this rap was one of many reasons Gary and Jenny became good friends. The same visuals as the title sequence is used again with the flashing lights and static video editing. This may represent the new and same "Cold beginnings" Gary has with his new assistant. I couldn't find anything to represent with the text appearing and disappearing onto screen letter by letter.

You Can watch the video here:

Elliptical editing

Elliptical Editing

Elliptical editing is a film technique used during editing  to portray time passing through a series of events in none natural or linear time This allows events to be much shorter than the duration would normally be in the story with natural time. Instead of showing unnecessary action the film will be cut, fade or dissolve, which is used to show the passing of time, to another scene which is related to the previous scene just gone. 

Doing this a director or editor can cut out the long, tedious and possibly boring 'natural story' which would be in a realistic time. doing his reduces content by removing every movement in real time. For example: if someone were to enter a stair well and continuously walk up each flight of stairs in a ten story building, you would have to show every movement of this taking anywhere between 20 to 30 minutes. instead this can be condensed to around 1 minute of film time by cutting or fading between shots to portray this simple action. in this case the film could show someone walking to the stairwell, starting to go up one flight of stairs and then cut to them being at the top feeling tired or proud of the journey.

This is similarly done in large budget home movies from half an hour of real time to a few minutes in the films time. At it bound elliptical editing can be used to bring greatly different areas and times together at a confluence. this can be seen in the film Citizen Kane, in which Kane is speaking about the deterioration of his first marriage with Emily. We see a fade to this time and space showing the different stages of their marriage as they communicate at the breakfast table. this begins as they have a new relationship with many admiration for each other and is then wiped and dissolved into the next scene of them arguing at a later date and then finally to being silent with just a glance from each other. this cuts the view into a few short minutes compared to the many days or years this could take if acted in real time, thus increasing audience retention as they are not bored with the same material taking significantly longer.

http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/bnd/clips/elliptical-editing-in-citizen-kane#

Analysis of a short film similar to my Idea

Analysis of a short film

Film 1: The Heist

Link: https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2017/08/22/the-heist/

Cinematography

Use of many close ups and medium close ups shots showing many of the characters. As well as a 2 shot showing the main characters narrating the story. It shows many high angle shots looking down and many close ups showing the work they do, this is contrasted with the many different uses of shot to explain the situation of “people they have got” to conduct the break in at all 7 of “Featherstone’s joints”
Editing

The editing consists of many cuts with quick movements to emphasise the “potential action” that can occur between the characters. Each character is shown through an almost montage like view going through many different scenes and different types of situation.

Mise-en-scene

The clothing of the main three characters is shown to be smart, with suits and many professional and affluent attire, suggesting they are well off and financially comfortable due to their criminal acts, this is contrasted to the other characters attires which feature a range from, casual clothes, to teachers, to men in dirty white vests, “Chav” like clothing to leather jackets and biker like aesthetics.

·       Sound

Much of the sound involves an upbeat soundtrack with energy suggesting a chase, it is a non-diegetic sound that gives a stereotypical convention of sound in these types of film, yet provides a difference as it is paired with diegetic sound from characters speaking to break it up.

Genre

Comedic crime, this is a style that combines action and criminal events with an essence of comedy with many stereotypes being portrayed for a comedic value. This is similar to my film idea that takes inspiration from Hot Fuzz.

The genre has many stereotypes such as incompetent criminals or the equivalent law force, which allows the viewer to see the their acts from a third person view, almost allowing the audience to see things about to happen without the characters of the film knowing.

Narrative

The narrative and plot of Heist is based around the idea of 2 con men trying to convince a ‘Rich Jewish guy’ to help them with a heist, almost mob boss like. This then develops into them explaining the plan whilst showing each of their accomplices doing what they do best. This then escalates into comedic view on film stereotypes and how many types of people are portrayed in films such as “we also need to be flexible, so we got an amazing tiny Asian, Chow Wang 5ft 2”, a tiny Asian of tiny Asians. ” This is continued throughout with phrases such as “Now let me tell you who we got for our black guy with a cockney accent” In which the black actor states, “I’m form cockney, where the cockneys live” providing a simple yet entertaining stereotype to our characters. The whole plot to the film is to conduct a criminal act at “All 7 of Featherstone’s joints” which would suggest break ins, however this is the distracted away from by the development of characters through short clips within the entirety of the film.

Title Sequence

The title starts with the simple silence with the whistles of birds in the background as the titles start to appear in a random order showing “Last Hurrah Presents” this then slowly wipes to the left revealing the current stetting and beginning the film.

Credit Sequence

The final scene cuts straight to the end credits to provide comedic effect displaying “The Heist” in red text. The text of the credits is the same text providing continuity. There is a sound bridge using the same music that has been creating a sense of action throughout the short film. The credits each wipe off, stretch motion or venetian blinds movement that provides creative ways for the credits to appear rather than regular scrolling, this then transitions to a regular scrolling effect featuring each and every person who worked upon the film, yet still keeps the bright colours and font to keep with continuity of the ending scenes. 

Film idea (Detailed) - Mastermind

Film name - Mastermind

(More detailed final idea) Waking up in his small cheap apartment next to bottles of alcohol and cigarettes, Jeff decides he has had enough with his small dead end life of being a generic worker and thinks of ways to make real money with little effort involved, a montage commences of possible work ideas he comes up with (All of which backfire spectacularly in his head until the idea of being a hitman comes up, in which he enacts a bond style fight sequence in his head, killing multiple enemies with style) Deciding that this form of work is the best choice to pursue, he heads over to the nearest pawn shop, selling off everything of value that he owns, as investment money for his new career, having aquired a bit of new money he feels confident he has made the right decision. Upon reaching his home he pulls out an old laptop and searches for "lethal assassin jobs near me" and enters the first website he comes across, when it loads the website issues a demand, to kill a set target to prove Jeffs loyalty to them. Thinking this was an easy way in, Jeff accepts and the contract is given to him, detailing he has to kill a wealthy paranoid oil tycoon in a nearby city. Jump cutting the night of the action, Jeff is shown sparsely equipped with some form of clothing resembling tactical gear (Albeit far less functional) and a montage ensues of him breaching the compound with numerous close calls and calamitites with nearly getting caught, getting his clothes snagged on the interior fence, and almost walking straight into an armed patrol. Deciding he has had enough of the guard presence, he sneaks into the ventilation system which works well until he places his hand on one of the panels in front, which falls away, and him falling with it, landing in a common room with over a dozen heavily armed guards. To which one shouts "Get him" and all proceed to open fire, cutting to black soon after.

Eliptical editing

Elliptical editing

 

Elliptical editing is a technique used in film editing that allows an events duration on-screen to be shorter than its duration in the story. The simplest type of elliptical edit is a cut between two shots, both of which show part of the same event.

 

The director can cut out all of the "natural story" time which would be the process of filming every movement in real time. For example if a women leaves for work you would have to show every movement in real time would could take anyway to 30 minutes. Instead of this the director can cut out all of the unnecessary action and reduce 30 minutes to 1 minute by using cuts, fades or dissolves to convey a simple movement. So for example it would show the women putting on her shoes, leaving the house and then cuts to her pulling up to her workplace so would cut out all of the movement in between.

 

Elliptical editing can cut down a boring 40 minute home movie into a few minutes and elliptical editing at its most extreme can be used to make two vastly different spatial and temporal arenas collide. For example in Batman begins when Bruce Wayne journeys up to the mountain village he begins at the bottom, then it cuts to the middle and then cuts to him at the top so cut down a very long journey into a couple of minutes to stop the audience from being bored.

 

 



Film Idea (Detailed)

This is a detailed description of the plot and events to the previous film idea of a comedic crime film.

Our film sees two protagonists who work as police officers. One protagonist is listening to many radio bands and overexagerates to some radio communications between some people communicating. The protagonist overhears this and wrongly connects the dots between what he hears and current events of the world. This leads him to believe that they'll be someone somewhere in the world who must be needing guns and he thinks that the person he's overheard is getting things to supply a militia group.

As the message is being overheard it cuts to the lips of one of the people communicating, at the end of the dialogue the 'criminal' moves his hand and looks at his watch on his wrist, and sets its to a count down mode in which it ticks down toward 9 O'Clock.

-The first event in the story is our protagonists going to find evidence about the case
-The second event someone gets hit by a car during a chase sequence or gets tired and cannot catch a witness (someone who is involved)
-Thirdly, the protagonists have no proof and no one to believe them and cannot
-Finally as they forget to pick up weapons and have no one to back them up they finally kick the door down of the assailants 'base' of operations.

The messages turn out to be friends asking each other for supplies for the party.
They all cheer and shrug the mistake off as if it were a joke at this moment someone offers the protagonists a drink each and they laugh and try to have a good time at that moment someone pulls a party popper off and 'the larger of the protagonists' screams 'get him' the screen fades to black and drops the perpetrator to the floor via a body slam. the screen fades to black and you hear a crash and hand cuff click and then the credits roll.

Group Film Ideas

Aggressive trainee boxer is taught a new move by his coach and struggles to perform it even by his self, A match begins the next day and his slug like fighting style opens him up to most of the punch exchanges in the round, in addition he tries to perform the new move too many times and the opponent catches onto this and predicts his moves, In the third round he monologues his past experience in the past 2 rounds and takes a counter punch role, with his new stance he backs up the opponent to the corner weakening him through the third round, with his spirits now high and engaged form the new moves he could not perform, he now performs this new move as the final knock out move to win the match. The movie ends with a sense of character development as well as an overall view of him succeeding through training and winning his match. (ROCKY 12) (Ewan)
Cannibal cooking show called morsel that involves a reality star chef who makes fancy gourmet food out of cheap things enabling people who cannot cook to experience the joys of cooking. We find out that other c-list celebrities are going missing when they have to shoot a show in the same studio building. after the cooking show starts gaining views because of this it become the most popular day time television show out rating Jezza Kyle. the audience gets subtle hint when they cannot find out what meat he uses. This then turns out to be human meat and it shows him in the end stroking a human thigh and proceeding to chop it up. "Spicy" (Joe & Tom)

The film Idea I have is a comedic crime. This will involve 2 main characters who are police officers in which they will have to stop criminal activity such as a gun-run operation. This will involve he use of a countdown to create a sense a thrilling and pressure on our main protagonists.
During the course of events there will be many comedic things that cause the protagonists to be slowed down or stopped to solving and apprehending our criminal. this then eventually leads to the count down finishing just as the protagonists arrive, in which they burst down the door to find out that its the wrong place or just a birthday party and shows that our protagonists made a mistake in thinking they had a case, they then shrug it off and have a laugh in which someone pulls a party popper or does something in which causes one of the protagonists to jump on him and arrest him.
Roll Credits (Tom)

A man purchases a camera and starts to take photographs and selling the photos (he or she) takes, as he starts to move on to portraits of people, people start going missing the local area. as he starts to develop the photos he sees something strange the photos of people he took are screaming or making horrific faces, suggesting the camera steals people from this world. As he comes to realisation he decides to take a self portrait and the film cuts to the camera falling to the ground, he himself has disappeared. this then cuts to a shot of a missing persons poster of him saying "missing". (Joe)

A college student buys a camera from a local store and is a young photographer. He takes a photo of a flower in the ground and walks away. The camera pans from him and zooms into the flower with a pull focus and

1). (Comedy based) A boy has a crush on a girl in his school and he devotes almost all his time for months upon months to try and get her to appreciate/notice him in the hopes of being able to date her. The years pass by and eventually he gathers the courage to ask her out. To which she replies that she is a lesbian and rejects him (Thomas)

2). The worlds worst hitman (Also somewhat a comedy although darker in tone) - Jeff is just an ordinary guy trying to get by in the capitalist world, he despises doing formal work so he takes up the job of becoming a hired mercenary, investing all of his life savings into getting the equipment and gear required, Into his first job, he discovers the assassin world is much harder than it seems and he is hopeless at all aspects. After some failures during a montage sequence (possibly with his inabilities of sneaking around) the film could end with the contract/target dying by sheer accident (specifics undecided)  (Tripping on a rope which is holding up a chandelier which falls and kills them or maybe bumping an oil barrel which spills onto the floor, setting the ground alight which kills them all etc) or alternatively with Jeff, the main character being caught and killed by armed guards after having entered through the wrong room window, landing in the central guard office. (Thomas)

Film idea-Joe

Names-Dark room/Snapshot/Polaroid.

A college student buys a camera from a local store/ finds it somewhere and is a young photographer. He takes a photo of a flower in the ground and walks away. The camera pans from him and zooms into the flower with a pull focus and it reveals that the flower is gone without the protagonist knowing that it isn't there. He carries on with his day taking more photos. He goes home and takes a picture of his cat for it to again like the flower disappear without the main antagonist knowing again. He begins to take pictures of people with each time him either looking down at the camera or walking away with him being oblivious to the fact that the objects and people that he is photographing have gone. He goes to a darkroom to develop the photos he has taken, and he notices something off about each of the photos but carries on developing them anyway. He hears subtle screams and looks towards the photograph to notice that the expressions have changed from last time he looked at them. This begins to make him anxious and begins to question the camera that he bought earlier in the day. He takes a self portrait and there is a deafening silence and flash from the camera. The camera falls and smashes onto the floor. A polaroid comes out of the camera with the main protagonist on it.

Alternate end: The main protagonist pins up the photos in the dark room and leaves them to develop. The camera pans to the pinned up pictures showing that they are all moving similar to the paintings from harry potter. The protagonist leaves the dark room with his silhouette being the last shot with the door shutting and silencing out the screams. Jump shots could be used for the main protagonist as he walks out of the dark room to convey the warped view of the camera.

The film will be shot in black and white with subtle colours added in like the flash of the camera and the petals of the flower and cinematography will be the way that we subtly hint at the camera stealing its objects and people that it takes and the end minute or two will be the reveal that it actually takes them from reality into the camera. Editing will also be a large part of our film to convey certain parts of the film but to also go along side the subtle hints.

The genre will be a mystery thriller but with it only having a few thriller elements and conventions in it.