The polaroid camera is used as the main driving point of the narrative: one shot from this camera will take out anything it sees from existence and trap it inside a small polaroid camera.
Blackboard stand: used to advertise the main character's new business with the cursed camera.
Polaroids: Vintage photos of people and objects in small paper-size images. photos include some props, people and animals and plants.
Missing Poster: After the model gets her photo taken, missing posters of her are scattered around the village, integrating around the house of residence where she use to stay.
Flower: The first object the camera takes a photo of, and the first object to disappear, setting the theme of the film.
Boxes: A simple prop found in almost every attic. the boxes will act as a obstacle for the main character to clamber over, as well as a safe place to put the camera in and make it seem vintage and old.
Painting: the painting was created by the main character's mother, and is the second prop to disappear by the polaroid camera
Dark Room: the room filled with polaroids like a museum, said to haunt the main character as they change position and facial features.
1) 2 people don't like each other very much. One of them has a birthday coming up and the other plans a prank for him later on. On the day the person hands the present over to him. The birthday boy opens it only to receive a prank present, either written on a slip of paper or the literal "nothing present" from IWOOT:
2) A mind game on rock paper scissors. Either a sketch where the two people can't seem to get anything other than the same hand symbol, or A slow motion voice over narrative other the thought processes of the two people
3) A conversation with a psychic. A twist in the study by making the Restricted story feel more Omniscient while the Omniscient narrative feels more restricted. This will work by using voice overs to simulate psychic mind reading in the Restricted narrative, and a simple shot-reverse-shot for the omniscient shot.
Actor: Joe Usher. Name: Roman Age: Roughly 16-18 years old Gender: Male Nationality: white British Accent: Northerner Hometown: Barnsley Talents/Skills: Photography Height: 6ft 1in Weight: 140lbEye Colour: Blue Hair Colour: Brown Glasses Skin colour: White Shape of Face: Vertical Oval Distinguishing features: subtle scar on his right cheek. How does he dress?: Casual with subtle clothing to show personality like badges and pins. Mannerisms: Pushes the glasses up often, fidgets hair, shaking the leg up and down. Habits: chewing gum. Health: In good health Hobbies: Photography, listening to classic rock, films, Disabilities: none Style (Elegant, shabby etc.):Stylized middle class mainly denim Greatest flaw: His casual appearance and speech make him not as strong within formal conversations. Best quality: He's a photography student, meaning he's patient and has a good eye for art.
Voice/Actor: Name: Mum Age: late 40s Gender: female Nationality: White British Accent: Northerner Hometown: Barnsley Talents/Skills: Artist/Painter (Is no longer planned to be featured) Actor: Keighley Name: Woman Age: early 20s Gender: female Nationality: White British Accent: Northerner Hometown: Barnsley Height: 5ft 7in Weight: 134lb skin colour: white Eye colour: Tin Blue Hair colour: Golden brown No glasses Shape of Face: Full and Round. Distinguishing features: How does she dress?: Similar to Roman suggesting they are around the same age Mannerisms: Habits: usually has phone in hand Health: In good health Hobbies: Having her photo being taken, interacting with others Disabilities: none Style (Elegant, shabby etc.): Stylized, middle class Greatest flaw: Not Known Best Quality: Friendly, enjoys the company of others.
Actor: Tom Name: Man who hangs up photos Age: 16-18 Gender: Male Nationality: white male Accent: Northerner Other: Also an artist as he hangs up photos.
Each genre of film will have its own conventions and stereotypes of what sounds should be used to achieve certain effects. many feelings and emotions can be invoked due to the affect of music.
Crescendo
One sound of these is very high crescendo based sounds.
Crescendo based sounds and effects are those that increase in amplitude/volume the longer and more prolonged a scene goes on. this is to signify a tension or potential risk that a character may face in the story. This tension proceeds to help suggest to the audience that an event could occur. this is important as the increase in pace effects the viewer as they will start to subconsciously breathe at the same rate potentially changing their heart rate causing a better reaction to the event.
Fast paced
There is a lot of fast paced music within thrillers that allow them to evoke emotion and ensure the audience can feel the effect and immersion of a chase scene or fast paced event, this subconsciously starts to make the audience feel a thrill and. The fast pace comes from an increase in BPM (Beats per Minute) this is done for the expressive effect that creates a sense of chase or build up, the faster the music, the more intense the situation and the more a persons heart beats causing them to breathe quicker and quicker.
Slow build up sounds
Slow build up sounds are used create the sense of danger approaching this features the use of a crescendo that builds and builds until the imminent danger arrives, but this is a long drawn out process with many halts within the music or returns back to the slow build ups as if it were looped.
the long drawn out sounds keep the audience grasped for the firs "loop" in which they will feel a suspense, as this starts to repeat and die down they left hanging as if nothing is about to happen this then relaxes them and provides a "Shock" creating a further appeal to the film.
Pause in sound.
The use of pauses within a sound track help to portray emotions from a character or show something devastating that may have happened this helps to support these emotions as the atmosphere is sad sounding or that of a dramatic nature which can provide moments, pauses, for actions that help portra death, drama and sadness.
Infrared Sounds
Infrared sound is a technique mostly used within horror films, it is the reason why things "Sound scary" or even "Feel scary". They are lower frequency sounds that are below the hearing range of the average human, around 20hz to 20Khz, this means they are around 15hz and below. These vibrations obviously cannot be heard and thus trigger the instant primal fear in the brain. Due to this these vibrations are "felt" causing us to feel deep beats, steps and growls that we otherwise wouldn't hear causing us to be emmersed deeper into the sensory mine field of the film experience.
Every different genre of film and media tend to set its locations to help immerse its audience. Within a thriller genre film, this tends to be places of contrasts or changing environments. This may differ for the sub genre but they tend to be either city-scapes with large high rise buildings to create the realistic feel of threat and make the audience feel they may be at risk in the real world.
Many different sub genres of thriller tend to go toward the horror route, including abandoned houses, forests and dark mysterious outside areas. This is because each of these places creates tension and suspense of the audience. Due to their abandonedness they are seen to be haunted and the enigma of why they are abandoned starts to circulate in the audiences mind.
Dark forests tend to be used for similar reasons, this is because many local areas, especially in the UK, have forests or woods that are close by, this furthers the realism of something "lurking in the woods" that seems to never end and the dark dense area provides a claustrophobic atmosphere in which the viewer feels they cannot escape.
There are also many regularly seen outdoor areas that can be made eerie or have a tension building atmosphere, these could be alley ways or tight paths between houses, poorly lit countryside paths such as bridleways and public pathways, that suggest something thrilling is about to happen giving a sudden change of emotions.
These locations all create an eerie feeling within the viewer as they know absolutely nothing about what seems like a normal area. due to this a primal nervousness creates the feeling that something is about to happen and that unknown of weather it is or isn't, is what creates that suspense of the thriller genre through locations
"A newly married couple discovers disturbing, ghostly images in photographs they develop after a tragic accident. Fearing the manifestations may be connected, they investigate and learn that some mysteries are better left unsolved." This film is similar to ours because the plot revolves around a camera which causes people to mysteriously disappear, most likely through a tragic death.
"High school loner Bird Fitcher has no idea what dark secrets are tied to the mysterious Polaroid vintage camera she stumbles upon, but it doesn't take long to discover that those who have their picture taken meet a tragic end." Again linking to our film, with a premise of meeting a tragic end to anyone being caught within the photo. The main object is also a polaroid camera, except our gimmick is trapping people inside photos, while POLAROID simply has a spirit killing people one at a time, similar to how "The Ring" works.
"During the summer of 1979, a group of friends witness a train crash and investigate subsequent unexplained events in their small town." This film is similar to hours by the theme of photography and trying to capture the unknown. The thing differentiating this film to ours is that the unknown is directly linked to the camera, while in Super 8 links to the entire town.
"Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance." Citizen Kane links to our film as we're attempting to make a noir film, using the limitation of black and white from this film in hopes of improving our own.
The film has also been known to incorporate brilliant uses of cinematography and lighting to give off different effects and moods.
"A film that explores the dark and miserable town, Basin City, and tells the story of three different people, all caught up in violent corruption." This film is similar to ours because of it's black and white art style. Our movie may incorporate similar colour control such as making blood red and everything else black and white.
All films have a form of post filming editing that creates a convention of the genre.
Thriller genre films tend to use this to create odd or quick actions that would gain an audiences attention and grip them further into scenes.
One of these is Jump cuts.
Jump Cuts
A jump cut is described as a transition between shots that breaks a continuity or of natural motion. These jump cuts are used to create a un natural break between shots that allows the audiences view to be distorted or convey action within the scenes. According to some sources, this can also be sued to create a visual of an audiences mental state or show what looks like a supernatural phenomena. If a jump cuts is used to above a person and shows close ups, it con convey a characters weakness within the scene or can be shown to convey strong emotions. when example of jump cuts can be seen in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
Not just the use of jump cuts, but thriller films like to make the use of graphic matches, match on actions, and parallel editing.
Graphic match
A Graphic match is an important technique within the history of thriller film, used many a time by Alfred Hitchcock in films such as "Psycho" it has led to being a very classic and yet not so commonly used feature.
Graphic matches are used to connect two points in time and space, this thus links two scenes together, which may be unrelated, this provides for a smother transition between scenes by linking two items or objects of similar size, textures and looks. This is most famously done within the Shower scene in "Psycho".
Match on Actions
Match on actions are used in all genre types, these are used to help continuity such as opening a door and passing through it. If a film does not contain this, the audience can be disorientated and distracted. The use of this match on action is more specifically used in certain scenes to build up to action as films tend to keep on focus of each individual move that an actor does, this helps to supply a slow build up of tension and suspense that will be supplied via the thriller format.
This type of match on action can be seen in the short "Dr Who" clip below
Parallel Editing
There is a more common trope to use parallel editing within thrillers, this is a technique in which two or more characters are shown doing something at the same time in different spatial locations, this usually signifies that each others actions have an importance to each other. this could be of a team in an action thriller or even that of antagonists and protagonists, where we as a viewer get a third person view of them both showing us that they do not know the impact of each others actions that we will get an insight into.
At the beginning of the film he takes a photo of something within the attic. We know the camera works but the character does not. Imagine having to walk outside just to take a picture only to find out it doesn't work. Something has to be taken before hand to make sure it works.
Take your time to describe surrounding areas and Mise-en-scene. Some area's are lacking in visual representation that a script desperately needs for it to succeed.
In the end of the film, when he takes a self portrait of him with the camera, it should end with him looking around in a medium shot. The actor slowly freezes into position and then the shot zooms out to see him inside the polaroid. This way, the audience is given some form of relief before that hole of emotion is filled back again with eerie and scary realisation that the main character has been trapped. The camera then dolly's out from the door as it slowly closes, and when the door sound shuts, then it cuts away to the title.
(Optional) Give the movie some disturbing imagry by making the character tear one of the photos only to see blood drip out between the tears.
Do not involve any one else except for the main character when inside the dark room. Sure, involve a character that's within every shot to give away some kind of disturbance to the scene, but that mystery character never actually makes contact with the main character in anyway shape or form.
Noir films don't have a very formulaic storyline to follow, most days it's now just a way to describe a movie set entirely in black, shades of grey and white for an art style. What each noir films linked together, however, is some kind of tension between the story and it's characters. The majority of Noir films hold some kind of mystery, which can fall into many different genres such as Detective, Thriller, Horror, Crime. For a noir film there is:
Some kind of introduction, either to characters and possibly some foreshadowing to future events. A good example of this is Hitchcock's "Stranger's on a Train", where at the beginning the main character has an argument with his wife, saying on the payphone that "I want to kill my wife!" to a friend. This comes to foreshadow the future death of the wife.
There needs to be development between events or characters, or even new events or new characters. This time can be used to go into more detail about characters, their back story, interests, and other elements to flesh out and make the characters more human than simply actors on a screen. Events can also be updated similar to a news article or shown before our very eyes.
(OPTIONAL) The film follows with a twist that the audience doesn't see coming throughout the film. A good twist is mentioned in the development or beginning, but doesn't become too obvious that it doesn't become a twist anymore (Despicable Me 2 is a bad example of twisting a plot line, as it's mentioned obviously with the constant mention and reappearance of the villain El Macho). A good twist for a Noir Film would be to find out that such things have happened to said character. A common one for Noir in my opinion would be saying the killer is someone who we've always seen as innocent.
The film must conclude with one last event or 2, wrapping everything up and making sure that there is no more plot holes to fill. For a Noir film, this could be "Murderer gets captured, main character hooks up again with love interest, and optional lastly, the cycle repeats itself".
