Here are our story boards, we have scanned them so that you can see them on the blog, we will explain the pics, encase you cannot read the storyboards.
1) The first section is the opening titles/credits. We have done them in the format of a polaroid photo. We have done this because it gives clues and relates to the story line. 2) The next section is a close up of the character's feet. The girl will walk past, then followed by the male. This should give a sense of the female being stalked and also gives us a variety of camera angles. 3) The 3rd shot is of the woman being chased over a field, we are considering have the woman running towards the camera to see her expression and body language. 4)More titles. 5)Here we have a flash to a room full of polaroid pics of the woman, this gives the audience the thriller feel and an idea as to what the man is up to. 6) Out side of the door.
7) A long shot of the corridor, this gives a sense of the room being secluded. 8) Close up of the stalker. 9) Shot of the stalker in front of the door, the audience has an idea of what is to happen next. 10) This is the girl tied to a pole. 11) See the man behind the pole, and behind the girl. Shows her vandrebility. 12) Polariod pic of the film title 'Stalk-her'.
The thriller genre can include elements of other genres these become sub- genres the main three that fall in to this are :
Action thriller - In which the work often features a race against the clock, contains lots of violence, and an obvious antagonist. These films usually contain large amounts of guns, explosions, and large elaborate set pieces for the action to take place. These films often have elements of mystery films and crime films but these elements take a backseat to action.
Conspiracy thriller - In which the hero/heroine confronts a large, powerful group of enemies whose true extent only he/she recognizes.
Crime thriller - This particular genre is a hybrid type of both crime films and thrillers that offers a suspenseful account of a successful or failed crime or crimes. These films often focus on the criminal rather than a policeman. Crime thrillers usually emphasize action over psychological aspects. Central topics of these films include murders, robberies, chases, shootouts, and double-crosses are central ingredients. Some examples include The Killing, Seven, and The Godfather.
Thrillers often take place wholly or partly in exotic settings such as foreign cities, deserts, polar regions, or high seas. The heroes in most thrillers are frequently "hard men" accustomed to danger. However, they may also be ordinary citizens drawn into danger by accident. While such heroes have traditionally been men, women lead characters have become increasingly common. Thrillers often overlap with mystery stories, but are distinguished by the structure of their plots. In a thriller, the hero must thwart the plans of an enemy, rather than uncover a crime that has already happened. Thrillers also occur on a much grander scale. Jeopardy and violent confrontations are standard plot elements. While a mystery climaxes when the mystery is solved, a thriller climaxes when the hero finally defeats the villain, saving his own life and often the lives of others. In thrillers influenced by film noir and tragedy, the compromised hero is often killed in the process. In recent years, when thrillers have been increasingly influenced by horror or psychological-horror exposure in pop culture, an ominous or monstrous element has become common to heighten tension. The monster could be anything, even an inferior physical force made superior only by their intellect, a supernatural entity, aliens, serial killers. Similar distinctions separate the thriller from other overlapping genres: adventure, spy, legal, war, maritime fiction, and so on. Thrillers are defined not by their subject matter but by their approach to it. Many thrillers involve spies and espionage, but not all spy stories are thrillers. Conversely, many thrillers cross over to genres that traditionally have had few or no thriller elements.
A serial killer known as Buffalo Bill is murdering women, and even worse, leaving them partially skinned. FBI guru Jack Crawford enlists trainee Clarice Starling to go to Hannibal Lecter, an infamous serial killer and cannibal himself, in an attempt to get information on Buffalo Bill's identity. Therein, Hannibal and Clarice form a strange "quid pro qou" relationship, in which he offers information on her case in exchange for personal information about herself. In time he leads her closer and closer to the way she catches the serial killer, who has, at this time, kidnapped a senator's daughter, sending the urgency of the case skyrocketing. While in custody to offer information to the senator herself, Hannibal kills two security guards and escapes ingeniously by wearing one of the dead men's faces. Clarice finally realizes that Buffalo Bill is skinning the murdered women in order to make himself a woman suit out of real women, and accidently goes to his house while attempting to get information on his identity. She gets caught in the basement with him in the dark after discovering the senator's daughter alive and shoots and kills him. After the ordeal, she is promoted to FBI agent. She then gets a call from Hannibal Lecter, who is abroad and about to make another kill: His nemesis, the doctor at the prison where he was held for eight years.
From listening and looking at the opening of the film silence of the lambs, the sound plays a big part in the opening. Right at the begging you hear classical music with a fast past beat to it. Also played over the top of the music is like a eagle or bird chirping and a insect noise that you would expect to hear in woodlands this sound this gives effect to the wood that you see a girl running in. You hear the heavy breathing of the girl and you hear the footstep of her running and the leafs crunching before you acutely see her, this builds up the suspense as we don’t know why she is running or running from. We go on to see that she is running as part of her training for the fbi we see this when we here the gun shots for there target practise the gun shots also make us question what’s going on. We hear her go in to the office to have a deduction with a man that has a powerful voice so this makes me as a viewer think that he is some kind of boss figure then there conversation that they have gives us idea to the narrative of the rest of the film. So in conclusion the sound has given away a lot of clues and built us suspends for us to want to see what is happening with in the opening.
A woman named Grace Stewart (Kidman) retires with her two children to a mansion on Jersey, towards the end of the Second World War, where she's waiting for her husband to come back from battle. The children have a disease which means they cannot be touched by direct sunlight without being hurt in some way. They will live alone there with oppressive, strange and almost religious rules, until she needs to hire a group of servants for them. Their arrival will accidentally begin to break the rules with unexpected consequences.
From looking and analysing the opening scene of the other i can see strait way that there is a motherly character with in the story i can tell this from the motherly voice reading the story and the beging, when it get further in to the opening we are introduced to a lady i see her as the lady of the house. Further on we have then introduced to three other character these turn out to be new staff for the house hold. This confirms my thoughts of the lady being the owner/lady of the house as she is the one that’s employing new house hold staff. We are then introduced to a character even though there isn’t actually a actor playing the part this character is the man on the house but he is introduced through words as he went to war and nothing has been heard since. But still his character has being introduced with in the opening scene this tells me that he has a important part in the story Finally with in the opening scene we are introduced to the two children of the house. With in the opening there are a lot of clues toward the narrative of the film, we find out that the old staff just disappeared from the house with out no warning no note and they didn’t even collect there wages. This is very odd thing and gives us clues to the story line. Also we find out the children have a very rare disease and that there allergic to sun light and that all shutters have to be shut other wise contact with sun light can be deadly. In conclusion to all of this i think that the being of the other gives a lot of the plot away with in the n if you listen and watch it in detail, there are also clues with in the opening telling us that the film is going to be a thriller.
The Shining is a 1980horrorfilm directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. Kubrick co-wrote the screenplay with novelist Diane Johnson. The film stars Jack Nicholson as tormented writer Jack Torrance, Shelley Duvall as his wife, Wendy, and Danny Lloyd as their son, Danny. The film tells the story of a writer, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), who accepts the job of the winter caretaker at a hotel which always gets snowed in during the winter. While his family looks around the hotel during closing day, the psychic hotel chef discovers the psychic abilities of Jack's son Danny, and Danny's ability to detect ghostly presences in the hotel. In the chef's family, this ability is called "shining". When the hotel becomes snowbound, Jack Torrance is driven mad by the ghosts in the hotel, and he tries to murder his wife and son.
I have decided to look at the camera angles from the opening of the shinning, i found that with in the opening scene there was a lot of establishing shots, and birds eye view shots. This showed me as a view that the film was going to be set in the middle of no where, i knew this from all the trees and forest surrounding, i also noticed that all the cars were heading in the opposite direction to the way the car that the camera was following was going. This also tells me that there isn’t going to be a lot of people at the destination that the car is heading to. There want any other houses near by or towns or anything with in the opening sequence all of this gave me as the viewer a sense of loneliness and seclusion. There to feeling is what is need to build up tension as a view. I have got all of these thoughts and ideas from the camera angles and the way it has been filmed.
Memento starts off with a black screen and blue text appears in a bold but normal font. 'New Market Presents' The text fades in and out.
The sound is eerie and slow but gets louder as the title of the film appears on the screen, but then fades away.
We see someones hand, they are holding a Polaroid picture. The audience assumes that it is developing. The character is waving it about every few second, as if helping the ink to develop. We still have the blue text appearing on the screen over the character and the photo.
The photo gradually become less clear, it doesn't seem right, we know that something is wrong, yet may not be able to put our finger on it. After a few seconds, the Polaroid turns white, this is the point that we realise, or confirm our ideas to the shot being played backwards. The Polaroid gets sucked back into the camera, and the camera put inside the man's pocket. By this stage we are certain that it is being played backwards.
We cut to a close up of blood on the floor flowing backwards towards the victim and the gun on the floor flew into the man's hand; the backwards motion of him throwing it on the floor.
The man slowly leans backwards, getting up, instead of falling. The bullet which was lying on the floor gets pulled back into the gun, the gun moves back to the victims head. We know by this point exactly what is going to happen, or has already happened. The music has faded away and now he hear mostly digetic sound. There is a build up of a 'suction' like sound as the gun is brought to his head, this build tension as to what just happened.
Mise-en-scene:
The black background and blue text tells us that it is a thriller.The cold and sad music hit the audience's emotions and we begin to understand and feel the situation that is being shown to us. Along with the image of the blood on the polaroid, we understand what must have just occured.
The music fades in and out, to allow digect sound to be heard.
The man in the scene is wearing a pale suit. He has a long matching jacket, almost like a detaive look. The man is unshaven and has a cut on his face, we get the idea that he is un prganised or a man who does what he must and doesnt care for appearnece. He could be a rough man, who kills people on a regualr bases and dresses in a suit to look important and in charge of a situation.
Alfred Hitchcock: Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born 13th August 1899. He was a British film maker and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspence and psychological thriller genres. After silent movies and talkies, he moved to Hollywood in 1956.
The suspence ad the gallours humour that had become Hitchcock's trademark in film, cotinued to appear in his productions. Near the end of his life he worked on the script for a period spy thriller, The Short Night, collaborating with screen writes James Costigan and Ernest Lehman. The story was never filmed due to his failing health and cocerns fr his wife, this meant that it was finally published posthumously, in a book of Hitchcock's last years. He died 29th April 1980 and was cremated. His ashes were scattered at sea.
Christopher Jonathon Nolan was born 30th July 1970 in London England. He has won awards for Batman Begins and Memento. He is a British film director, writer and producer. Nolan is best known for directing the psychological thriller Memento and for reviving the Batman film franchise as the director of Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008), He is also the founder of the production company, Syncopy Films. He has cast the same 7 actors in a lot of his films:
Quentin Tarantino: Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born on 27th March 1963, in Knoxville, Tennessee, US. He has won several awards for Pulp Fiction. He is an American Film Director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He rose from early fame in the 1990s as an independent film maker whose films used nonlinear storylines and violence. He is currently filming ‘Inglorious Basterds’ a WW2 movie planned to be released at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009. He has been known to quote “When people asked me if i went to film school, i say ‘no, i went to films’. Taranto often makes minor connections between his films, usually by reusing names, locations, fiction brand names and business. A few of his trademarks are general film character using the bathroom. Often includes characters dressed in black suits, with a white shirt and black tie. His films often contain lines of dialogue in which a character rhymes when talking.
‘Signs’ starts off with a black background, we then get a blue ambient light with the text in front of it. The blue light resembles a torch or search light, this fits into the theme of a thriller and what they are about. The titles are as simple black text format. It is quite a large font and is bold. The text appears and fades in a timed pattern. As the titles go on, the music speeds up and then the text becomes in time with the music. This is building up the tension of what is to come. When there is a dramatic thump / drum in the music, the text is almost thrown at the audience. The sound and sudden information that has been given to us make us both jump and anticipate what will happen. Eventually it goes to a black screen and then the main character jumping out of bed. The character jumping, makes the audience jump and then question why.
Mise-en-Scene:
The mise-en-scene in ‘Signs’ shows the family’s isolation. The sound builds up the tension until we get silence, which is broken by the man’s scream. There isn’t a lot of lighting; the only lighting we do get is that from the early morning sun rise. The darkness is there to make us wonder what is going on, why he and the children screamed and what kind of environment they are in. They live on a farm, surrounded by crops; their isolation tells us that they are on their own where the danger comes. They live in a large, old house, open to attack and is shown as being very vulnerable. The very tall crops allows the danger to hide and watch the family without us or the family actually seeing who / what it is, but knowing they are there. The family is shown as being rather weak and helpless. The sound is louder and faster to build tension, but it also has a few piano notes in it to give the Si-Fi aspect. A lot of those mise-en-scene features tell us what is going to / most likely to happen later on in the film.
