Lighting.

Information/research on Alfred Hitchcock.

Alfred Hitchcock was one of the most successful directors. This is simply because he wrote thrillers but he managed to do it in a way that no other person could do. The thrillers that he made always had a good twist. For example Thronhill was not a resourceful hero. So Hitchcock is suggesting anyone can be dragged into a mess.

Alfred Hitchcock was 80 years old when he died and was born in 1899. He managed to direct and produce more than 50 feature films. The films he made where always so great because they would always have great twists.

He makes his thriller more than just a normal one. He mixes more of the thriller genres together.

There was a film that Alfred had written and was ready to be filmed. It was never filmed mainly because of the fact that his health was decreasing and his wife had just had a stroke. The film was called "The short night".

Alfred died in his home town of bel air. This was on 29th April 1980.

The 1950's was Alfred's peak years. This was when he was at his best and was filming some of the best films up to this very day.

He is one of the most memorable actors still up to this day. His films had quite a low production value but he still managed to make them very interesting.

A lot of Alfred's film would link by things like there was
no normal enemy. For example in the film "The birds" The enemy was again nature because the advantage people take form nature. This again links to Psycho because it is not one single enemy but two people in one person.

This can also apply with the heros. Like in the film North By NorthWest. Thornhill was not a trained hero like a lot of people are in films these days.

 One of the most famous scene that he was remember for was the psycho shower scene. This shower scene took huge amounts of takes to get right. This was because they had to get this skin tight dress in the perfect position. By the time they got the correct take the actress didn't want to take anymore and never wanted to have a shower again and now only baths.

Definition of a Maguffin?

The definition of a Maguffin is when someone or the enemy is willing to give up absolutely anything.

This could include money, power, wealth, survival or something completely unexplained.

It is very common in films, especially in thrillers. This is because it gives the enemy something that he is actually working for. For example in the film Die hard. The enemy is usually working to gain power and money.

Also with a Maguffin it helps the story to be planned out more. It makes the film run smoothly through instead of having to stop at every point and have to explain why he is doing what he is doing.

Sometimes with a Maguffin it can be forgotten by the end of a film because it leaves the importance of it.   This could be because we start to more want to know how to hero is going to fix the issue of the story, not if the bad guy is going to win and run with the money. In short terms by the end of the film The audience does not really care what happens.

What is the definition of suspense/shock?

The main meaning of suspense is when a certain situation builds up to the highest point and then the point is almost given away. It builds up from something small, for example the scene in "North by North West". The scene is in the auction house. Where Thornhill is surrounded by his enemies. At first we do not think it is too much of a big deal because we think he will be able to simply walk out.  Then the suspense builds to the point where we don't have any idea of how he is going to get out of the building. Also another scene with the plane we see it in the distance do its job however we do not expect anything form it int he future however it appears randomly and starts shooting at Thornhill after the man says something about the plane not actually dusting the fields. We start to hear the noise of the plane as it gets closer. This build suspense of us wanting to know if the plane is going to attack him.

It gets to the point where Thornhill knows that he has been captured and all the exits are covered. It then carries on the raise of suspense level by Thronhill acting rude and trying to get himself kicked out. By the point the enemies notice this he has already been escorted out of the building.

The definition of shock is when something that you did not expect actually happens.
The parts of the film where shock is showed is the plane seen. This is because we dont expect a plane to come out of nowhere and start shooting at him. We get the slight idea of suspense when we see the plane in the distance we get the idea that it may attack him.

Audio test video

Evaluation of sound test.

The sequence that we filmed for this was a russian drug deal. Where the boss is disappointed in one of his workers and is threatening him to not do it again. The boss continues to explain how he is the leader and no one can touch him. 

We included all of the sounds. The diegetic was the speech throughout the whole of the video. Non-diegetic could be where we had music throughout the video in the background. An on screen sound would again be the speech. An off screen sound is when someone was on camera but someone else was talking. The sound bridge could be the music and how it carried on through every scene that was filmed. Then the parallel music we included was that the music went with the video it was sad and low.

The thinking behind each scene was to make the impression that the worker was little and powerless. We demonstrated this by having the worker filmed from above to make him look small.Where as we filmed certain scenes from where the boss was scene from down below what made it seem he was a lot more powerful than the worker. 

We used some techniques like when the worker was walking away with a POV view the boss was talking off screen gave the impression that the boss is everywhere and all around him. It could also suggest that the boss is not forgetting what had happened that day. 

Some shots were more successful that others but on a whole I think that we completed this task to a good level. For example in my opinion one of the best shots was when the worker walked away with a POV shot but we could hear the boss off screen. 

The sound was captured very well. This is because the location we put the microphone. We put it between the table so it was in a place that captured the sound very well but also was quite well hidden. At the same time the walking away POV shot the person filming had the microphone on them so you heard the boss getting farther away as they walked away.

We used the sound equipment effectively because we made sure that it was working very well before we started recording. With diegetic and non diegetic we determined which was which easily and used it to our advantage by creating effect with the sound.

On screen and off screen were used well because we made sure it was quite obvious that we done it.

We only used parallel sound because we wasn't able to put them both in the one video. 

We used the sound bridge by playing music throughout the whole video. 

The most positive elements of the film were that we was able to edit everything so it stood out and made sense, but also we made sure the story was understandable and clear. 

If I went back to make improvements I may have done more takes for each scene so we had more variety.

What different types of thrillers are there?

Different types of thrillers:

There can be many types of thrillers. This is because they can be crossed with different genres. So for example you can have a Horror Thriller. This would be where there is action in certain parts of the film and also have the techniques and follows the story of a thriller, but it will be crossed with a horror what would make it have more jump scares and gore.

Or a different type of thriller could be where the start of the film starts at the ending. So for example we may see a dead person and we need to find out the story of them and what happened to them. Or a thriller can start at a random point and jump around to different parts. For example after a scene it could say " 10 hours earlier" or "a week later".

Another way a thriller could be changed is if instead of having a main resourceful character. You could have a range of different people. For example in North by Northwest. Hitchcock made the main character untrained and not very helpful in the story line. He just suffered through a lot of situations.

Another version could be something called a Suspense thriller. This is where the audience will already know what is going to happen but there is no hope in stopping the event from actually happening. Yet it builds suspense because the audience hope in some miracle that it wont happen. This will create suspense for the moment of the event.

Next could be a political thriller. This is where a political scandal or corruption in a business leads a hero being uncontrollably sucked into events. Or it could be a type of detective that is trying to uncover the truth and then is dragged into something more that he actually needs to be in.

Summary of North by Northwest.

Is Thronhill a typical resourceful hero?

Thronhill is not out typical hero. This is because we have noticed at the start of the film he is just a businessman that lies to get his own way. For example when he lied about a women being pregnant so they could take the taxi instead of someone else.

So he was dragged into this situation by the FBI or special services. We can tell he is our typical hero because, of the fact in certain situations he has not been trained and really doesn't know what to do. For example where he was kidnapped and but in a room in a house. He shouldn't have tried to find an escape. Instead he sat there waiting.

Though he is not out typical hero. We can clearly see that he is very resourceful. We know this because of the scene in the auction house. He was trapped from both exits of the room. He used the resources he had and got his self kicked out by police. So he used what he could by creating a disturbance in the auction house multiple times. This created a public disturbance and many complaints where made and he was removed without being killed by the enemies.

What are the rules and conventions of a thriller?

The first and one of the most important rules of making a thriller is to:

Grab the audiences attention. This could be done in multiple ways for one it could start of with an action scene. This could be a chase of some sort. This will leave the viewers wondering what is happening. Or it could start with a dramatic scene. For example someone's death and you would want to know the persons story and why this has happened to them.

Don't make the story line to obvious. You need to use a lot of techniques. These could include: Plot twists and red herrings. These techniques will insure that the viewer will not know the next point of the film.

Another rule that can be helpful in a thriller is if you point out the main characters strengths and weaknesses. This is because you then will understand what they are vulnerable too.

If you want to try and make a good impression on an audience you should really try to teach them a lesson. For example at the end of he film "The Birds". We had learnt the lesson that we take advantage of the birds and they do nothing in return. If they ere to flock together and take revenge we wouldn't have chance against them.

One more rule could be to keep secrets in the film. For example show hints of certain moments but do not tell the viewer of the full situation and reason. This will create more suspense and mystery.

Alfred Hitchcock : The birds

 119 min - Horror | Thriller

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

Daphne Du Maurier (story), Evan Hunter (screenplay)

Stars:

Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren and Suzanne Pleshette

At first we believe that this film is going to consist of a romance. This slowly turns into a thriller with a slight bit of romance. It turns into a crazy thriller about birds that have had enough with the humans for treating them wrongly. For example caging them up and killing and eating them. As the film progresses the birds increase in numbers and become a lot more vicious because of this.

We usually think of the villain in a thriller one person that has a grudge against somebody. This time it is nature that has had enough of being treated wrong and wants its revenge. So it’s not one enemy starting all of the events.

Hitchcock tries to make a thriller where the enemy is all around you and can get you wherever you’re hiding. So for example if you are hiding in a house the birds can still get through. This gives the thriller more of a jump scare feel. This is because wherever you go there could be a bird waiting around the corner ready to attack you.

Thrillers are usually full out action thought the whole film, but what Alfred Hitchcock has tried to do is give a sense of normal and calmness is the film. So one minute you could have people being attacked by birds the next they are calm and relaxed talking about how to fix the issue.

The issue of the villain in the birds is that it is not one well equipped enemy. It is many of the same enemy when brought together can be very dangerous. Also with the resourceful hero there wasn’t one because first we didn’t really have a specific hero. Also the film ended with the threat still being there.

One of the main features used in the birds is the use of a red herring. This is when we at first thought that it was going to be a romance but we were wrong and it turned into a thriller. Or romantic thriller.

Also we have a scene where we see that the children are singing but it contrasts to the evil nature that is waiting outside for the children to leave. Also when we see the high angle shot outside the café it is like the eye of god looking down saying he is not going to fix the mess that they have created.

There was a great amount of endings that was considered to being used in the thriller. The one that they did use though, showed that the threat of the birds was still there and if not treating to birds correctly they could again come back for revenge, because we have seen what the birds are already capable of, and if even more of them are grouped together it could be an even bigger threat to the community.

Review of camera angles

Assignment

We was not trying to tell a story we was instead trying to show all of the different camera angles, and then edit the shots. For example cutting them down and putting some effects on them. Like fading in and fading out.  We did have an idea for a story for the video but we were then told we didn't need one; we just needed to show all of the different camera angles in a video. This was to show are understanding of what we have learnt so far in the subject.

We included most of the camera angles one of the angles that we didn't do was the rolling shot this is because we couldn't really do this without a proper steady cam and we didn't at the time fully understand how to do a rolling shot. Also we didn't do the over the shoulder shot.

We used the long shot to show a mysterious person in the distance this was to show that it was not just a normal type of shot but it created mystery as the music built up. Next we used the extreme close up to create even more mystery because its just an close up of an eye we don’t know what the true meaning of it really is and why it is there.

We next used the movement of the point of view shot to make it seem like the person was lost and needed help with something, but it just showed people ignoring him and not listening. Seeming like they were zoned out we made the camera shake slightly more to give the effect of the person panicking.

The low angle shot was used to make the person being filmed seem more dominant and more powerful. This also links to the high angle shot. This is because it makes the person being filmed seem like they are small and not powerful.

The pan was used to show that the mood was calmer and normal this was to show not everything was bad and there was still some hope to look for. The tilt shot was used to show things being turned upside down. This gave the effect that nothing is as it seems and you cant trust anything.

The crane shot was used to try and imply the ending that everything is over and what has been committed had happened and cannot be fixed.

We used some shots to show different emotions like, the pan shot showed people talking what made it seem like quite a calm moment. The movement of the camera helped show this by slowly moving to show calmness. The choices of using certain shots to show different emotions worked well because it gave the video more build up. We also wanted to create a mysterious feel to the video. So we used the long shot to show a dark figure in the distance.

One of the problems we had was holding the camera perfectly steady a lot of the time. This problem could have been fixed if we were to of had some equipment called a steady cam.This could have been the point showing the pan shot the camera slightly wiggled once when it was being recorded. Also when we done the high angle shot the camera was not completely fluent while moving the camera. If we were able to use different stands/tripods we may have been able to keep it sturdier. 

I feel what we done well were able to keep quite a serious mood and not have any bad edits in our work. We tried to add some extra effects to make it seem more professional. We could make improvements in the syncing of the music.

Media Studies Camera Test Coursework