Genre conventions of Thriller and horror films

Conventions of the genre Horror/Thriller looking at the film 1408:

Using these 6 categorys:

-Mise-En-Scene

-Narrative

-Charactors/Representation

-Cinematography

-Editing

-Sound

Film 2: 1408

 

 

Mise-en-scene:

•  Rain, Thunder, Lightning, Stormy weather
• Dark low key lighting
• Scary house
• Haunted mansion/hotel
• Lost in a storm.

Narrative:

• Man lost in a storm
• Ghost hunting in a hotel.
• Author researches top 10 most haunted houses.

Charactors:

• White, american, brave, man, who enjoys thrills and hunting ghosts and paranormal.
• Hotel couple- Middle aged, american, psyco, mad.

Cinematography:

• Close up- Of the cigerette, shows its importance.
• Establishing shot- of the hotel surronded by woods and a bridge.

Editing:

• Non- Chronological order- flashback of him in the hotel.
• Ellipsis- Showing him passing time in his hotel room, uses mixes to run smoothly.
• Clean cuts throughout.

Sound:

• Radio in the car at the beginning.
• Music is eery at night, and changes dramatically to jolly in the daytime.
• Police sirens (Amplified sound)
• Thunder, Lightning, wind and rain (Amplified sound)

 

 



 

Genre conventions in Thriller/Horror films

Conventions of the genre Horror/Thriller looking at the film When A Stranger Calls: 

Using these 6 categorys:

-Mise-En-Scene

-Narrative

-Charactors/Representation

-Cinematography

-Editing

-Sound

Film 1: When A Stranger Calls

 

 

Mise-en-scene:

• Fun Fair- rides, candyfloss, balloons, children
• Houses- window, Sillohette
• Low key lighting
• Police Searching- body bags
• Red Balloon- connotes danger

Narrative:

• Someones been killed- Murder
• Womens being stalked over the phone.
• Being lost in a fun fair

Charactors:

• Stranger- dark silohette, shadow
• Young Woman
• Mum Charactor
• Police- All men, main officer/investigator was old, white, fat, american.

Cinematography:

• POV shot- beginning, shakey and makes us feel uncomfortable.
• Close Up- Main police investegators face seeing the murder scene (Emotion of digust and scared)
• Low Angles of the fun fair- disorinatating, makes you feel insecure.

Editing:

• Whipping transitions.
• Flashing quickly into diffrent shots.
• Jumpy, Quick and fast paced editing.
• Fade to Black.

Sound:

• Phonecall (between young woman and the stranger)
• Laughter of children (Scary and Twisted)
• Mechanical noises of the fun fair rides
• Scream of the woman being murdered (amplified sound)
• Police car sirens (Unsyncrinous)
• Tense, Metalic, Slow paced and eery music thats dis-chorded.

Film Questionnaire Results Analysis

From the questionnaire I ran, this is my result analysis:

•  The majority of people I questioned were in the age range of 15-18 years.

• Out of the 10 people questioned 6 of the people are students, 3 are employed and 1 was retired.

• Out of 10 people questioned 50% goto the cinema to watch films, these are all in the age range above 15 years and below 40 years.

• Out of the 10 people questioned 100% watch films at home, however only 50% also watch films at a cinema.

• Out of 10 people questioned 30% never goto the cinema, and 10% rarely goto the cinema, most of these are in the age category under 12  and 40 plus years.

• Out of the 10 people questioned 50 % only watch films on a friday and a saturday, the other 50% will watch films at anytime.

• Overall, the genre Comedy was the most popular with 9 out of 10 people choosing it.

• The second most popular was Action with 7 out of 10 people choosing it.

• Overall, the genre Anime was the least popular with only 2 out of 10 people choosing it

• The second least favourite was joint with Horror, Romance and Mystery all only got chosen 3 times.

Film Questionnaire

 

 

Film Production Company Logo's

20th Century Fox- Home Entertainment
The big writing and statue shows they are a big company.
The Spotlights show that they are important and "in the spotlight"20th Century shows they are modern.
"Home Entertainment" shows that you can get cinema quality at home.

DreamWorks

Dreamworks connotes that they produce family and fantasy films, allowing kids to dream.

The small child fishing shows they are fishing for ideas

The small child shows the inner child in every person.

 The fact hes in space shows that they can achieve there dreams and wishes. As lots of small children wish to goto space.

 

Universal

 The world shows that universal produce films for all over the universe.

 The title being bigger shows that they are a bigger company than everyone else.

 There name is universal this is also because they are known world wide, and produce all over the world.

 

 

PIXAR

The lamp is facing towards us showing that theyre films are produced with there audience in mind, and there the most important.

The lamp is also animated to show they produce animated films.

 The actual logo is extremly simple, as there films are aimed at children in mind.

 

Paramount   

The word Paramount means more important than something else or the most important, this shows parmount is the most important company.

 The stars in the semi-circle show that they have famous stars and actors in there film.

 The mountain connotes they are at the peak of there industry and ontop of everyone else.
 

Warner Brothers

The Warner brothers logo connotes that 

 

Preliminary Task

 

The Task:

The task was to film, and edit a peice of footage showing a range of shot types and other filming and editing skills. Our preliminary task had to include:

 

-Good continuity

-Shot Reverse Shot

-Match On Action

-180 degree rule

 

What went well?

 

Overall our priliminary task went well, and we used the range of shot types and good editing to achieve a continous 30 seconds of footage of a conversation, from my feedback i have shown i can use match on action, the shot reverse shot and 180 degree rule whilst two people are having a conversation, i have good tight editing and good continuity with footage and sound aswell.

 

What to improve?

 

From my feedback i found out my editing could have been tighter and the close up shot on the door should of been cut earlier, because of the slight pause before the door was opened, it slows it down.

I, Robot Opening Title Sequence

I, Robot (2004)

Opening Title Sequence

 

 

0 seconds- Fade from black to neon blue lights.

5 seconds- "Twentieth Century Fox presents" title appears from the blue lights and moves around the shot.

11 seconds- The title dissapears into the the next blue light.

13 seconds- "In Association with Mediastream IV" Appears through the next blue light.

19 seconds- The title then disspears behind another set of blue lights.

21 seconds- Blue lights disspears and bubbles ontop of a red light is seen.

24 seconds- A bright flash is used, and the title "I, Robot" is shown.

26 seconds- Red light gets brighter, fills the shot.

29 seconds- Title disppears into bubbles.

32 seconds- More bubbles fill the shot and burst.

37 seconds- The "Law I" Title appears through the bubbles.

46 seconds- The "Law I" title dissolves into bubbles.

48 seconds- Fast pan shot, into a shot underwater of a person trapped in a car.

50 seconds- The "Law II" title apears through bubbles.

56 seconds- The "Law II" title dissolves into bubbles.

59 seconds- Fast pan shot, back to the car underwater, shot of metal legs outside the car.

1 minute- Fast pan shot, to the car next to him, someone else is trapped in the car.

1 minute 2 seconds- Quick cut, to a close up of a person drowning.

1 minute 4 seconds- "Law III" title appears through more bubbles.

1 minute 16 seconds- The title dissolves into bubbles that cover the screen.

1 minute 18 seconds- Quick cut, to the person trying to get out of the car under water.

1 minute 20 seconds- Quick cut, to a close up of a metal hand smashing through the window.

1 minute 22 seconds- Robots face comes through the car window

1 minute 23 seconds- Quick cut, to a alien type hand reaching towards the camera.

1 minute 24 seconds- Quick cut, to a extreme close up of charactors eyes opening in shock.

1 minute 25 seconds- Zooms out to see the whole face of the charactor.

1 minute 28 seconds- Fade to black.

Se7en Film Opening Notes

Film Opening Notes

Information-

·         Casting Directors names

·         Music Producers names

·         Co-producers names

·         Producers names

·         “New Line Cinema presents”

·         Actors names

Image-

·         Extreme close ups of what he’s doing (Cutting up newspapers, stroking a sewing needle) this shows us what he is doing is detailed.

·         Images fill the screen (scrapbook)

·         Disturbing images (Crossing out words like God and intercourse, and scribbling on people’s photos) this shows he is destructive.

·         Close up, turning pages of a big book.

·         Iconography- Razor blade, needles.   

Sound-

·         Strong heartbeat beat throughout.

·         Slow and low rhythmic beat.

·         Dark over powering sounds.

·         Sounds are discordant, don’t all fit together.

·         Beat gets faster paced, like a heart beating quickly towards the end.

Font-

·         Fonts are shaking (adds to the disturbing images.)

·         Font is handwritten and messy.

·         Contrast of black and white font. Dark shows darkness and threats

·         Font is randomly laid out, shows the films going to be random.

Editing-

·         Very quick cuts, shows the film is disjointed.

·         Fade to black.

·         Some shots blurred, to show confusion.

·         Faced paced, this is to show the subliminal message that it’s scary.

·         Image was not cut to sound, to make it disjointed and scary.

·         Shaking the font, makes it scary to the audience.