SOUNDS - diegetic and non diegetic

Sound plays a huge role on the genre of the film. It helps create certain atmospheres or gives dramatic impact.

The first feature film released with a soundtrack was called 'The jazz singer.' Every film before was without sound (just a piano being played by a professional in the corner of the cinema!) The main reason why films didn't have sound till very late was because film companies didn't want to spend large amounts when they were already making huge profits with silent movies.

DIEGSIS- The world of a film
DIEGETIC- Sound that belongs to the world of the film.

OFFSCREEN - audience can hear it and see it

ONSCREEN - audience can hear it but not see it
NON DIEGETIC - Sound effects and added sounds. (Not sounds which are emphasised)

SOUND BRIDGE This is when the sound from one scene continues into or over the next scene. The images we see change but the sound is still from the previous scene.

PARALLEL SOUND - When the sound complements the visuals onscreen so that the music tone and mood/image matches.

CONTRAPUNTAL SOUND When the sounds we hear and the visuals onscreen that we can see do not match.

Jaws: the Revenge Opening Title Sequence

SOUNDS - NON DIEGETIC
The scene starts with a crescendo - making it seem as if the shark has just woken up. The sound varies from loud to soft as the shark picks up its pace swimming in the sea. As soon as the camera is above the water (sharks point of view) violins are introduced and the rhythm fastens creating a slight tension. AS the camera returns back under the sea the music contrastingly changes into something more relaxed and gentle. The uncertainty of the music reflects the unpredictability of what the shark can do next. The contrasting music of when the camera is nearer then bed of the sea and above the water gives and impressions that the shark is on a search for something and emphasises on what the sharks next target is: something on shore. The shark then reaches above the surface a second time, and the audience are welcomed again with the repetition of the deadly string instruments and all the elements of the orchestra creating a murderous atmosphere. At 2.07 you hear the shimmering of the water, which is a clear indication of the shark peaking through. As it approaches near land and sees the housing the music begins to rapidly pick up its pace with warning harmonies and create tension and suspense. The music quickens, gradually becomes louder and is then met to a sudden stop. As if the shark has found what it is looking for.

The overall impact of the sound, makes the scene seem so primitive and dangerous. It is appealing to our emotions and adds to the horror theme of the film.

COLOURS AND WHAT THEY CAN CONNOTE

Different colour create different meanings. In 'Don't look now' the most obvious colour coding was red:
The young girls red coat,
The red blood,
The red flowers,
The red paint,
The red pavement,
The red pillars atc
Red connotes love, danger, anger and death - which fits in excellently with the narrative image.
The young girl who dies from drowning at the start of the movie wore a long red coat, connoting the strong love bond between her and her father. Yet, towards the end of the movie, the serial killer who ends up killing the dad himself wore a long red coat similar to that of the daughters. The red which connoted 'love' has transformed into the red which connotes 'danger' and 'death' as the story unravels.

HORROR CONVENTIONS
Iconography - Iconography is the pictures/images the audience universally recognise with a certain genre. Some examples of famous iconography are:
Halloween mask, Psycho (shower scene, 'Here's Johnny', Frankenstein (bolts through the neck)
Props - An essential part of the horror genre. Props include, candles, weapons, daggers, blood etc. All these props make the genre and the world of the movie more realistic.
Style - Style includes the different shot types, editing, atmosphere created etc.
This is emphasises by Dark and shadowy figures (as seen from many horror movies)
POV shots, fast cuts, creepy music, climatic moment, sense of fear etc
Settings - Dark places, haunted houses, ally ways, castles and mountains, isolated places
A good example of a setting is 'Psycho.' Most of the movie is set in the hotel and the isolated house a few yards away from it. The hotel is just off a motorway, away from any sort of foodstores, restaurants etc, and has hardly ever any reservations- so little that there is no need to even have a registration book! - An ideal place for a murder to take place!
Characters - A serial killer, or just a killer. An innocent young child who always seems to be left home alone, devils, vampires, detectives, monster, human heroes, bazare creatures, women as the vulnerable victims.
Emotional pleasures are essential to make a movie successful. The audience need to feel involved in the movie and the actions. Themes include: fear, isolation, traps, death, gore, pursuit etc.

TIMELINE

Here is a timeline of a few of my favourite or well known horror movies throughout time.

Miss Thrashers homework

PLOT FOUR

ONE MORE STOP

ACTRESS: CAMERON DIAZ

Plot four is based around a young female who works in a charity shop. She gets the train to and for work. This is observed by her train driver. He is a 40 year old man who becomes so obssessed with her, he does anything to spy on her and find out about her life. His obsession leads him to jealousy when he sees her with another man, who she kisses as she gets off the train. He waits until a day when she is alone in the carriage. At the next station he tells eveyone to get off the train, but doesn't open the door to her carriage. He takes her to the end of the line, where he ties her to the train track. He attaches a note to her body - 'bad things happen to good people, so why be good?' He leaves, and when the next train comes into that station, she is crushed.
WHY I CHOSE CAMERON DIAZ TO ACT IN THIS FILM

Cameron Diaz is known for being stereotypical, glamorous blonde. Her previous work such as starring in 'In her shows' exaggerates this image. She looks like a young innocent girl who would be willing to work in a charity shop yet at the same time is gorgeous and is likely to attrack some male attention! She also seems rather vulnerable and wouldn't be able to defend herself in a situation like the one in the plot. This makes the movies seem more plausible as the characters can emphasise with a realistic character.

WHY WE CHOSE THE TITLE - ONE MORE STOP

This added to the location of the film, yet at the same time didn't give much of the storyline away, therefore it created enigma. 'One more stop' sounds quite spine-chilling as if someone is urging to get off the train. This adds to the narrative image of the film, and gives the audience a sense of what the narrative is about.

PLOT ONE
CAN-CAN SHE DO IT
ACTRESS: QUEEN LATIFAH AND HALLE BERRY

The plot ia about a girl whose dream is to one day move to Paris and become a Moulin Rouge dancer. She has a huge passion for this which is then ruined when her mum dies due to lung cancer, and her dad puts her and her sister up for adoption. The girl gets ripped away from her father and is adopted by a rich family in Washington DC. She changes into a different, posher, primer person. Her foster parents' dream is to see her become the first female president of the USA. One day, while she is funning for president she manages to reunite herself with her sister who makes her realise what she really wants. She drops out of the elections and moves to Paris with her sister where she pursues her dream of being a moulin rouge dancer.
WHY I CHOSE HALLE BERRY AND QUEEN LATIFAH
I chose Queen Latifah to be the older sister, as she was born in 1970 (the elder out of the two) therefore makes the role more plausible. She has is known as a great actor, daner and singer after performing in hairspray, 2007, directed by Adam Shankman. I chose Halle Berry to play the role of the younger sister as she comes across as naive with her short hair.She is also a very volatile actor who can play many roles. After acting in one of the James Bond movies, she has shown a serious side to her which would make the 'USA president elections' seem realistic. Race was an issue in this, as the two actresses need to be related we had to make sure they werent of different races.
WHY WE CHOSE THE TITLE - CAN CAN SHE DO IT?
The title is a play on words.
Can-can is relating to the dance style in the moulin rouge times. It adds to the narative image of the film, but doesnt give too much away. The rheotorical question creates enigma as the audience wonder what she can or can't do

HORROR MOODBOARD
Here is a moodboard I created based on the genre 'horror.' The images are from movies such as Scream, Final destination, Psycho, The Omen e.t.c. This moodboard helps visually portray the 'horror' theme ,

THE JOKER- played by Heath Ledger

'Why so serious?'

The Dark Knight Director - Christopher Nolan The Joker is more of a surreal character in comparison to Chris Gardner and various other characters. He is portrayed as the villain in 'The Dark Knight' Being bought up in a harsh background explains the dark, threatening personality of the character. Heath Ledgers remarkable talent left the audience on the edge of their seats as they watched this made up character seem so real.

Clothing/appearance - With no doubt, Heath Ledgers strange make up made him seem mysterious and unknown. His pale white face stood out in stark contrast with the deep red lipstick engraved against his cheeks: Making him look 'forever smiling.' I love the Joker’s makeup as I thought it created such a big impact to the character, believably reflecting how a disturbed person would apply makeup: smeary and chaotic. His always greasy, long hair simply added to his unpredictatble pesrsonality. Although is face looked in need of mantainance, he dressed smartly (wearing suits and waistcoats). This made him look professional in what he did. Personality - Psychioathic, freakish, mass murdering, depraved, witty, intelligent, powerful, eerie. Many describe him as a 'schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.' I can't help but cringe when thinking of the irritating, constant licking of the Jokers' lips. Furthermore, he always turned his head so sharply, as if something had always caught his eye. These habits simply added to make the character a real person.His constant chuckles and humorous personality made his darker, murderous side seem somehow, more deadly and sinister. Lines such as 'Why are you always so sad' and 'Why so serious?' gave the character a bazaar, unexpected personality, as the audience question, how a murder can ask someone why they are looking so sad. The characters' posture was always hunched to go with a deep, primitive voice. Heath Ledger was a gifted person with great acting talent. Nolan added no "digital effects" to alter Ledger's actual performance posthumously. May his soul R.I.P.

CHARACTERS

CHRIS GARDNER - played by Will Smith
'If you want something, go get it. Period.'
The pusuit of happiness
Director - Gabriel Muccino
Chris Gardner - A 51 year old man with a wife and son. He was born in Louisiana and lived through a difficult childhood. He lived with an abusive stepfather who beat his mother.Chris Gardner has faced some obstruction; those are lack of understanding from his wife, financial problem and his education background He is a real life character played by Will Smith. Will Smith, a famous actor, made this character come back to life.
Clothing/appearance - During the opening scenes of the film, Will Smith is dressed in poor quality jeans and a top. From this early clothing style, the audience already know he is a low quality man who finds it hard to pay off his debts. As the film unfolds and Will Smith is determined to make his way up to become a stock broker, he wears a suit. The same suit, every single day. Again, this makes the audience aware of his lack of income. His stubby beard and grey hairs make him look aged and feeble. It gives him a sense of vulnerabilty, yet his top botton done up and neat tie give the audience the impression of him being an organised, determined character. His big glasses gives off an 'old fashioned' yet intelligent sense from the character.
Personality - Caring/loving, determined, selfless, intelligent, punctual, preserving, intiative, self-confident and motivated.Chris Garden is a caring character, who deeply loves his wife and son. After splitting up with his wife due to money problems, he refuses to let his son go. Through his harsh days he manages to spend time with his son aswell as putting his all into his work. His determination and strength makes him an inspiring character. The audience sympathise with him as we know what he has to go through every day. Being such a strong character, makes it heartbreaking to see him cry when times have come to the worse, and he is forced to sleep in the toilets. His lines and morals in the film gave him his inspirational personality.

CRANE SCENE - spiderman 3

Spiderman 3,2007
SAM RAIMI
I chose this specific shot to analyse, as the crane scene in Spiderman 3 in my opinion, is one of the best shot scenes I've watched. The variety of shots creates both tention and suspense.
The photo i chose is a long high angle shot from the scene. In the foreground we see the characters hands grip tightly onto the bar which is keepin her alive, and in the background we see the high rise buildings, the busy roads and the fast cars.
The characters expressions are very important in this shot. As she screams for her life, the audience empathise and sypathise with her. They are taken above the scene to see exactly how far the fall is. As the audience watch the character hang from the bar they urge to help save her. If this shot was taken any differently, the impact on the audience wouldn't be as great as they wouldn't be able to see through the character's perspective. The audience feel her tention as they wait for spiderman to come to the rescue.

PSYCHO, 1960

ALFRED HITCHCOCK
An inspiring, influential, 1960's film maker and producer who specialised in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After watching Psycho, I realised why Alfred Hitcock was highly inspired by many. Psycho left the audience in suspence through out the whole movie. What I love about Alfred Hitchcocks' movies are his use of shot types. There are a few excellent shots in Psycho which create a big impact on the audience, making them feel part of the shot and empathise with the characters. One of the shots which inspired me the most is where Marion enters the creepy house where 'the mother' stays. She sees Norman running to the house and runs to the basement stairs. The camera here is in the corner of the room, showing both Marion looking through the bars on the stairs and Norman entering through the door. This long shot emphasises on how close the two characters are yet neither of them can see the other one. We can see both characters and therefore feel nervous and empathise with Marion, hoping she is not caught my Norman. This shot is very well done, and creates a perfect eerie sense to the film.

Some behind the scene gossip! In the famous 'shower scene,' Hitchcock used chocolate instead of ketchup, in place for the blood. The ketchup was too thin and therefore they needed something more visible and thicker- chocolate! Because the movie was in black and white, the colour of the blood didn't matter.

CHARACTERS
Anthony perkins - Norman Bates
Janet Leigh - Marion Crane
Vera Miles - Lile Crane
John Gavin - Sam Loomis
Martin Malsam - Milton Arbogast

LOCATIONS

The house where the mother lives.
This building follows the conventional horror elements: A detatched, creeky, wooden, decripit looking large house. We only see the outside of the house untill past half way through the film. This makes the house seem more mysterious. The audience always hear 'the mother' screaming from the house every time Norman enters it. Towards the end, we see 'the mothers' bedroom, where everything is left preserved the way it would if someone was still living in it.

sounds, shot types, and editing

Looking into continuity editing

Batman - the dark knight
Christopher Nolan, 2008
Starting off with a longshot of the truck we know where the scene is taking place. As we see the joker point his gun at the second truck we are lead to an inserting shot(where we see who/what the gun is pointing to.) This helps the audience follow through and understand the next shot as they see the bullets come through the other side of the vehicle. If the audience didn't see the bullets hit the outside of the truck, they wouldn't be clear as to where the bullets came from.At 0.28, one of the characters say 'What is that? A bazooka' This leads to a shot of the joker firing at the car (this is the insert shot) which takes the audience through the scene step by step to when the car is blown into the air. This shot contains many sudden changes of shot from one viewpoint to another. This helps, not only to build up an image of what is happening in the scene but is also deliberatley done to shock the audience, create tension and fasten the rate of the scene, keeping the audience engaged with every character throughout.

LOOKING AT SOUNDS, SHOT TYPES AND EDITING

Primeval
Michael Katleman, 2007
Starting off with a crane of the woodlands and the wildlife makes the sudden darkness in the next shot unexpected and frightening. The sound emphasises the eerieness from the whistling and tweeting of the woodlands, to the thunderstorm. The short extreme close ups create enigma as the audience are urging to know what the objects in the trailer are and what relation it has with the serial killer. The black scenes between each individual shot break up the continuity, speeding up the rhythm of the trailer. The blurry shots at 0.35 make it hard to make out who the characters in the film are. It makes the trailer more horror like as we are left unknowing who is who and why they have blood drippin down their face. The screaming in this section also emphasises on the sinister approach to the movie. The low angle shot in this section makes the character seem more dominant and controlling yet in the next shot we see rescue helpers carry dead bodies. This creates enigma as the audience have no idea how the character was killed. The forward tracking at 0.52 gives us a good look at the characters expression, making it obvious the serial killer is approaching her. She is left speechless, exaggerating her emotions. Finally, after a minute into the trailer sequence, we are introduced to the serial killer for the first time where his appearance is made even more disturbing with a close up. The long lingering darkness at 1.19 leaves the audience in suspence and thrill as they urge to know what's going to happen next. They are greeted with a shocking close up of someones mouth and a scream in the background. 1.40 is an establishing shot as we are introduced to the mise en scene and character as he directly addresses the camera. The sound differs with great extent from the 'drop' of the blood into the water to the 'RUN.' The different sound volumes and effects, shot types and fast snappy shots create an unexpected feel of the movie.
The Commentary/voice-over narration is used to introduce particular parts of the movie. The voice over starts with reading what is on the screen, yet follows on to add extra information which is not evident from the picture (it anchors the shot). We are told 'He is real, but he is not human' before we see the serial killer. Giving us a moment, to imagine what we think the serial killer will look like. As a whole, the voice over links the different shots in the trailer together.The commentary confers authority on a particular interpretation, in this case, the voice is a deep males voice: adding to the horror theme of the movie.

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Step up 2

Directed by John Chu, 2008

For research we were asked to pick a scene of our choice and analyse the continuity effects. I chose a scene from step up 2, as I absolutley love dance movies and I found it a great scene to analyse. The scene opening starts with the characters walking towards the stairs.This long lingering shot stands in contrast to the following short snappy shots. The camera is on the male character (Name: Moose) as he talks. Then there is an over the shoulder shot facing Andie, the female character. This shot reverse shot is also a reaction show as you see Andies reaction to Moose's ringtone. The next shot is the master shot of the scene. It is an establishing shot following on from the MCU of the previous shot. However, this time it gives the audience a greater view on the mise-en-scene. As we see Moose climb up the stairs in the master shot, we are taken into another over the shoulder shot in perspective of Andie, where we still see him dancing as he walks up the stairs in around the same place on the staircase. The continuity editing is very well done taking the audience through the scene step by step in different angles. However, at 0.44 seconds in, the camera returns back to the master shot and Moose drops his bag and lets it fall down the stairs out of the shot. Yet, at 0.50 the bag is placed back on the stairs further up then he dropped it- continuity error! Futher into the scene, as the girl walks out the door on Moose dancing the camera takes another shot at Andie before focusing back on Moose. The new character in the scene is still holding the door open as she stares at him. As Andie walks up the stairs the camera is behind her. As it swaps to an over the (Moose's) shoulder shot she is still climbing up the stairs. This is a perfect example of continuity editing