Breathe Music Video

This is The Prodigy's music video for 'Breathe'. I like the video alot as it is very different to most music videos. It also contains thriller/horror themes.
I really like the use of lighting and how it flashes back and forth from the background to the band members. I especially like the very first shot where the band member, Maxim, comes forward but because the light is not always on him so he appears intimidating. I like the use of make-up again in this video, similar to 'Interview with the Vampire', contacts lenses have been used to cause horror aswell as black lipstick.

There is a constant use of flashing lights to create horror and suspense as everything in shot cannot be seen by the viewer.

Interview with the Vampire

I recently watched 'Interview with a Vampire' which I really enjoyed as it was not similar to anything I had seen before. Particulary the way that Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are made-up, the make-up was so effective on Tom Cruise I did not realise it was him until 20 minutes after he first appeared. I really like how the actors wore contact lenses to make their eyes very light blue (nearly white) to appear less human-like. Also they both had sharp teeth with fangs, pale skin, very long hair and nails and were well groomed which is the ideaology people have of vampires. I also liked how Kirsten Dunst was made a child vampire which is very creepy and disturbing especially the scene in which she kills people.

I like the opening scene alot as it opens San Francisco in modern age despite vampires stereotypically being thought of around in the middle ages. It opens with an aerial shot across San Francisco following into wide shots of a busy street full of people to show unawareness of a vampire looking down from them. The camera continues to a low angle shot, swooping up towards a tall building to represent the power of the vampire figure in the top window. When the camera angle changes to behind the vampire in the window it is still just his figure to create mystery and suspense aswell as horror.

Cabwise Advert

This advert has great use of camera angles aswell as horrific/thriller themes. The point of view shots throughout show the panic and fear of being kidnapped.

The camera movements start smooth when the character is relaxed but as soon as she begins to get scared the camera shakes more to show the fear even more. The wide shot of the car shows how normal the car looks which can scare the viewer as this horrible attack has taken place without anyone knowing.

The close-up of the door locking is particularly scary as it shows the woman cannot escape.

The sound of the rain is very effective as it creates isolation for the woman who is being attacked as the sound of the rain seems to cover up her screaming and almost muffles it out.

A Clockwork Orange

I recently watch Clockwork Orange which I have mixed opinions on. I think it is unnecessarily explicit but I like the story line and how Alex is 'cured' psychologically aswell as the memorable last line

Although I dislike the context of this next explicit scene, I like how the song 'Singing in the Rain' is used for bold contrast as it is usually a nice, happy song whereas Alex sings it whilst breaking and entering and assualting a couple. I also like how it returns further in on the film to haunt the old man when Alex returns to this house and is punished by the old man he assaulted years before.

Another Discussion On New Opening

On Friday we continued to discuss our film opening. We discussed locations, even though I think we should research more before even thinking about the location. However a little woodland path in Forty Hall was suggested aswell as large fields in Trent Park.
I think that we need to research more as the more we research the clearer our idea will be as one of the problems with our last attempt was poor research and not thinking absolutley every detail through.
We did brainstorm a few ideas and after watching a past media students coursework we discussed the idea of a woman waking up and not remembering the night before as she may have taken drugs on a night out.

Our Original Film Opening

This is our original incomplete film opening before we scrapped the idea;


0:00-0:36 - This scene is much too slow and did not give the creepy effect that we wanted. It was also much too dark and is based too much on the character and not the surroundings. I do like how the camera began in pitch black and focused and brightened when he switched on the red light, aswell as the creek of the door. The shot of the collage of girls was also not long enough for the audience to understand what it was. The pan from the collage to the stalker is not very smooth either which looks very uneffective. I think that there is not enough clear movement after he drops the glass on the floor to when he sticks up the photographs, it is also not clear what he is even doing.
This was not the original beginning as we would have filmed more footage if we had carried on with this idea.

0:36-0:48 - Again, the shot is very dull and long. I do like the wide shot though as it shows that the stalker appears to look like a normal man walking down the road up until he looks up at the girls house and waits at her alleyway. On this part of footage we practised with iMovies "Day to Night" effect which gives it the blue tint, personally I do not like this effect as it does not look realistic. The problem we had with light and brightness from the sun is also obvious from this shot. We did not use various angles as we wanted to keep the stalkers face hidden, however this did not work well as it makes the shot very boring.

0:48-0:55 - I like this shot from inside the house as it is a bit of a break from the outside shots. I like the editing of the sound also as it is silent except from the door slamming shut.

0:55-1:03 - I like this shot but the transition from the previous is not smooth enough. This shot almost creates a barrier between the two characters through their opposite sides of the wall and when the girl steps out the drive, leaving the 'barrier' she is leaving her 'safety zone'. I think the shot should end once the girl has stepped out the shot rather than watching the man continue walking because it needlessly longs out the shot making it dull again.

1:03-1:07 - I do not like this shot mainly because the transition was not perfect as we had not edited correctly so the shots jumped from one to another.

1:07-1:12 + 1:18-1:22 - I really like these shots as it is a point of view of the stalker. We kept the same effects as the other outside shots but added on a black fade to the corners which focused on the girl who was in very light colours. I also like when the girl turns around and the stalker looks away as this provides us with a medium shot of the girls face to show the confusion on her face.

1:12-1:18 + 1:22-1:24 - These shots were improvised on the day of filming and they did look good until we edited the point of view shots, so now they look very jumpy and odd as the shots skip from one effect to another. They also aren't muted like most of the other shots as we were midway through editing.

1:24-1:26 - I am undecided on this shot. I like the effects and that when the hand reaches out it goes white and this focuses the viewer well. I also like that it is slow motion to add tension. However I dislike the point of the shot, I do not like the reaching out at all. I think it would have been more effective if there was a close up from infront of the girl with either the man placing his hand on her shoulder and they had both stop walking to show the fear on her face or the man putting his hand over her mouth and her eyes widening to show panic.

1:26-1:52 - Alot is missing for the last scene returning to the darkroom. The photographs came out too dark so that you could not see what they were of. The mobile light would not stay on and continued to flash which could have looked creepy - but it seems not. Also our names were on the pictures of ourselves to be used as credits with a pan shot, however after reading the marking criteria we discovered we must have our credits on made on iMovie.

Discussion about Film Opening

While editing our film we have often had trouble with the amount and quality of footage so as a group we decided to discuss our options; whether to carry on or start again.
We decided to start again as we believe after researching film openings we have a broader knowledge on them meaning we can make a much better film opening.
One of our problems was our opening had a resolution rather than beginning a story, which is something we will not do this second time.
We will have the filming equipment over Christmas break so that we have two weeks to film in.

We began to look at film openings and types of horror/thriller genres. A particular film opening that caught my attention was Donnie Darko

We spoke about a psychological thriller similar to that of Donnie Darko or The Sixth Sense. We liked the idea of someone either waking up in a strange place like Donnie Darko, or having strange flashback-like dreams.

Continuing Editing

We were given a lesson to continue editing which is very hard when all 6 groups are trying to work at once however we began to try and sort out our lighting problems but we could not find a resolution even with changing all the effects.
Also we believed our scenes were too slow and dragged on rather than increasing tension and building up to something.
As a group we discussed our alternatives as we did not believe our film opening was effective enough. In my opinion, I believe we should re-film as we are now much more educated in film openings, in the horror/thriller genre and at filming and editing aswell as storylines.

Sound Definitions

Sound in media is made up of two types of sound; diegetic and non-diegetic.
Diegetic is sound which can be heard by the audience and characters in the shot such as dialogue or sounds from objects. Whereas non-diegetic is sound which may only be heard by the audience such as narrative commentary, sound effects added for drama or mood music.

The pitch of music can also really effect the entire drama of the scene such as the high pitched strings in this famous scene of Psycho;

Uploading and Editing

When we uploaded our footage from the two day's of filming we were slightly disappointed due to the lighting, especially in the dark room although we edited it on iMovie and it looks alot better meaning we will not need to refilm the scene. Also the weather during the house scene did cause a problem as we thought, we did attempt to edit this also and it created a nice effect, similar to that in Sin City however instead of bright red, all of the white colours were very bright.
We did this by changing the contrast, brightness, saturation and colour balance.

Filming Part 1 and 2

First Day of Filming - Sarah's Road
We began filming our film opening over half term when we were given our filming equipment.
We began by filming the establishing shot of the house and the alleyway's.
We shot many different angles of each movement several times for continuity and to make sure it was perfect.
We began by having an establishing shot of the house with Sarah's Dad entering the shot from different sides and walking up the alleyway next to my characters house. We then continued to film me leaving the house, we filmed it from the beginning establishing shot aswell as from inside the house to see the me leaving the house. We also filmed from the upstairs bedroom through the window which was slightly awkward however was managed, this helped us have a further variety of angles.
When all these shots were finished we began to film the walk down the alleyway where Sarah's Dad was to follow me. We began with Sarahs Dad holding the camera to film my back as he caught up with me. On our storyboard we said I would turn around to see him and he would put his hood down and look away, we filmed this quite easily; as I turned around he would quickly move the camera down and we would edit this also. Then when the camera went back up to focus back on me Sarahs Dad would be alot closer and would then reach out to my shoulder to imply my kidnap. We then decided on filming the alleyway from the opposite angle to help us when editing.

Our main concern however was the weather conditions as it frequently changed from sunny to cloudy as we were filming, hopefully we can edit this so it looks continuous.

Second Day of Filming - Dark Room

After seeing our schools old dark room we decided to definatley use it for its creepiness as it has not been used for many years unlike the new darkroom which we originally planned to use. During our free periods the previous weeks we had all taken photographs like our stalker supposedly has been, we stuck these down on ripped scraps of paper and wrote facts next to them similar to facts that a stalker would know. We then went to the old darkroom and stuck the paper and photos up to make a creepy collage of girls the stalker has recently been following. We also cleared the room of any unnecessary objects which would confuse the filming.
Once the room was set up we began to film, we filmed Sarah's Dad opening the door of the darkroom which created a high-pitched creak in pitch black. He then turned on the red lights which created a gloomy effect and made the camera focus in an effective way as it casted a silhouette of Sarahs Dad.

We filmed the same shot again from inside the darkroom this time for continuity. We also panned across the room to show all the pictures and facts of girls, we filmed this many times until it was perfect, we also had to use a phone light which is very creepy as it still keeps the gloomy effect.

We zoomed into all the pictures of the girls to focus the audience, however on the other side of the camera Sarah's Dad dropped a measuring tube on the floor to create a loud noise and we quickly panned to show what Sarah's Dad was doing. We then moved to an over the shoulder shot of Sarah's Dad developing a 'recent' picture of me 'gagged' similar to another two of Molly and Aimie which had just been shown before this. We then panned along to show a photo of Sarah being pinned up which the stalker had supposedly taken to imply that she would be the next victim.

We created credits by sticking our names on our photographs in 'scratchy' handwriting also so it looks as though the stalker had written our names on our photo's.