Choosing the Soundtrack for our Thriller

As a group we wanted to put a soundtrack with our Thriller to help create the mood and atmosphere we wanted. The main problem with choosing a soundtrack is the issue of copyright. In order to prevent this we used the website http://www.audio.lgfl.org.uk/. We found out about this site when we were at the CLC editing our preliminary task.
We found a few soundtracks we liked which we believed would work well with our Thriller. These were called:

• Heart of Hell
• Heart of Hell 2
• Mystery Killer
• Crime against the person
• Enemy Within
• Arachnophobia

However, when we tried to download these soundtracks we encountered a problem whereby the ICT technician had to download them himself. Once he had done this, we listened to our chosen soundtracks and selected various points in the track we believed would work best in our Thriller.

Filming - Day 3

Today we filmed the final part to our Thriller. It was successful unlike day 2 of the filming process where it became too dark for us to film. We have now finished all the filming and we can now focus completely on the editing stage. We shared the filming role out between us which meant that we all got a chance to film. As a group I think that all of our skills have developed. For me, I am now more confident with using the camera and I am able to find good places to shoot from and how to shoot the shots. Our next stages are editing the film and choosing the soundtrack we want to place into it. Overall, I am very happy with how today went and how we are working together as a group and progressing well.

Soundtrack Research - The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is regarded as one of the best psychological Thrillers ever made. It won Oscars for Actor/Actresses and best film.
The soundtrack was created by Howard Shore.




THE OPENING:
The music which is played during the opening makes the audience think something bad is going to happen. We see Clarice (Jodie Foster) running through a wood which the audience later find out is an assault course. Whilst she is running the audience think she is vulnerable. The music from the start is an eerie piece of classical music which is immediately unsettling; in fact, we are almost waiting for something bad to happen. The music makes the audience predict something in the visuals.

THE INTERVIEW SCENE:
The audience hear the same soundtrack playing throughout the interview scene as we did during the opening. The soundtrack begins as Clarice walks towards Hannibal Lecter’s (Anthony Hopkins) prison cell. It is used to unsettle the audience without getting to its full tempo.


THE ESCAPE SCENE:
The scene opens with diagetic classical music playing. This suggests a peaceful scene. It joins two different sounds together – classical music to the soundtrack. The high tempo soundtrack creates immediate anxiety within the audience. Then the soundtrack stops and the classical music comes back.


BUFFALO BILL IS KILLED:
As Clarice staggers around in the darkness the soundtrack builds up again to its crescendo (peak) until she shoots him and then the music dies down. The audience is familiar with the soundtrack from its use during key moments in the film. It is very loud which can be draining.

EVALUATION:
-how this film influenced our final piece
we liked the way that this film had only used one soundtrack for all the key moments in the film. we thought it was very powerful as it got the audience familar with it so when they heard it they knew to expect sopmething bad to happen. We wanted this effect too so we found one soundtrack that fit with our film and used this throughout.

Filming - Day 2

Yesterday, the group had decided to film the final part of our Thriller. We wanted to arrive and begin filming when it began getting dark outside (as we were filming outdoors). This would have allowed the darker lighting to make the audience feel a sense of mystery and eeriness. However, by the time we arrived at the house and sorted ourselves and the camera out, it had become too dark to be able to film properly. We managed to get a few shots filmed but they were not of good quality due to the darkness. We will be re-filming on Tuesday 24Th March and hopefully this will be the last time and we can move on and begin editing.

Filming - Day 1

On Tuesday 17th March 2009 our group began filming our Thriller. We all met up in the morning and discussed our storyboards and final ideas. Once we had done this we arranged our filming area (basement) to how we wanted it to look and gave out roles to everyone.
Some of these roles were;
· Make-up artist
· Lighting/prop director
· Director
· Filming – even though we all filmed at least a little part each
· Photographer – so we could put pictures onto our group blog

We worked continuously for most of the day and managed to get a large part of the thriller filmed. We only have one small piece left which will be filmed on Friday after school outside of a house.

We managed to get lots of shots of the same thing so that when we are editing our film we will have a wide range of shots to chose from and merge together.
Overall I am very happy with how the day turned out to be. We managed to get everything we completed that we wanted to do.

Elena A applying make-up to Anna, our main character.

The number 24 on Anna's leg

Elena A getting a tracking shot.

The number 23 on Thegla's arm

Me, Natalie M, getting a mid-body shot.

Thriller research

Through research on http://www.imdb.com/, there was a section called ‘IMDB top rated ‘Thriller’ titles’.

A few of the top 50 listed thrillers and their ranks were:


1) ‘The Godfather’ (1972).
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller


8) ‘The Usual Suspects’ (1995)
Director: Brian Singer
Genre: Crime/Mystery/Thriller
(This film is full of narrative enigmas.)

9) ‘Psycho’ (1960)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Genre: Horror/Thriller


11) ‘North by North West’ (1959)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Genre: Adventure/Mystery/Thriller


12) ‘Memento’ (2000)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Genre: Mystery/Thriller


14) ‘Se7en’ (1995)
Director: David Fincher
Genre: Crime/mystery/Thriller
(This film has a powerful opening sequence)


17) Vertigo (1958)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Genre: Drama/Mystery/Romance/Thriller


49) Jaws (1975)
Director: Stephen Spielberg
Genre: Horror/Thriller
(This thriller is well known for its soundtrack)

The making of our Thriller

To begin making our thrillers we first had to create pitches and ideas. We got into our groups (Natalie Michael, Anna Philona, Elena Antoniades, Thegla Saviddes, Elena Christodoulou and Natalie Nicolaides) and began work. We came up with a few pitch ideas before agreeing on our final idea and made our storyboards. Within the group, we assigned roles to each other:
· I am completing the RECCE form
· Elena A is doing the group production form
· Anna is completing the risk assessment
· Thegla is creating the shooting script
· Natalie N is making the shooting schedule
· Elena C is doing the booking form

The basis of our final thriller idea was:
A woman enters a house (which she has the address of) only to find a trail of blood inside the house leading to a basement door. As she tries to open the door she gets knocked unconscious. When she awakes she finds herself tied up in the basement.

We have also set aside dates which we will be filming at our two chosen locations (two different houses). We decided to begin filming on Tuesday 17th March and have made a list of all the props we will need.

'Memento' directed by Christopher Nolan

During our lessons we have also watched the opening to the Thriller ‘Memento’ which was directed by Christopher Nolan (2000).

The opening of the film is full of mystery and gives the audience many narrative enigmas (questions in the audience's mind that need to be answered). It seems as though the story is being told from the end to the beginning which at first confuses the audience. It is only later on as the film progresses that the audience realise what is going on. Right at the beginning of the film we see Leonard kill Teddy and the audience need to keep watching to find out what had triggered off his need to kill him. The opening of the film is unusual for Thrillers as it starts straight with the action.

The Polaroid at the start of the film creates mystery as it undevelops itself and then goes back into the camera. The phone call we can see also adds to the mystery as the audience do not know who Leonard is talking to or what about.

The word ‘memento’ makes the audience think of a memory or an object which has significant importance to someone.

Leonard’s character seems to be on some sort of a quest or mission as we straight away see him kill Teddy.
The audience feel sympathy towards Leonard as he suffers from memory loss since an accident and cannot remember anything from a certain time in his life onwards. In order to remind himself of the things he must remember, he tattoos messages on his body and takes lots of Polaroid pictures and writes notes on them. The audience know that he is seeking revenge on Teddy and they are led to believe that he is the one who killed Leonard’s wife. The audience think that perhaps he is a confused hero.

However, due to his accident, Leonard was left vulnerable to the society around him and those close to him. There is an aspect of his character which the audience cannot trust.

The character of Teddy seems trustworthy at first, the audience feel he can be trusted; it is as though Leonard trusts him too. He seems like a good guy as he seems to be on Leonard’s side, helping along on his mission. It is only when we see Leonard kill him and the story progresses that we realise that we cannot in fact trust him. He is the villain of the piece and begins to emerge as dodgy.

This Thriller allows the audience to consider many narrative enigmas. They consider; what happened to Leonard? How did he loose his memory? Who is Teddy? What is his role? Who is Natalie? Is Leonard justified in killing Teddy?

The action in the film is accompanied by an eerie soundtrack which creates a sombre, dark mood.

The Mise-en-Scene helps with ideas about the narrative and the characters. Leonard’s car has dirty, broken windows which creates mystery. It makes the audience wonder where he has been and what he has been doing in order to get the car into this state. The motel is cheap and safe for Leonard. It adds another degree to the storyline. The isolated building creates a mystery element. It allows Leonard to commit a crime undetected.

EVALUATION:

- how did this film influence our final ideas:

The opening of the film is full of mystery and gives the audience many narrative enigmas. We wanted to have this effect too so we decided to begin our film at a place where the audience will not know why these events have happened leaving them confused and wanting answers.

this film used Polaroid pictures

We thought that the use of the Polaroid during the film was an interesting aspect of it so we wanted to have a similar effect. We wanted to have a Polaroid picture of the house the character enters. However, as we were unable to get a Polaroid camera, we decided to use a written address instead.

We also liked the way Leonard had tattoos over his body. We thought this was very effective in attracting the audience and also created narrative enigmas for them such as why does he have everything tattooed to him? We decided to develop this idea, and this is where our idea of the numbers on the body's came from. We had the number '23' 'carved' onto the dead body's arm and the number '24' carved onto the main characters leg.

what makes an effective thriller?

Martin Rubin suggests there is no such thing as a 'Thriller'. The 'thriller' is in fact a metagenre that 'gathers several other genres under its umbrella'.
The 'Thriller' components work better with some genres than others. It works well with spy, crime, horror but not well with musicals or war films.
In my opinion, an effective 'Thriller' film should keep the audience interested and have an element of the unknown to keep the audience in a state of suspense and uncertainty. the audience only usually know as much as the characters do and there are usually unanswered questions (narrative enigmas). 'Thrillers' play with the mind of the audience.

After researching this, we watched the opening of 'The Bourne Identity' (2002). It had a stormy night setting and quick paced editing. These added to the suspense and state of the unknown which the thriller opened up with.



THRILLER RESEARCH:
THE BOURNE IDENTITY - OPENING SCENE



The Bourne Identity is the story of a man whose wounded body is discovered by a fisherman who nurses him back to health. He can remember nothing and begins to try to rebuild his memory based on clues such as the Swiss bank account, the number of which, is implanted in his hip. He soon realizes that he is being hunted and takes off on a search to find out who he is and why he is being hunted.
The films credits open with the thriller type atmosphere. We see a dark and stormy night and a ship of fisherman, which completely alienates the audience before we hear any dialogue. There is unsteady camera movement which adds to the build up of the story as well as making the audience feel a part of the scene-along with the unsteady movement of the ship. Non-diegetic music is used to help create suspense and tension. The diegetic sounds include loud thunder, waves and the floor boards creaking, this all helps to keep realism within the film. We are shown a contrast of the boat and then a shot to the worried fisherman and then a shot of a CIA office which is on dryland, there is a slight calmness received from this environment compared to the rocky movement of the ship in the storm.
EVALUATION: -how this film influenced our final piece. This film influenced our film ideas with the use of the non-diegetic music which in this film helped to create suspense and tension. We wanted our film to have this atmosphere from the music we chose. Through diegetic music, we wanted to keep our film as realistic as possible. There is unsteady camera movement in this film which adds to the build up of the story as well as making he audience feel part of the scene. At the start of our film, we chose not to use a tripod, we hoped this would give the audience the feeling of fear along with the character. Our decision to have many fast cuts between the shot of the character tied up in the basement and the knife being sharpened was influenced by the contrast of the boat, then the fisherman, then the shot of the CIA office.

A Room for Romeo Brass

In our first lesson, we watched 'A Room for Romeo Brass'. Whilst doing this we made notes on the opening credits of the film. The credits used a unique font which was placed on a black background. The narrative and the credits were merged together. The credits were used to break up action and involve the audience, which leaves them wanting to see more. The soundtrack sets the feel of the film. The volume is high during the credit sequences but lower in the background whilst the action is occurring. The opening credits bring in an introduction to the characters and the storyline. A mini storyline gets created and completed during this. The audience are also given a clue as to what the genre of the film is. There are elements of comedy and drama involved in the real life movie. The film is set in real life locations; the countryside and urban.

We also studied British Social Reality Dramas within Shane Meadows’ ‘A Room for Romeo Brass’. The realistic elements involved in the film include:
· Local settings
· Family orientated
· Everyday life
· Low budget – representation of real life
· An autobiographical element
· AD LIB – (this is where the actors/actresses have no script to read from, they improvise)
· Unexpected twists
· Themes - everyone can relate to them.

EVALUATION:

-how this film influenced our final piece.

Although this film is not a Thriller, i found i was still able to take ideas from it to develop into our film. we found that Shane Meadows used a local setting throughout his film. I found this was very effective as it helped the audience relate to the characters. we tried to achieve this in our Thriller, by using only two settings, the inside of a house (the basement) and the outside of the house.