180 Degree Rule

This diagram shows the axis between two characters and the 180 degree curve in which cameras can be set up (green). When changing over the green line, the characters switch places on the screen, this disorients the audience. The 180 degree rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that two objects, be them characters or items, in the same scene should always have the same left/right facing to each other. If the camera crosses over the imaginary line connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The next shot, from the opposite side, is also known as a reverse angle camera shot.

For example, cutting in two people sitting side-by-side in a moving car talking. To start, the backgrounds are going in opposite directions naturally for each person in the side angles, but you could also cut from looking through the front windshield to looking from the back seat (basically crossing the line) and no audience member is going to be confused as to who is talking to who.

As another example, in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, by Peter Jackson, Smeagle has a conversation with himself which is actually his other personality. Because the filmmakers use the 180 degree rule, and have the "good" Smeagle looking left as he speaks while the "evil" Smeagle looking right, the audience perceives Smeagle as two different characters talking to each other. This is a technique I'd be inspired to use in our thriller film as it's a very cunning way of showing binary opposition, good and evil, white and black.

Photo used from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:180_degree_rule.svg

Establishing Shots and How They Work

The establishing shot's main purpose in a film is to provide a feeling of direction. The establishing shot is the only shot that can show the audience the setting, what characters are involved and more complex background and foreground details in one shot. Its main use is as an “establishing shot”. Most cameramen will use the full shot as an establishing shot but then quickly move into a medium shot or close-up once the scene has been established.

In our thriller our establishing shot shows a fan and a desk. We took inspiration from the film ‘Final Destination’ in which the movie starts with a rotating fan being the establishing shot. We thought this would flow well as we panned the camera in time with the rotation of the fan, this fluidly shows the desk which is a key part of our thriller film.

The Dark Knight - Thriller Analysis + Themes

From watching the first 3 minutes of The Dark Knight I have gathered inspiration for the thriller movie we are filming. The Dark Knight is a thriller/superhero film written and produced by Christopher Nolan.

At the start of the film the establishing shot is a camera zooming in quickly to a window on a highrise block. It cuts into the window it has been zooming in once it is broken. I think this shot is a very good establishing shot, as it shows exactly were the action is starting. It leaves the viewer knowing that some type of illegal activity is happening once the glass breaks. It cuts in to the men wearing a clown mask firing some type of rapel gun out of the broken window, the clown mask is a later motif for the next scene.

In the next scene it shows a lower body shot from behind showing a man on a street curb with a clown mask in his hand, the clown mask showing he is from the same organisation/gang as the men in the last scene. At this point the non-diegetic music crescendos which gives a fast paced feeling of suspense. In my thriller we are planning on using the lower body shot from behind to show our 'bad-guy', I think this shot adds mystery as you can only see the lower half of the character, as well as showing that the character is facing the subject/object of the film.

The 'bad-guy' then gets in the car which has 2 other men inside, the camera shot is in the back seat of the 4x4 vehicle which disguises who the men are. This gives a feeling of secrecy. The camera then jump shots to a close up of the man in the front passenger seat, which reveals that the other two men are wearing clown costumes, this shows that they are all part of the same group/gang and that they are going to do an illegal activity as they are hiding their identity. I also find it sort of perplexing how calm the men in the front seats of the car as they have a small chat about the cut of the profits, which leads the audience to believe they are stealing something.

Preliminary Task: Final Video

Preliminary Task: Preparation and Recording Stages

Day 1

We discussed which thriller director we wanted to use idea from so we used Luc Besson. We used his work to refer to as he commonly uses lots of over the table deals in dark rooms with many different angles and shot types during this scene. Our thriller is based around the same idea of an over the table deal. We decided it would be an assassin who has finished a contract and he has gone to explain how the job is done and collect his money. After we storyboarded what shot types we wanted and what would happen in each of these shots.

Day 2

We finished off story boarding and filmed our whole thriller in just under two hours. We used the rest of the two hours importing the whole video tape onto a Mac and crop most of the video into individual clips, although this is not finished yet.
Later that day, I (Will) went home and worked on the music. I composed, recorded, edited, mixed and exported the music in just under two hours. I did this using my home recording software SONAR 7XL Home Studio. I composed the music using my guitar and then added in a piano part and a string part. All music was done by me. I exported the music in Wave format so no quality was lost from the recordings. I actually created two versions of the music. The first version has an actual ending and the strings fade out. The second version had a fade out at the end and the music keeps going until the end of the fade out.

You can listen to version one underneath by clicking play on the media player.

Day 3

We finished cropping and added it all to Final Cut. We watched it all back and analysed the video for any mistakes we made or issues there may have been. We found that the room was way too dark. Because it was so dark, the image looked really grainy and ugly. Also it was hard to distinguish what was actually going on in the video. We also noticed that we had broken the 180 degree rule, as we had done an over the shoulder shot over the left shoulder, when we should have done it over the right shoulder. Another error was that in one of the shots the blinds were open and in a later shot, they were closed. The final problem with the first video was that it was too long, it being 35 seconds long when the limit is 30 seconds. A random problem that came up was with the sound. All the voices were out of sync and you couldn't even hear when I said "yes". We assume this was just an error when taking the original recordings off the video camera.

You can watch that video by clicking play on the video link underneath this entry.

Day 4

We had another day of filming, also this time we used a different actor to the first as the first actor was unavailable. We used the same room as before but this time with the lights on. We filmed the entire video within an hour and was able to begin cropping the clips by the end of the lesson.

Day 5

This day we finished cropping, editing and added in the music. The music we chose in the end was the first version where it has an actual ending. When we watched the video back, we noticed that in a shot, where we passed the money over the table, the hand used to pass the money over the table was different in the shot where he was about to pass the money over the table. Because of this error, we went back to room and filmed a low angle shot of the money passed between hands. We liked the fact that we managed to get this shot as we managed to get it to flow perfectly in the video and this added a more interesting shot into our final video. This day, we finished and exported our preliminary task in a Quick Time video format.