The Matrix (1999)

The opening scene of The Matrix is very dark and murky. It begins with a bright light shone directly into the camera as the camera slowly pans left, afterwards you see the police officers moving in towards their destination. This creates tension towards the audience as the criminal must be very dangerous. The director also uses torch light to highlight the character, which works well as it is a large contrast to the dark surroundings.
The Director also uses music to heighten the action; however it is not continuous as there large pauses with diegetic sound such as breath and sudden crescendo music to intensify the moment. This is also being used with moments of slow motion as Trinity is running away from the police officers.
Another idea I gathered from this opening scene is the way in which the agents crash the vehicle into the phone booth which trinity is standing in, but the director decided to avoid showing impact to her body. Consequently, allowing the audience to have a moment of suspense as they wait to find out if she is dead or alive.

Editing

I found the editing process quite challenging.  I had never used final cut pro before and i came across quite a few difficulties.  Thankfully, i had my group there to support me.  I was given the task of doing the tittles.  I managed, on my own, to find out what to do for this.  I'm still not confident with using final cut pro
However, I found this video, which could help:

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Preliminary Task

When we were assigned to create a short preliminary scene I was excited to start using the cameras and editing equipment as soon as possible. But I was not aware of the preparation before the practical area. We began by going into our groups and brainstorming some ideas such as, where we will film the scene and what the story is behind the conversations exchanged.
Straight away each of us were trying to be as creative as possible, with ideas such as filming in a public toilet, and out on the field. But we settled on the film studio which allowed us to prevent interruptions from other students, lighting and weather. We also decided to film an audition scene, in which I knock on the door, I come in and the casting director asks me what song I am going to sing. We had a clear idea of how the scene would work, so story boarding was straight forward.
When we started filming the shots did not take very long at all, and we had finished filming the whole scene in about half an hour. When I used the camera I was comfortable with what buttons to press and how to zoom as I have previously filmed holiday breaks on my own camcorder at home, so angle changes and positioning was straight forward and trouble free.
By the end of the lesson we had realised that our microphone hadn’t been on, so after we had discussed the matter we decided to film it again, the following week. We decided to change the set and film in a class room, as it provided the same benefits as the studio. Once again this was very straight forward and we were able to stick to the same story board we had prepared at an earlier date.
We were finally aloud to start editing our preliminary scene. This was probably the most technical and mind challenging step that we had to take. Whilst watching the video over, we decided on the shots that we did not want to include in our text. But the hard bit was the exact second that you wanted to ‘cut in’ and where to ‘cut out’ and how to drag them and sequence them together, but after a little while we were able to get used to the buttons that needed to be pressed and how to put the scene together.

As you can see from the video below our scene came to an acceptable standard. I personally liked the establishing shot which was smooth and followed on to the actual scene, instead of just an establishing shot and a cut. I also liked the way in which the door opened and there was an unfocused shot of Lizzy at her desk. However their was a fault with the continuity of sound in the scene, but due to some editing we were able to make it sound natural as the sound continued onto another shot and faded out. In addition, the final area of the scene where the camera zooms into my face, it would have been more professional if we used a non-Diegetic sound instead of Alex singing the tune in the background.

Survey

I have been asking people a series of questions about what they think thrillers are and most people aren't clear on this.

What is a Thriller film?

People thought that thriller films would be scary and contain alot of jumps. They would be contain alot of adreneline and car chases and would thrill you. It would include alot of danger and somebody trying to solve the mystery. They are constantly thinking 'Will they, Won't they...?' and keep your pulse beating.

This is the general public's view on what a thriller film is and it I think it is pretty closet. Wikipedia's definition of a thriller film is:

'Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains. Literary devices such as suspense, red herringsand cliffhangers are used extensively.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_films#Film 4th November 2008

Which of the Following films would you describe as a thriller?
A) The Bourne Identity
B) House of Wax
C) Saw
D)Lord Of The Rings

Most people thought that Saw was a thriller film, however this film is from the horror genre. Other people thought that House of Wax is a thriller, this is also a horror film as certain characteristics make it so, e.g. it is more gorey and less action packed. The right answer is The Bourne Identity, this includes chases and is much more thoughtful and clever. Horror films are normally just pointless killings and make the audience scared, rather than making them think.

Who do you think is the target audience of a thriller film?

Most people think that the target audience for a thriller film ia aimed at teenage boys, who are interested in high speed car chases, big explosions and action packed scenes, but this is not true. I think that the typical target audience for a thriller is between the ages of 16 and 35, and someone who likes the challenge of working out the answer or the secret killer. They will like an adreniline rush but are just as into thinking about the story line.

In conclusion, i don't think that the general public really know what a thriller film. Because thriller uses ideas from horror, mystery and other genres, sometimes films might no have a clear, definate genre.

Preliminary Evaluation

I really enjoyed this project.  However, we did encounter one major problem which put the filming process to a sudden holt.  Things were going ok, we filmed our scene, included all the requirements and we thought everything was fine.  It wasn't until we watched our scene on the computer that we realised that there was no sound.  Next time, we will definitely ensure that the camera has sound and that we check it properly.  We figured that we hadn't checked the camera before using it.  This was a really big problem.  We had to organise, in our extra time, some time to re-film our whole scene.

After our small mishap, things soon got back on track.

For the exercise, there were a few requirements.  We met all of them:

Match on Action-00:16 minutes

Over the Shoulder shot-00:20 minutes onwards

180 rule-our 180 line went through the two characters and we always stayed on the left.

I feel that our video looks good, however there is a slight problem starting from 00:18.

From an audiences perspective, it looks like the camera is going to pan across with the actor, however half way through the panning, we cut quite suddenly to an over the shoulder shot.  When filming, it seemed like a good idea, but watching it back, it looks odd.

If we were to film this again, i think we would be more aware of the sound.  Because there was a constant drilling near where we were filming, which therefore cause inconsistency in the sound.  Also, to achieve a more professional feel to it, at the end we think it would have been better to use the actual soundtrack of Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like A Woman" instead of Alex's voice.  We couldn't do this however because it is copywrited.

Evaluation of preliminary

This is the final project of our preliminary exercise.


We really enjoyed the work we did in the edit suite and particularly like the cut where it switches between Jordan reaching for the door and the door handle, into the room. It is good because the cut looks smooth and when th e door opens you can see Lizzy in the room. However, it does look slightly out of focus.

Something that didn't, orignally work, is that there was drilling going on outside the classroom, where we were filming. We didn't notice this until we came to the editing suite, made the cut and noticed the inconsistency in the sound. We corrected this by fading the sound out on one of the clips. If we were to film again, we would have liked to put in the actual music for the intro of 'Man I Feel Like A Woman', instead of just Alex's voice, to make it sound more complete and professional.

We did have some difficulties during the filming process for example, we went through and filmed the whole prelim excersise got to the editing suite and realised we had no sound, this was fustrating as it was all because we didnt flick the correct switch. however we learnt a valuable lesson and in future we will always remember to check the sound.

It has given us a taster for filming and editing and it will be exciting to do it for real when creating our thriller openings, now we have had a chance to practice techniques such at the 180 degrees technique, the over the shoulder technique, also keeping continuity throughout. Next time around we will have already made the initial technical errors and will be ready to get more creative. Think about costumes, settings, lights, music and make it as exciting, tense and atmospheric as possible.

Music in Thrillers

I was going through clips of thrillers on YouTube and saw one of the very well known psycho (Alfred Hitchcock). I noticed the music to be the real builder of tension and when in gets towards the action it becomes more and more terrifying. This showed me how important it is to get the music or sounds used just right as it can make a scene effective, tense, possibly uncomfortable and like in psycho when the music was just spot on extremely memorable. People who have never watched a thriller know that shower section of music in psycho. So the search for a great piece of music or sound begins...

Memento's opening music: lots of strings, low, slowing building, more thoughtful than scary, not as aggressive or violent music, but makes you wonder whats going on. It is because of the style of music that when you see the Polaroid photograph of a man who had clearly been murdered, there is loads of blood and yet you don't flinch at this incredibly violent image in fact as it starts to fade you look at it harder, even when you see the man who has just photographed this victim you feel calm and puzzled as to why the man is doing this awful thing. This is a key example of how the music can completely control the mood.

Bourne Identity, in this particular piece of music there is a great sense of urgency, things happening fast, it has a clear pulse to the music and feels like you a running, there is a great deal of tension and you feel insecure and unsettled, you feel like whoever is running could be dead any minute and you worry for that person's safety. Another great piece of music and yet completely contrasting to the other piece of music above.

So we need to decide whether we are doing a violent opening, thoughtful opening, a intense opening. We need to decide the pace and the content and choose music to reflect the mood.