The Decision of a Thriller

In our group we had decided on a opening thriller sequence which would be not to complicated to do and we had chosen a story which had the best storyline. There had been my storyline where the main plot was all about shooting and all this action type of thriller, and the other story had been a artistic thriller type. My group had turned out to like more of the artistic-thriller than a action-triller and they had chosen the other idea. When we had about to reach the final decision we had thought on which thriller sequence would be done easier, my thriller sequence involved gun shots and muzzle flares which they had thought it would be too hard, and the other idea didn't involve any special effects which would be much more easier. To be telling the truth I didn't enjoy the idea of the artistic-thriller because I enjoy doing all the special effects and I want to be at my full potential in editing, I had explained that to them but they thought it would take too long.

The Dark Night Poster Analysis

By having the dark night as one of my favourite movies you can see completely what it is about just by looking and observing the whole poster.

When looking at the poster you are able to tell that it is about this one iconic figure trying to make a difference in the world, by having a low angle shot of him standing in the centre of the poster we are able to portray that. He is also wearing all black which signifies that he is trying to hide something from the world. Another attribute that helps this rumour that he is trying to hide something is the actual bat logo on the bottom where it presents the bat having a backlight which allows the logo to have a outline from the light where the centre is completely dark, which signifies that he is trying to hide something.

It is visible to see that there is one major building being half destroyed along with other building which are not so visible surrounding it, that is presented in a way of showing that this is not a big epidemic which concerns all the world but only one city, in this case Gotham City.

The huge bat symbol in the background which is in flames signifies the pain and anger within this iconic superhero, and by presenting it in flames which is red it shows that there is danger.

This movie is targeted for people who like a thrill and who enjoy the old superheroes. Batman has started a very long time ago but a major movie came out in 1989 where people started to really love this superhero, so I would say this movie is more for male teens and adults.

Independence Day Poster Analysis

In the movie poster of independence day we are able to see that it is going to be a sci-fi thriller where there will be a battle of the worlds. In the poster there have been selected a small variety of colour where it starts in a black colour which fades to red and ends in a light orange colour.

In the picture we see a huge alien space ship which is targeting New York, but as for the wide shot of the city being destroyed it has a sort of a curve to the horizon which signifies that not only New York is being destroyed but the whole world. By presenting the alien space ship to be covering 3/4 of the poster and the city to be covering only 1/4 of the poster represents how the other human like life-forms are more superior than the whole world. The colours of the poster tells how the movies mood is going to be, for example the high contrast red signifies the danger which is going to take place in the movie where two different races will collide in a battle till the end. The black which surrounds the the poster signifies that there is no one to help the people who are in trouble and also presents their isolation. Although it seems that the people have no chance of surviving there might be some hope left for them, we are able to tell that by the light colours which are somewhat in the centre of the poster.

Editing the Preliminary Task

      During the editing process I have learned different techniques/styles of editing in Final Cut Pro 7. I was taught how to use Final Cut Pro some time ago in the past couple of years, but I haven't used it and I became a bit rusty, but the tutorial that we had with Matt had helped me to get back into editing with Final Cut Pro. When we had opened Final Cut the first thing that we had to do was to import the footage into the Browser. As we had been looking in the browser the next assignment that we had to do was to organise the footage and either but it in two different folders, one which was the bin where to put the footage that did not work out and then there was the Log folder where we would put the successful footage that had worked out and that we would use.

     The next thing that we had to do was to roughly set out the footage throughout the timeline in order to have some idea on how are we going to have the video in the end. From the point that we set out every footage we cut out the put everything together

     From this experience I have learned how to add footage by dragging it into the preview screen. On the timeline I used the cut tool and the dragging tool to edit my footage, and in order to preview the sequence I used the J key to rewind backwards, the L key to fast forward, the K key to pause and the space bar to play and pause.

Revenge (Opening Thriller Sequence)

            In my opening thriller sequence I had chosen a scene where the protagonist has been holding a grudge to the antagonist for many years and had decided to complete his intentions by killing the antagonist. The idea behind the killing had been that the antagonist had wanted to take revenge for the antagonist murder of the protagonist family, we show that by having newspaper articles about the killing and right next to it would be a picture of the antagonists file photo. In order for the protagonist to succeed in his goal he has to get though some security, which lets the main character to get into a serious killing rampage. When the main character reaches the door where he will find the antagonist he has to finish the last of the guards before he enters. As he finishes killing the guards he gets a moment to gather up his thoughts and that is the moment were things start to slow down. When he enters the room he sees that the antagonist is sitting at the table writing something, as the main character he puts his gun right next to his head which ends the thriller.

There have been many videos that has influenced me to want to create such a opening sequence, I could say that it was a combination of thrillers that have influenced me because they always had some interesting thrills within the whole movie that makes the audience on the edge of the seat.

Preliminary Task

     In the preliminary task there were a numerous of different things that made me enjoy it. The biggest thing that I enjoyed during the filming was the sense of accomplishment when finishing a good take, but even a better feeling is when you finish the whole shoot. 
      During the preliminary task I have learnt more of being in charge of the shoot, and by that being a better director. The worst part of filmmaking for me is the moment when you realize that the take that you just finished filming had errors in continuity, which leads you to re-filming the shot. In our group of 3 plus the actors we had been working well together, each person had been doing their job while interacting with one another. Gorges job was to be the cameraman, as for his job he had set up the camera and had thought of the exact camera placement for the next shot. Shane’s job was to write and record the shot to make sure that the continuity of the shots would have a steady flow, he had done a good job but there had been one problem though that pace of the two different scenes were a bit different that had been a problem for editing. As for me I had been the director and I my job had been to organize all the shots and to tell which one we would be shooting next, another job that I had was to adjust the small things to make the scene good e.g. the volume of the actors speaking, their positions, and their movements. In the end everyone had done a good job to keep the scene rolling in a good direction. If I were to redo this preliminary task and had to make a couple of adjustments to it I would have added more interaction shots of the actors e.g. open door handle.

     We had started out in the idea that it would be a crime scene but it turned out that we were not able to have that idea since we were not able to get a gun prop and there was no location, so it turned out that the studio was free and I decided that we should film something random there. In the studio we had found a spray can of some sort and thought that we could use that in the film. We had some extra time to shoot a couple of additional shots for the preliminary task so we added a shot of the door opening and a shot of the spray can falling to the ground, by adding those shots we were able to further explain what is happening in the scene. We had shot in a total of 7-8 different shots, which helped us and the viewers to understand more of the character actions. We had filmed an wide shot, clean over the shoulder shot from character A to character B, another clean over the shoulder shot from character B to character A, a dirty over the shoulder shot from bother character perspectives, then we moved on to the additional shots which were the close up of Character A coming in through the door and leaving the door, and the last shot that we did was a close up shot of the spray can being thrown to the floor. In the preliminary task we had filmed the whole scene following the 180 degree rule, it is the rule that there is a imaginary line in between two people in a conversation and the camera is not able to cross it during filming in order to create confusion for the audience.