Research: Narrative Themes and Plots - Ms. Begum

Narrative Themes

What are themes?

Themes are the main concept or topics of ideas within a film to create meanings towards the viewers. For example, love and obsession are the two sub genre of the thriller genre. This allows the audience to have an idea of what the movie is about and understand a rough description of the movie.

Themes are important for the audience to identify them because it highlights the messages that are delivered within the film.

 

 

Common themes in thrillers:

 

Death

 

 

 
 
Obsession

Supernatural

 

 

 Evangelic

 

 Mystery

 

 Religious

 

These examples are common themes in thrillers due to it providing a clear structure and it is easy to identify by the viewers.

 

How themes are dependent on genres and why:

Themes are dependent on other genres because it provides the audience with the idea of the main themes within the movie and also to see if it is conventional to the thriller genre. This allows the audience to feel sympathy for the characters and the actions that are being displayed. Moreover, this also allows the audience to relate and create relationships to the characters within the movie.

 

If themes are unidentified and doesn't have any relation towards the audience this would lead to confusion and unable to understand the feelings of the characters therefore the audience cant relate to the genre. For example, in a comedy film the audience would expect to see a theme that includes comedy, love and sex. This help the audience to identify the concept of the movie, whereas in thriller the main themes would include obsession, death and revenge. This allows the audience to easily identify and anticipate what the movie is about.

 

Common themes in thrillers:

Death













Supernatural



Torture



Revenge


Psychological




Themes have a big impact on the audience as it makes them anticipate  messages from the film. Themes are conventional to a thriller as it makes the film conventional to the genre and what this does is make the audience have expectations and ideas from the movie.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, the themes I am planning to use in my thriller are mainly evil and psychological because these themes engages with the audience and makes a film/trailer interesting towards the audience.









 

Research: Mise en scene: Costume, Body language and Facial Expressions - Ms. Begum

Mise en scene

Costume, body language and facial expressions

What is costume?

A costume is what the character wears within the film, with this the costume would link and be conventional to the film and genre. The costume of a character allows the audience to be able to read what type of character they are and their intentions. Costumes also show whether they are the protagonist or the antagonist. As for the genre of thriller that I am doing the conventional characters would be; antagonist, protagonist, female victim and a child.

The protagonists usually wear bright nice clothes that suit their persona. They often look approachable, appropriate and confident but also serious in different situations. They also have a significant weapon that they wield in order to prevent the situation that they are in.

The antagonists usually wear dark clothes with make up, masks, tattoos or scars that hide their true identity but this lets the characters identify the antagonist by their trademark (mask, makeup etc..). In thrillers they often carry lethal weapons which shows that they are dangerous and have bad intentions. Also antagonists would usually have long messy hair or scruffy facial hair that hides their identity. This makes the audience feel intimidated for the protagonists because the antagonists looks scary and dangerous.

What is body language?

Body language is a the characters body movement, actions, gestures and the way they present themselves.  The way a character acts can be conventional as we can identify a character just by the way they act so body language helps the audience to identify who the characters are in a film.

The conventional body language of a protagonist is usually confident, strong and confident. This portrays them as the hero and this makes the audience expect this character to survive and defeat the antagonist.


The conventional body language of a antagonist is usually tall, big, muscular and confident. This makes them look intimidating towards the victims and protagonists. They often look confident because usually the antagonist act like they have committed crime, murder before so they are used to it.

What is facial expression?

Facial expressions are how characters portray their emotions to the audience. The look on their face and the faces they make give the audience and idea of how the characters are feeling.

The conventional facial expressions of an antagonist are usually serious and scary looking or
sometimes even smiley, teasing their victims. This represents them as the evil character. Their facial expressions make the audience feel uncomfortable and frightened by the antagonists. The way the antagonist make certain faces and the way they express themselves can be used to identify them by the audience.

The conventional facial expressions of a protagonists is usually smart, confident, serious and attractive to the viewers. This makes them look superior which makes the audience support this character and have faith him/her so that they overpower the antagonist and prevent the situation.

Conclusion:

For my thriller I am planning to use dark costume and rough hair and make up to for the antagonist to create an evil look. The body language that I will show from the antagonist is a strong, muscular and maybe show unordinary actions to show that this character is not normal. The facial expressions for the antagonist will be serious, angry and maybe happy/smiley to show that they are teasing the victim. For the protagonist/victim I will use brighter colours and neat hair and make up to show the innocence of this character. The body language I will use for this character would be confident and strong and maybe vulnerable by their physique. The facial expressions the protagonist/victim will use are smart confident, happy, serious.

Planning: Preliminary task - Mr. Smith

The purpose of preliminary task:

- The purpose of the preliminary task was to introduce us to filming so that when it comes to our final
production, we would all know how to play our roles whether it is operating the camera or editing the footage after.. This was mainly for us to get used to filming and learn several filming techniques to help us create an effective short thriller film.

- This task was not planned so we had to improvise and make a quick scene in a short time. This gave us practise in improvising in case we need to when filming the final project.

The scenario:

- The scenario for our preliminary task was two people from our group having a conversation. We experimented on using different types of shot sizes and angles that we had learnt in class. We then tried camera movement when one of our characters were walking towards a different location. We also tried some movement shots to give show a better view of the location and also to show the change of location.

Group roles:
Our group consists of 3 main people;
- Shelah: main character/ editor(Actor 1)
- Marlyn: main character. (Actor 2)
- Joshua: (Me) Camera operator


You can find our preliminary task on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J3AFDSCwcE&feature=youtu.be

 

Difficulties we encountered:

The location chosen for our preliminary task was in the music department of our school during class times. So we had times in which we had been disturbed by students walking pass and by loud noises occurring around the music department. Because of this, we had to stop, wait or retake the scene we were filming.

When we had completed filming our short preliminary task, we had to edit the film to approximately 30 seconds. The software we used was very new to all of us so we had to learn how to operate the software in order to complete our task. Another difficulty we encountered was importing the files from the camera on to the software(FinalCutPro).

Conclusion:
The preliminary task has allowed me to learn how to operate a camera and know what it is like behind the scenes in what is needed to do to make a film.. It has also allowed me to learn how to use a new software that is used for editing many video clips together. This task has been very beneficial because it has helped all of us to now know how to film and edit, in which we need in order to complete the Thriller film we will make.

Planning: Pre production paperwork - Ms. Begum

Pre production paperwork

In our groups, we each had to take on a role in creating professional paperwork before hand, in order to allow us to film in chosen locations, public etc. The paperwork would then be handed to each member of the production groups as well as the cast taking part in our thriller film.

Production schedule:

- This is a summary of what exactly is going to happen in our filming schedule. This document will be given to each and every person taking part in our film. This document will allow everyone in our production to know when and where we will be filming and also what would be need to be brought in order for us to create the scenes we want.

Risk assessment:

- The analysis of our location/s and what risks might arise and how we plan to overcome those risks. This document will be given to everyone in our production in order to ensure their safety when filming.

 

 

Location recce/ release form:

- This is a summary of the location/s that we have decided to use for our thriller. It will show the directions for members of the production to get to the chosen location and also why it has been chosen. This document will also be given to everyone in our production so that they know more of our chosen location and how to get there.

 

 

Client release form:

- This document is for each client in our production including the cast, director and film crew. This discusses the terms and agreements for any actors in our thriller.