Primary and Secondary Research (Safia Shafi)

Primary research and second research
It is very important for our group to do a lot of primary and secondary research to help us make our blog as informative, creative and interactive as possible. Primary research is research that you go out and find yourself, Examples of primary research is questionnaire, interviews, surveys etc. secondary research is that is already available and been found that you may use, examples of secondary research is the internet and books. We used both primary and secondary research to help us in creating our blog, a type of primary research we used is questionnaires, and this is because we wanted to do some audience research and genre research to help us understand the thriller genre and who our target audiences are. Once we had our primary research we needed to find ways to make our blogs as interactive and creative as possible, so we decide to do some secondary research in to software’s we could use, we looked at different software and decided on which one would be best for us to use for our bog, an example of a software that we used is photo shop, this was used to create a logo for our blog.

Weekly Update - Laura Collins

This week our group has mostly concentrated on our storyboard. It has taken us a few days because we went out to take photographs of our actors in our location and later decided our photos weren't good enough and we have also decided to change our location. We have therefore decided to re-take all of our photos. We will then be annotating them in detail. Once this is completed it will be uploaded.  

Narrative/ Tzvetan Todorov Equilibrium - Safia Shafi

Tzvetan Todorov equilibrium

Tzvetan Todorov is a Franco-Bulgarian philosopher who suggested that narratives
begin with:

• an equilibrium where every thing is in balance,
• this is disrupted by some event, setting in a chain of events
• Lastly Problems are solved so that order can be restored.
What he trying to say is that narrative has begging, middle ( where a variety of things happen) and ending.

Tzvetan Todorov suggested that conventional narratives are structured in five stages:
1. a state of equilibrium at the outset;
2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action;
3. a recognition that there has been a disruption;
4. an attempt to repair the disruption;
5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium.

Title Sequence Design Research - (Safia Shafi)

Saul bass 

Saul bass is a famous title sequence designer born in 1920 and died in the 1996.
 He is known as one of the best ever graphic designers for film, he has often worked with directors Martin Scorsese, and especially Alfred Hitchcock on his very famous film Psycho, of which he designed the titles. He has had a long lasting and successful career, helping out with visual concepts, storyboards but most importantly the titles for the bigger cinematic hits of the 20th century.
He first collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger to design the film poster for his 1954 film Carmen Jones. Otto Preminger was very impressed with Bass’s work that he insisted that he were to produce the title sequence as well.
In 1955 Saul Bass became well known in the industry after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm. This film is about a jazz musician's struggle to overcome his heroin addiction. Bass decided to create a controversial title sequence to match the film's controversial subject. He chose the arm as the central image, and the titles featured an animated, black paper cut-out arm of a heroin addict.
As well as working with Otto Preminger he is also famous for his work with Alfred Hitchcock, Bass provided effective, memorable title sequences, using kinetic typography, for North by Northwest,  Vertigo, and Psycho. Later on his work with Martin Scorsese saw him move away from the optical techniques  into computerized titles, from which he produced the title sequence for Casino.

Narrative Roland Barthes (Safia Shafi)

 Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes is a French literary theorist who suggested that narratives are broken into 5 codes, these codes are
1.       The Hermeneutic Code
The Hermeneutic Code refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the reader. The full truth is often avoided, refers to any element in a story that is not explained and, therefore, exists as an enigma for the reader, raising questions that demand explication.
2.       The Proairetic Code
The Proairetic code refers to plot events that imply further narrative action. For example, a story character confronts an adversary and the reader wonders what the resolution of this action will be. Suspense is created by action rather than by a reader's wish to have mysteries explained.
3.       The Semantic Code (SEM)
This code refers to connotation within the story that gives additional meaning over the basic denotative meaning of the word.
4.       The Symbolic Code
This is very similar to the Semantic Code, but acts at a wider level, organizing semantic meanings into broader and deeper sets of meaning.
5.       The Cultural Code (REF)
This code refers to anything that is founded on some kind of canonical works that cannot be challenged and is assumed to be a foundation for truth. Typically this involves either science or religion.
Roland Barthes five codes can be applied in the film Gothika, it is a thriller Ghost story in which a repressed female psychiatrist wakes up as a patient in the very asylum where she worked with no memory of why she is there and what she has done.
The hermeneutic code -  The mystery is how Halle berry who plays the female psychiatrist became a patient in the asylum where she works, this is then followed by The Proairetic Code- this is the part of the film where she is approached by a ghost who continues to harass her by cutting her, however  psychiatrist believe she is doing it to herself, this builds a lot of tension and suspense as it keeps the audience asking questions such as is she really crazy, how can she be crazy when she used to be a psychiatrist. The Proairetic code works together with the  hermeneutic codes as it builds tension and keeps the audience wondering about the mystery.
The semantic code-
In the film there is a scene in which Halle Berry’s character is possessed by the ghost character, Rachel; in this scene she visibly bursts into flames.  The semantic code is demonstrated when the central antagonist, the sheriff, has a tattoo on his chest of a woman burning in flames.  This image connotes, and reminds the audience of, the possession. 

The symboli code-  the symbolic code can be seen in the film Gothika in the scene before Charles s.dutton who plays DR. Douglas grey dies, with in the that scene DR. Douglas grey says to Halle berry “I love playing god” . the dialogue has a very deep meaning to it and connotes what type of character he  is as we find out at the end.  This dialogue has a very deep meaning at the time when its being said however after DR.Douglas dies, the audience begin to lose meaning to this dialogue as the DR  dies right after that scene, however towards the end the audience begin to see the meaning behind those word as the mystery begins to unravel.
The cultural code- this code can be seen in Gothika in the part of the story where the audience can see she is a psychiatrist working with patients, her working as a psychiatrist forms the basis of truth for the audience as they begin to think she can’t be crazy cause just yesterday she was working with patients, the audience use this foundation of truth to unravel the mystery of how she ended up in an asylum.

kyle copper title sequence design (Safia Shafi)

Kyle Cooper is an acclaimed modern designer of motion picture title sequences. Kyle Cooper studied under Paul Rand at Yale, and decided that he would focus on creating film titles. In 1996, he co-founded the creative agency, Imaginary Forces, which is focused on motion design. Once the agency grew substantially, he left and founded the agency, Prologue, which is where Kyle remains today. Kyle Cooper is most notable for creating the title sequence for the 1995 American crime film Se7en.
His work in the field of film title design is often compared to Saul Bass.
Other movies that kyle cooper has also worked on are the following:
·         The Mummy (1999)
  • Zoolander (2001)
  • Spider-Man (2002)
  • Dawn of the Dead (2004)
  • Spider-Man 2 (2004)
  • Iron Man (2008)
  • The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Questionnaire - Safia Shafi

Audience research
We created this questionnaire to help us with our audience research. We gave it out to people in our college to fill out and got some feedback which we put in a graph. Doing a question has really helped my group because it’s allowed us to have more of understanding of the thriller genre and what our audience are looking for. After getting the feedback we were able to narrow down our target audience and develop our idea. 

Questionnaire 1 ">

Weekly Update - Safia Shafi

This week my group and I did quite a lot but haven’t completed the task so we haven’t uploaded them yet, but we did complete the production brief and the results for our questionnaire have been uploaded.This week we also managed to meet up with our cast and take story board pictures and location pictures, so In the following week we hope to have our story board completed and uploaded.

Weekly Update - Olutobi Odeleye

This week we changed various things on our “Rebecca” Blog.
The idea we originally thought of had loads of flaws and received negative reactions, therefore we changed it to a more realistic, on the go, action short film. We also decided that it would not be effective for the audience, hence why we changed our Brainstorm and added more ideas, such as information on the
protagonist and antagonist. Moreover, we added more shots to our cinematography aspect. We have also uploaded the ideas of Codes and Conventions, genre research, audience research and opening sequence outline.

Opening Sequence Outline - Olutobi Odeleye

A young girl named Rebecca (Age 21) runs across the underground subway, crossing through corners and looking around worryingly. Her facial expression describes her as someone that is been victimised or a target of which something bad or mysterious is going to occur. Then this scene shifts to an unknown bridge location in which the environment looks run down where she continues to run. she then enters a park from the bridge route as she was running in a haste she staggers and falls, and hurts her leg, however she still got back up and dtsrts to limp. When Rebecca gets to the door of an unknown building Rebecca then pulls out her key from her pocket anticipated to get through the door, in fear she starts to shake trying to find the right key whilst dropping the keys, she then went round the back of the building trying to open the blocked out window, she still wasn't sucessful however at her second attempt she pushes the door open with her leg. Then the door flings open.

When Rebecca finally opens the door, this synchronised with Tom (Age 23) who is tied up to the chair and drops a phone simultaneously. Then camera focuses on the phone being dropped. The camera shows Rebecca still standing by the doorway breathless whilst gazing at Tom. (Then a Big “REBECCA” title appears on the screen, and there is a non diegetic sound of the police saying Hello? From the phone)

Codes And Conventions - Safia Shafi

Codes and conventions

All genres will have a set of ways that you can recognize them, this is how you classify different media texts into groups, and these are called codes and conventions. A code is like a really firm rule that is almost never broken, there can be: Character Codes, Plot Codes, Structural Codes, Production Codes. Codes and conventions allow the audience to understand what genre the film is, within our two minutes sequence we intend to apply the codes and convention of a thriller to give our sequence the feature and characterizes a thriller requires.

The conventions of the thriller genre are to do with sound and editing, E.g. quick cuts and camera angle changes, music that gives tension. Codes and conventions of a thriller include lighting, the use of shadow. Mirrors and stairs are also conventions of thriller movies. Codes and conventions of a thriller also include the following:




This are the typical codes and Convention of a Thriller.

Mise-en-scene

We are able to recognize a thriller through the use of location, costume and props. As a thriller has many sub genres the location costume and props of these sub genres are similar but different. For example the typical aspects of Mise-en-scene in a psychological thriller are, the location is often a psychiatric unit, mental hospital, or an old house. The lighting in many psychological thriller isn’t very bright, instead they use quite dim lighting as the lighting has a very big impact on how the audience see the thriller. In psychological thriller the costumes are very distinct as u have your psychiatrist who would most likely be wearing either smart clothing or a lab coat with a shirt and trousers, the character who is in the mental institution would perhaps be wearing hospital clothing.


Editing

Often in many thrillers the editing is very fast pasted with a lot of jump cuts, the type of editing used in many thrillers help build up a lot of tension and suspense.  The use of fast pasted editing and jump cuts often keep the audience entertained and draw them in to thriller more.


Sound

In many movies sound is very important, the sound usually goes with the genre for example in thriller you would have mysterious, action, fast up beat sounds depending the genre. If it were to be an action thriller then we most likely have upbeat fast past sound that would complement the action going on. The sounds in many thrillers often help engage the audience.


Surprises & Twists
Plays with Viewers Mind
From Killers Point of View
Flash Backs
Make Audience Think

The codes and conventions within a thriller mainly allow a female protagonist to be a victim of a dominant male character, often within a thriller you would get two points of view one being the protagonist views. Codes and conventions of a thriller also cover mise- en -scene for example props such as large knives, guns etc.

Genre Research/Claude Levi-Strauss - Safia Shafi

Claude Levi-Strauss’s Theory:

Claude Levi-Strauss suggested that we make sense of the world, people and events by seeing and using binary opposites everywhere. He observed that all narratives are organised around the conflict between such binary opposites.

Examples of binary opposites are:

·      Good vs. evil
·      Black vs. white
·      Boy vs. girl
·      Peace vs. war
·      First world vs. third world
·      Domestic vs. foreign/alien
·      Young vs. old
·      Protagonist vs. antagonist
·      Man vs. woman
·      Strong vs. weak  

Claude Levi-Strauss’s narrative can be applied to our opening sequence because he looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions such as man vs. women which we have in our opening sequence, Rebecca vs. Tom. 

Script - Laura Collins

'Rebecca' Script

Introduction

In week one we aim to achieve a lot in regards to the planning and research section of our media coursework. Today we have learned how to create hyperlinks from our group blog to our individual blogs. We have also completed our Preliminary Task and, in doing so, learned a lot about the process of filming and editing. We have begun our Production Schedule and this should be finished as soon as we have allocated each group member with an equal number of tasks. This will help us to be organised and prepared. We have also almost finished our brainstorming and have chosen a genre, which we will soon be exploring more deeply through research.