Captain Philips - Joel

Captain Phillips was inspired by a true story in 2009, an incident which saw Richard Phillips (Actor is Tom Hanks) boat being hijacked and taken over as well as Mr Philips being kidnapped. Paul Greengrass was the director of this film, they had a budget of $55 Million and made a profit of over $150million. The genre of this film is a thriller as it builds suspense throughout the film whilst creating emotion with the characters making the audience wait and wait for a dramatic scene to happen. Where this is based on a true story it will entice people to watch it even more. Although there are no explosions in this film, the movement and suspense is what makes it a thriller film as-well as the storyline itself, the guns play a massive part in this film which shows the threatening behaviour of the actors in the film, this proves it is a thriller as there is not many film genres which will show this kind of behaviour with guns in.

For example a Thriller film is most likely to have some sort of weapon in to set the scene whereas a comedy film may have a gun involved but will not be in a threatening way and will be in a more funny way or even in the background.

Fight club - Joel

Another research we have done is one fight club. For this we have searched one of the most famous scenes from the film and saw the atmosphere and effects of it. The scene was about the 8 rules of the club and shows threat, tension and pressure in the scene as the location was dark and the tone of the actors voice was "tough" as he repeated some of the rules like an instruction. The pressure came from the extras in the film stretching getting ready to fight as the main actor (Brad Pitt) called out the rules.

 

The Purge Anarchy - Joel

We researched The Purge Anarchy and studied the first 5 minutes. From this we could see that there was an act of aggression in the film. The music creates a haunted effect on the audience to make them feel scared and create suspense before the film starts. In the film they used masks to hide the identity of some individuals until the very end when all is revealed.

Alfred Hitchcock - Joel

Alfred Hitchcock was a English film director. His most famous film is the film Psycho released in 1960 and has created a new idea of thriller films. he created the most successful sound films of his generation. most director have been inspired by his film ideas and unique technique, famous directors such as Michael Bay. One of his techniques that he uses his is using music to create tension of the atmosphere and not to manipulate the audience as they know when to laugh, cry and be scared.

Michael Bay - Joel

Michael Bay has produced many films such as; Transformers, The Purge, Pearl Harbour, Pain In Gain and many more. Mr Bay is classed as one of the top directors of all time. Not only has he directed films but he has also filmed advertisements and music videos throughout he's career. Michael Bay has won many awards such as commercial director of the year and Guild Of America. He uses special effects in many films due to the large sets used, for example Pearl Harbour he creates huge explosions with modern technology.

Joel

Codes and conventions of thriller films - Joel

Themes: terrorism, crime, chase, spies and political conspiracy.

 Iconography: cars, weapons, urban settings, tension building music, fast paced editing, low lighting. 

characters: soldiers, spies, law,  

Feeling thrillers create: Excitement, suspense, Anticipation, nerve wracking tension, Anxiety and uncertainty.

Commentary for Preliminary Task - Joel

Our task was to create a short film that showed we could use match on action, shot reverse shot and obey the 180 degree rule.

The good things about our film are: the editing of the film in the shot reverse shot and kept to the rule of 180 degrees.

The areas we need to improve on are: match on action is non existent and the framing of the head shots.  

Final Preliminary Film - Joel