Film Poster Analysis - The Final Destination

This is an interesting film poster to analyse. It conforms mostly to the regular motives of a horror film movie poster, cliches and all. The lighting, first of all, is very dark and focusses mainly on dark hues of black and grey. These dark colours connote that the film will be dark in nature and therefore will have elements of horror in it, due to the connotations of the colours black and grey - the background of this film poster looks a lot like a cloudy night's sky - a typical horror film scenario. The lighting also allows for the girl's eyes to become blacked out, not showing any detail, this makes her face look more like a skull, like the bottom half of her face. This is done purposely to convey a dark and horror like atmosphere. The contrast has been turned up on the photography to show more piercing details as this is a more unsettling and graphic image for the viewer, meaning that it is more likely to put across a scary and creepy vibe. 

The facial expression used on this film poster is one of sheer horror and pain, therefore showing that the film will not be happy and upbeat but rather one of a more sinister nature, the lower half of the featured person's jaw has been replaced by a skull, therefore suggesting that death will be a prominent theme throughout the film.

This is a rather minimalist poster; however, I think this works to it's advantage as it is extremely hard hitting and stands out from other posters. There aren't any props used in the photo as it is a very simple photo that has been graphically engineered to make the woman's bottom half of her face look like it is a skull. The simplistic design allows for all the information to be taken in quickly, and the colour scheme and the presence of a skull allows the audience to know undoubtedly what kind of genre this film will be. 

The hair and makeup used in this poster is very little. The hair is almost unseen but looks very natural and regular for a woman. The makeup used is also difficult to see as the harsh lighting is not easy to view behind. However, the bright lighting is used to make her face look very pale and symbolic of a skull or a corpse, so her makeup would have to be quite pale and light. 

The setting for the poster is unspecified and is not possible to find out. It is obviously shot in a studio with harsh lighting from above, almost mimicking an interrogation scene - a harrowing and unnerving prospect, making the viewer of the poster feel unsettled and disturbed. The picture is placed behind some broken and smashed glass, this shows that there will be chaos and panic in the film as broken glass is a symbol of struggle and also of smashed windows - which is a sign of someone being somewhere they shouldn't be, this is a feature of the film, and so fits with the theme. This broken glass imagery also fits with the tagline of the film 'Rest In Pieces' which is obviously a play on the phrase 'Rest In Piece', this suggests that dismemberment will be a part of the film, suggesting that the film will be gruesome and disturbing to watch. 

The text used in the poster is white, this contrasts heavily to the dark background making it very easy to read. The glowing effect used on the white text suggests afterlife and something other worldly, and adds a kind of 'X-Files'-esque feeling to the poster. The name of the film suggests death, and so the glowing text seems like a version of heaven, this conforming to the genre of the film as it suggests death. A serif font has been chosen to do the titles, this is most likely because it conveys a more serious message, rather than a playful one, and it looks hard hitting. there is one piece of colour used in the whole poster, and that's the date, which is in a blood red colour. This stands out hugely from the rest of the poster, letting it be known to the audience that it is important and also makes it truly memorable. The blood red is obviously symbolic of bloodshed, which will therefore make the audience think that gore will be another prominent feature of the film.

Camera Lesson 2

In our second Camera lesson we first of all learnt about the 180 degree rule. This is when one can film anywhere along a straight line, to make sure the shot makes ‘sense’. For example, filming a conversation between two people from left to right will look totally different if you film pass the 180 degree line, as it will look like its going from right to left when editing. We were also told to never watch a clip of recorded footage back in the studio as it is a waste of money as studios and actors etc are very expensive to hire and it wastes time also.

Our media studies class then proceeded to start to create a sequence. We learnt from Matt that to create a worthy sequence, it takes many takes performing the same action for example our group decided to repeat the action of Nancy walking into shot taking out her phone, looking at it and then putting it away and walking off shot again.We also took on three different roles, The actor, Director and Camera woman. Our group used a wide variety of camera angles for this to add variety when we get to edit our sequences next week. We used a standard Wideshot, then a mid-shot, a close-up and an extreme close-up. We are hoping this will create a slick sequence and with many different angles and points of view.It was great to be able to use the FX100 as we hadn't used it before.

Opening Sequence Analysis.

A Nightmare On Elm Street Title Analysis. This is one of my favourite openings of any horror movie to date. I think the whole sequence is extremely harrowing and the mise en scene is dark and disturbing. In the sequence we see a character introduced; however, he is not named and his face is not shown, just his hands. He is shown to be making his signature claw like weapon. This would make the audience immediately feel uncomfortable as they know, due to the nature of the film they’re about to watch, that this is most likely going to be used to kill people. A mixture of fast and slow editing is used throughout the sequence, I believe that this is done purposely to show the erratic behaviour of the person making the weapon, showing the audience that his mood could change at any second. This makes the audience feel even more on edge as the long camera shots are usually held on the weapon that this person is making. A lot of the camera work is done in a POV style, this is quite strange for a horror film and has been done before in another earlier horror film titled ‘Halloween’ which was directed by John Carpenter. It is strange as the audience get to see the world through they eyes of a killer, which is almost sympathising with them; however, this is done to make the audience feel disturbed and unsettled as it’s not a normal viewing point for a film, it also means that the director doesn’t give away the full identity of the creature at hand, leaving some mystery to unfold in the actual movie. The sound in the movie is reasonably quiet, with only the sound of breathing to be heard. This is creepy and disconcerting for the audience as it feels like the killer is close to them. Mostly close up shots are used in this sequence in order to allow for the identity of the person making the weapon to be kept secret. 

Halloween POV Shot

Erratic Titling = Suspense

The best other title sequence from the horror genre to compare this one to would be Se7en. This is another one of my favourite title sequences and was directed by Kyle Cooper, a legend in the opening title sequence world. This sequence also features the character who plays the killer and is designed to be unsettling for the audience to watch. Mostly extreme close ups and close up shots are used in the sequence, again, I believe, to keep the identity of the killer a secret yet also to introduce the audience to the film, and give them an idea of what they are going to spend the next 90 minutes watching. Se7en’s title sequence uses extremely fast editing to create a sense of madness and chaos with flashing images which are almost too quick to properly view. I think this is done to try and portray the mindset of a psychopathic killer and what’s going on inside their heads. The person introduced in this sequence is not making a weapon, like in Nightmare on Elm Street, but rather a sort of book. This may not sound too disturbing; however, the writing is all in different languages and the pictures are graphic and disconcerting, showing that the man writing the book is somehow not completely sane, which makes the audience tense. As the sequence goes on, the editing becomes more and more erratic and quicker, creating more tension for the audience before the film actually starts. With this faster editing comes faster and faster music, this creates a sense of urgency and manic about the sequence. The mise en scene of the sequence is similar to that of A Nightmare on Elmstreet, in the sense that it is very dark, disturbing and unsettling for the audience to view, making it a fantastic opening title sequence for this type of film.

Double vision FX and different language

Book of illegible writing - Not sane

Interesting Extreme Close Up

To contrast these films, I’ve decided to use Little Miss Sunshine. This film is of the ‘drama/dark comedy’ genre, and the opening title scene is the complete opposite of the horror scenes. In this opening, the director is trying to give the audience as much information as possible about all the characters in the film, rather than withholding it to create mystery and suspense. This allows the audience to connect immediately to the characters, thus making the film more open to reliability and laughs as people feel more comfortable when they know more about the characters. The editing is much slower, done purposely to accompany the mellow soundtrack which suggests a boring and monotonous life for the family shown in the sequence. This sequence is strange as the music very much contrasts what is going on in the shots, the music is a happy and bouncy track whilst the scenes show the family all struggling through their lives. Camera techniques such as pans and tilts are used throughout the sequence in order to allow for more information to be taken in by the audience to get to know how this family lives. A mixture of extreme close ups, close ups and mid shots are used in this sequence, I believe that, again, this is done to allow the audience to feel closer to this family, a sort of ‘fly on the wall’ vibe.

Mid shots - Little girl watching beauty pageant. 

Over The Shoulder Shot - shows almost empty classroom. 

Depth of Field and focus pulls used to create an interesting shot. 

Camera Work Lesson.

On Friday the 18th of September, myself and my class had its first camera lesson in the filming studio. Matt taught us how to use a variety of different cameras (seen below) Including the Canon SD, the Sony FS 1000 and the Sony NX5. Matt then showed us how to set them up and work them.Over the course of the lesson we learnt how to set up the tripod. We did this by unlocking and locking the clamps of the tripod and extending the legs of the tripod to a suitable height/length.

We then learnt how to place our camera which was the Sony NX5 (seen on the right) carefully onto the tripod we had assembled, we then slid it into place and then locked it onto the tripod with a small clamp.We then learnt how to bubble the tripod 'bubbling' the tripod (seen below) allowed us to get a stable image through our camera. Matt showed us that to do this you unlock the clamp under the tripod and position it correctly so that the small bubble is in the center of the circle of the spirit level on the side of the tripod. Once it is in the center it means the camera is centered and this means it is stable. The camera must be attached firmly to the tripod so we tested it by shaking it slightly and it was in fact firmly on.

We then moved on to learning about the three rings on the Sony NX5. We learnt that the front ring controlled the focus, the second ring controlled the zoom and the third ring controlled brightness. The Sony FS 1000 also had this feature but the Canon SD didn't as it didn't have zoom so we had to use a tape measure to measure how far away it was to the image so we could use the correct amount of focus on it.

After learning this and playing around with them for a few minutes we learnt how to do a white balance. The camera must be focused fully on a white piece of material or something relatively white in order to achieve true colours in the shot. Once the screen was focused on something white the white balance button is pressed to achieve a better coloured shot.

I really enjoyed being able to explore the different cameras and I have to say I liked the Sony NX5 the most. This lesson was very interesting to me as i have never learnt about cameras in such depth before and I look forward to being able to use my new knowledge in more practical work in Media in the future.

Conventions of a thriller

Here Is a word cloud I made up from certain features/conventions of a thriller with Tagul.

Review of The Gift.

The film I have chosen to review is The Gift. It is one of my all time favourite films. It was written, directed and starred in by Joel Edgerton. It was produced by Jason Blum, who is a well known producer who works within the horror film genre mostly, some of his work includes the Paranormal Activity series and Sinister 1 and 2. The other two stars in the film were Jason Bateman who

played Simon and Rebecca Hall who played his wife, Robyn. This is a relatively new film, released in the summer of 2015. It has gotten a number of good critic reviews and has received a rating of 7.5 on IMDb. The Gift was given an estimated budget of around $5’000’000 to be filmed. It received $11.8 million back on its opening weekend and has so far grossed over $31 million as of August. The film has been critically acclaimed on most internet review sites, such as Rotten Tomatoes, where is received a rating of 93%, scoring it close to films the likes of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. 

The Gift is a film about a couple who move into a new house in a small town in America. The main character, Simon, is confronted by an old school friend of his in a department store. A strange, unrequited friendship blossoms between Simon and this strange man. The man keeps turning up at the couple’s home with strange gifts, supposedly to make them feel ‘welcome’ into the neighbourhood. Things soon take a turn for the worse and the man leaves stranger and stranger gifts and riddles which confuse and disturb the couple before they find out that the man’s true intentions may not be quite so cheerful.

I went to see this film in the summer after seeing an advert for the film on the side of a bus whilst in London. It looked like a good horror film but the reviews said slightly differently, stating that it was more of a psychological thriller, like that of Shutter Island and Se7en. As these are two of my favourite films, I decided that this one would be good to watch also. After reading a bit about the synopsis on IMDb I was truly excited to find out more about the film’s cryptic storyline and I wasn't disappointed when I finished the film for myself.

After viewing the film, I was left extremely enticed by the concept. Joel Edgerton did an incredible job of both directing and starring in the film as the ‘weirdo’ - as he is credited on IMDb. The film is full of fantastic jump scares and some interesting plot twists which left me both intrigued, disturbed and also packed full of adrenaline from the exciting and fast paced storyline; it truly did keep me on the edge of my seat for the entire 108 minutes. For these reasons, The Gift has secured a place in my favourite films list for the foreseeable future.