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Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock was an english film maker, who had been knighted, he specialised in making thriller films with his skill to create a great amount of suspense during his films.

With a career spanning for more than 50 years he made many iconic films such as ''birds'' and ''psycho''. These films really inspired the thriller community of films to improve and it showed how far the can go to make the film thrilling.

Hitchcock started his career in britain until he decided to go to hollywood where he eventually died in April 1980 at the age of 80. in hollywood he directed his first film called ''Rebecca" Which was set in England, this film won the academy award for best picture.   

The James Bond Franchise

James Bond first started as a novel of short stories written by Ian Fleming who also illustrated the book, the first story that was published was Casino Royale in 1953. The books was set between 1951 and 1964. he had written 12 novels and 2 story story books. All of his books were written in his Jamaican home Golden eye  which is also a name of one of his novels.

This was one of the books covers which shows James Bond and a woman, it shows James Bond to look like a typical guy, it also shows him with a gun in his hand which is to show that he is dangerous.











Every James Bond film has its own recipe to make it a typical James Bond film. It is just like a thrillers follow a typical recipe to make a thriller except the James Bond franchise has its own recipe to follow for it to be a successful Bond film. The recipe starts of as having a dashing, sexy, and heroic secret agent, An eccentric villain of equal / greater strength, A number of gorgeous women Bond will make love to, Exotic locations and plot devices, Exciting stunt-driven action (often a little absurd),The John Barry music, A ‘pop song’ that will promote the film, An opening action sequence, Bond being given his ‘mission’ – ‘M’ + gadgets, Fights and car chases, Bond trapped, Final scene (often on an island) where Bond overcomes the odds and triumphs. That is what all of the James Bond films are made up of.

The latest addition to the Bond series is Skyfall, this movie has everything a Bond film needs except this time you get more depth in the film, giving Bond (Daniel Craig) more of a rich back story which makes the audience care for Bond even more than in the previous films. This film has been named the best Bond film by many critics and it shows that just from the gross profit which is currently at $871,219,280              
 becoming the highest earning British film higher than harry potter which was at the top previously.

Unknown 2011

I have just finished watching "Unknown", this is a really good thriller. This is a typical thriller because it has all the components needed for a thriller such as a McGuffin, fast paced editing, and non-stop action. 

"Unknown" is about a man awakens from a coma, only to discover that someone has taken on his identity and that no one, (not even his wife), believes him. With the help of a young woman, he sets out to prove who he is. in unknown there is a big twist at the end where we find out that the person whose identity is taken is actually apart of a group of assassins and he was on an undercover mission where he hit his head in the accident and he believed he was the cover he had took on to kill the Prince.

One of my favorite scenes in "unknown" is the car chase scene, this scene is very fast paced and exciting. there are a lot of moments in this scene where you think they had escaped but the person who was chasing them reappears. 

In the scene where she is trying to defuse the bomb, you expect her to diffuse the bomb but in this film she doesn't and the bomb blows up which helps the main character remembers all of his past and remembers how to fight killing the last person in the groups of assassins.


This picture shows the Main character in the middle of the poster, with the background in the middle is different to the rest of the background, where it shows the person who helps him take back his life and his life on the right.  The colours in the background also give off an effect of mystery and darkness within the film.

Haribo Media Prelim Task

The Preliminary task is to show continuity editing.
We had to show; Match on action, shot/reverse shot, 180 degree rule, eye line match.

 In this task we was asked to create a short film where person A walks into a room and goes and talks with person B in this scenario we had Person A talking to two people. After they had a conversation person A had to leave the room.

When we was filming the hardest part was trying to film the match on match action, this was hard because we had to make it look like it was all done without changing positions of the camera and doing it in two takes. When we filmed the conversation I had to move the camera into different angles so it didn't get boring in the same angle and kept the audience entertained.

There was some mistakes when we was filming for example the mic was it on and we had finished filming so we had to re film the whole film again. this was annoying but i feel the second time recording the clips would have been better than the first lot of clips anyway so if anything it was a positive.

The editing was the hardest and longest part of this process because it took long to find the correct clips and put them together, there are a few mistakes in the editing but this was because it was one of the first films we had edited, but overall i think it came out good and better than i expected it to.

Psycho (1960)

Phoenix office worker Marion Crane is fed up with the way life has treated her. She has to meet her lover Sam in lunch breaks and they cannot get married because Sam has to give most of his money away in alimony.One Friday Marion is trusted to bank $40,000 by her employer. Seeing the opportunity to take the money and start a new life, Marion leaves town and heads towards Sam's California store. Tired after the long drive and caught in a storm, she gets off the main highway and pulls into The Bates Motel.The motel is managed by a quiet young man called Norman who seems to be dominated by his mother. That night Marion gets killed in the shower of the hotel room, which is called the best scene ever shot, after that Norman the owner comes running in looking sad and angry at someone at this time the audience feels that it was his mother who had killed Marion because Norman wanted invite her into the house. But at the end we realize that Normans mother had died many years ago and he had a split personality and he was killing the women.

The main character dying so quick into the film is odd because traditionally the main character is normally ion the film for the whole film or most of it.

The money that Marion stolen was a Maguffin, a Maguffin is when something happens to carry the film forward. So the money she stolen helps carry the film forward because she ends up at the hotel where she dies because of the money she has stolen.

        This is the story board of the shower scene, this is classed as one of the best ever scenes shot, this is due to the editing, music and the suspense that is created while she was showering. 

        The editing was very good on this scene because it helps create tension and the inevitability that she is going to get hurt or that something is not right.

        The music when Marion gets stabbed is a perfect choice in music because it emphasizes the fact she is getting stabbed and it is out of the ordinary.

That scene was one of the many fast paced action in the film, other scenes are the scene where Norman is sinking the car in the swamp and it looks like it will not sink so it starts to get tense, the next is when the investigator gets killed on the stairs. These scenes are the type of scenes that are normally found in thrillers.

But unusually there is not a hero in thriller which is uncommon of a thriller movie, this makes Psycho stand out and make it a very good film. if you was going to say there is a hero, i would personally say that it was Marion's lover who saved her sister from Norman when he tries to kill her.

Throughout this movie Hitchcock used many cliffhangers, suspense, and red herrings. Just after Marion dies you expect it was Norman who killed her, then you think it is his mother when he runs in and cleans up the mess. Then finally at the end when Marion's sister finds the skeleton we realize it was Norman, acting as his mother, who killed her.

North By Northwest (1959)

I have watched the film 'North by Northwest' this film was very enjoyable and exciting. The film is about a ‘innocent’ New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive. 

'North by Northwest' was directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock, and written by Ernest Lehman. The main stars of the film are Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Manson. 

This is an archetypal thriller because it has fast past frequent      action which is needed when making a thriller. The most entertaining part of 'North by Northwest' is the plane scene.   This scene is about the main character thinking he is       meeting up with the government agent he has been        mistaken for, but it is actually the spies who try to hit him         with a plan but end up failing and crashing the plane into a  truck.  

Alfred also implements a red herring which is the lady who he meets on the train, this because when we are first introduced to her you feel that she is going to be able to help the main character, but then we find out she is actually working for the spies, later on in the film we realize she is actually a undercover agent for the government and is a good person.

   

School Fire Media Project.

This is a short video i made to show off the different camera angles that i have learnt in the past week in media. I also edited to show it as being fast paced because we want it to feel like there is a panic due to the school being on fire.

Birds(1963)

I watched 'The Birds' recently, the film was very enjoyable. 'The Birds' was about a young  blonde female from San Francisco searching for a potential boyfriend in the small town of bodega bay. Once she arrives she is met by an attack from a seagull, these attacks became more frequent and more viscous.
 'The Birds' did not match up to a normal thriller as the villain was apart of nature, normally the villain is a human or a organisation that is driving the plot forward. This is not a typical thriller because there is not really a hero, the closest character to a hero is Mitch but he does not thwart the villains plan because the birds over-run bodega bay.

This is a poster for 'The Birds'.
 This poster shows a black bird, being held by the girl in the film. The black bird indicates that the bird is evil, where as the woman is dressed in white to show that she is innocent.








 One of the best scenes in 'The Birds' was where Melanie, goes into one of the bedrooms in the house where over 500 birds was waiting for her. The actress was not told about what was waiting for her, so that her real reaction came out. they also attached the birds to her dress so when they tried to get away from her they came straight back.

Recipe of a Thriller!

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres.
Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipt villains.
Devices such as suspense, red herrings and cliff hangers are extensively. A thriller is a villain driven plot, where-by he presents obstacles the hero must overcome.
The genre is flexible and can engage the audience through a dramatic red herring of psychological, social and political tensions. Hitchcook said thrillers allow the audience 'to put their toes in cold water of fear to see what it is like'

Welcome.

Hello, my name is Terry Bridges and I am going to be updating this blog while I am creating my thriller movie in my AS Media Studies Class.