E-mail to group 14/03/09

Hey guys, hope your all well. I've created a blog account for all of us to post our final peices onto. It's on www.blogger.com.

Mediastudiesblog@live.com Is our e-mail which is needed to log onto. The password for this logging on to hotmail sign in is: ******

On the blogger log in the pass word is: ******

And the url is: www.zoemattannakhalidprincemediastudies.blogspot.com

My blog is zoechristo.blogspot.com

It would be great if you could tell me your blog spaces to see how things are getting on.

On tuesday when we meet we shall all have a story board (up to an a level standard please) and i think to get some inspiration we should bring in a few thriller films and discuss the openings. If i'm not mistaken it's a double and after those two hours we should have accomplished a final idea for the opening sequence, including title designs, location etc. If any of you can try get in touch with prince somehow through IM, Myspace, facebook etc.

Thanks!! I'll see you Tuesday, common room =)






I e-mailed the group plans for the lesson on tuesday, it would finalise the direction and idea's we've all conjured and would put is all in a clearer direction. I'm going to concentrate on the more horror/drama/phsycological genres as that's the path we're heading towards. I also feel inspired to follow a direction of british style films as they work on low budgets, as are we. So i'll do some research as to what films i'll show the group and it'll be interesting to see what films they'll feel inspired from.

Group Discussion 12/03/09

I printed the group a copy of the treatment (as well as the email) so we all have an clear knowledge of where we're going. Everyone is going to create a storyboard of a small section or of the whole opening idea to see everyones personal interpretation. We'll then put it all together into a final idea and it would be my job to draw out a large copy for everyone so we can clearly how we're going to represent the opening. We've decided for tuesday we'll further extend our ideas on the opening and begin organising our testings for locations. We've also decided to create a group blog we're we'll post all relevent information to the group and update it with our own interpretations. So i've been elected to create the blog, this would allow us all to communicate in an alternative way in case a member of the group fails to recieve a re draft of the treatment or schedule and etc.

We refined our idea's a bit more about and discussed the relations between brother and sister and decided that the little girl was brought into the family via her dad who married the littles boys mum. This caused the little boy to become extremely angry about sharing his mum and spiralled his sexual fustration.

E-mail to group

I've emailed the group the treatment so they can have a clear idea of what we've decided upon, as notes could be quite hard remember by. I also emailed them the opening sequence idea we came up with; which is below:


* The basic structure for the opening was to have

- Girl shoots up herion
- Rooftop shots
- Establish the location
- Narration begins (poeticly phraised)
- "la la la" song
- Play ground scene appears
- Running, can't escape
- Present time, women stares into the mirror (reflects upon who she is)
- Matthew, obscene and happy


Yet i feel for Thursday we could improve on this idea now we have a treatment and an actual structure for a story. Again, this doesn't have to be final we can add and improve.


- I do think we can expand and come up with something possibly more simple and effective. The opening with the establishing shots over rooftops and urban area's could work really well with the titles. If the we're naming the film clouds then this can also fit in quite well. I think we need a group discussion to expand upon these ideas.

Main idea - Treatment

With the opening we began brain storming some ideas neither group member had a definitive idea. We began thinking of character idea's and weather there would be only one antagonist, and we how we can turn a standard character in an ambiguous one.
Our initial thoughts were to have both a male and female, but to include the sense of uncertainty and ambiguity we decided to show the male to be the vulnerable one in a more passive tone, and still being very 'male', in the way he acts (mannerism), characterisation and other conventions. We thought for the women to be the antagonist as this could be represented as a unavailing twist as the story progresses. Next we had to construct a relationship dynamic between the two. We decided to have them as step brother and sister.
This helped us branch out to a narrative idea, we thought we could tell a brief story of their family dysfunction (as past tense). We thought this would be perfect for filling the story with enigma's and it would also help us, more easily, draw audiences in to the characters by creating a sense of sympathy. More idea's were that the male, as a young boy, could have been the 'favourite', or that the younger girl suffered abuse and neglect.
We decided to no follow the conventional narrative structure by simply representing an equilibrium stage, but rather throwing the audience into the chaos. Yet from the woman's perception we'll see flashbacks of her past through the film to reveal to viewers why they have grown up to be the people they are today. We decided due to their family dysfunction they'd grown up to be outlaws to society, they'd be condemned in the eyes of others to be able to live a 'normal' life. Our film idea is now taking on a more Drama style genre as one of the main themes is turning out to be family and family dynamics.
We need to begin thinking what could have happened during their childhood that began a chain of negative events and thought patterns. An idea came up that we all agreed upon that the little girl (past tense) saw her brother either being physically abusive or murdering either the mother or step father. As you see this whole film through the perception of the girl, you witness the dysfunction of the boy, as a child and in the present. Yet it's not until the ending where it reveals to the audience, she's just as messed up as him. As the viewer all along you'll be believing her narration and believing she's completely sane and grounded. Yet as the flashbacks reveal more and more they reveal her abandonment as a child and these foundations she's learnt from have caused her memory scares disabling her to behave/live appropriately in society. This brings forth huge ambiguity to her character and the film would have a huge element of mystery and suspense.
As the boy was very aggressive at the young and vulnerable stages in his life, we decided for him to have this deep underlying love for his mother in which he secretly desired her (inspired by Freud as his theory that young baby boys secretly lust their mothers). This would contain that obscene more shocking element to the film. So as the step father moved in he's anger raged and he began lashing out at his mother. Till the day came where he went too far and killed her. This was done by his own physical strength and a mirror (details not necessary). He managed to escape authority causing him to live in the shadows of life.
The main objective of both characters is the search/quest for their own happiness and escapism. The film would deal with many phsycological issue's dealing with addiction, denial, escapism, anger, anxiety and etc. As the boy grows older he becomes and porn addict, he channels all his rage through the violence and obscenity of the under ground porn industry. We this disturbance through the eyes of the women, who appears to be the more vulnerable one, sympathy is given to her as she has to 'look after' her older brother.
The women on the other hand would begin to appear Innocent constantly living in the shadows from the start with little attention. As the back flashes reveal more we see how a little girl starved of attention begins to be neglected and emotionally scared from the scenes she's witnessed. As the film goes on, the narration changes, as she takes us the viewer through a window of her life, she finds her happiness. What she finds is not reveled to the end. Her perception completely changes and the film almost becomes distorted as it's through her perception.
So the boy in this channels his anger and dives in a world of oblivion. The girl is mentally unwell due to her calm and hugely depressing outlook until she becomes a heroin addict. What's quite common with thrillers is that the begin and end scene repeat each other to emphasis a particular point. This also helps develop a tag line/famous phrase that's easily remembered in the film, that of course must have a high impact on audience's and is very emotional. So maybe it would be nice to begin the film very surreal to show a rather twisted equilibrium, yet as it revels it's actually a resolution of complete devastation.
We decided to have an urban location, as living in a city can extremely isolated, with the idea of alleys, cold streets, so many strangers and generally a lonely place in your mind (constantly reinforcing the physcological element).
A name that was brought up in discussion was the name Cloud or Clouds. Personally I fell this definently suits the film well as clouds instantly remind you off the sky and how clouds can be perfectly situated to present a perfect picture. By calling the film Clouds it brings an added disturbance to the nature of the film. It also represents how each character lives 'in the clouds' or how addicts have their 'heads in clouds'. It could also signify how clouds just go by without notice and change and mold by factors of their surroundings this can be symbolically applied to the women character.

This is the basic treatment, yet i feel more needs to be discussed on the character dynamics between the Brother and Sister.

Thriller Openings - Memento

Memento directed by Christopher Nolan, is considered to be a highly classed thriller, and is considered a phsycological/mystery thriller. The word memento is a reminder, an object of importance that signifies a reminder of some sort, this simple title is broad and open to interpretation. It links beautiful with the film, it's quite common that thriller titles are very short and sum up the film in a subtly underlying way. This film does not follow the conventional narrative structure as it begins with the 'disruption'. Audiences are immediately 'thrown into' the film. My thoughts on the opening and first half of the film;

Credits appear in a simple black background with blue fonts all very centralised, the diegetic music builds quite epically yet this is all very conventional to a thriller opening. We then see a long first shot, as an audience we begin thinking what the significance of this could be and instantly begin trying to create an idea of the theme/mood of this film.

We realise the picture is being under developed, it shows a rewind of time. This slow fade allows the audience to absorb the moment and to recognise this film will require your absolute focus. It's as though this idea was set to subconsciously implement this message, that audience members must prepare to unravel this plot. As the audience heavily focus on this first shot, there's a surprise/shock element when the realisation occurs that this is not in a chronological time pattern. This shock and enigma created within the first few seconds instantly brings attention to viewers that this is going to be a good film.

The film is very cleverly constructed and so requires full audience engagement (which is the cause of any success) yet as the plot slowly unravels in a rewind time frame this causes tremendous enigma's to arise which creates endless enigma's as to how? And why?

A voice over is used as a narrator, this helps us to keep track of what's occurring. It also helps the viewer to see a clearer perception of the character, and as like Leonard, we took may begin forgetting our short term memory as through the film get reminded on what we just sore. This follows a similar convention of Thrillers where audience's no only as much as the protagonist.

As the film progresses, it becomes less about knowing the story and the unraveling of the plot but our thoughts are centralised about Leonard and his journey through his 'quest'. We feel sympathy for him and fully engage in his frustration and whirl wind emotions. We would classify him as the Hero as we are on 'his side', yet we're unsure as to weather the extremity of his vengeance is justified by what happened, as we are 'in the dark' is to what really happened. Thrillers tend to have ambiguous characters and with Leonard's 'condition' there's much ambiguity as to wether he's morally right or wrong. This brews endless enigma's to his characterisation and we're constantly doubting our own judgments as the story progresses. Unlike the standard/conventional hero we don't have complete trust in him, as there's no certainty or reliability to anything he says or does (he's a confused hero). The basic structure of this plot is filled with ambiguity and accumulating enigma's causing it to be a massive success (this all sparks suspicion of a 'twist ending') and accomplishing the Thriller element to the film.

Memento is a good film to look at, i was blown away by the beginning and the whole film. It's very cleverly constructed and i felt inspired to take the elements of this film and create my own response if you like. I loved the idea of not having a chronological time pattern, this would work very well with adding that physcological element to the film. The visuals are quite abstract and the use of narration is essential in allowing the audience to understand. This idea is again a very good one as it would conquer the problem of background noise (wind and other noise pollutions). Having a naration would allow us to be more creative in our project and this enforces our direction of a British style. The abigious and confused character really engages with audiences on a wide sectrum as it relates to almost any human being who's been in a situation before that they've never really understood. Character development is a big thing we must look at as it's essential to having a good script.
A good script is essential, the Uk Film Council stress on the importance of it as there's no grand budget to work with so there must be clever ways to reach your target audience. We must keep this in mind when we begin brainstorming.

Developing knowledge on Thrillers

The narrative structure commonly goes through 4 stages; equilibrium, disruption, development, resolution. Although as Thrillers are for the more intelligent viewers, what's considered a good thriller tend to drift from these conventions. For example some Thrillers bring the audience immediately to the disruption and chaos of the story line(s). This allows a perfect opening as the audience would be swarmed with narrative enigma's and a huge mystery as to what's going out. This is very effective for creating a mood of suspense. Mise-en-scene contributes hugely to setting the mood for the film, for example the emphasis on props using bullets or a gun has many implications and sets possibly a tense mood. Lighting and location are extremely important (as everything is) to creating the intended mood/atmosphere/theme. For example, commonly used for crime investigation type thrillers, it could possibly be a wet dark street and instantly you would begin associating this location with a crime scene where a crime of some sort is about to be committed.
We've decided to go straight into a disruption as we believe this is key to instantly grabbing audiences attention. Following Shane Meadows costumes, props, location will be all basic and set around local area's to add to the realism and relatability. We have no specialist lights to use so we're relying soley on natural lighting for any outdoor scenes and basic room lighting for any indoor scenes. This means when we're plannning to film anything outside we must ensure our times are appropriate and that there's a steady continuity.