Taken - Opening Scene Breakdown And Analysis

Taken

The first scene shown is a video, the camera is handled unsteady and shows the first shot of a birthday hat. This shows us it is a home video and the hat is there to represent a child.  The fact that it starts off as a video rather than going into the past in a flashback gives off a sense of nostalgia, we get the impression that the people in the video are not around anymore as if the video is the only memory left of them. While this is happening there are sounds to represent old memories, such as distorted noises sounding as if they're coming from the video. The video focuses mainly on the birthday girl, perhaps to show her importance and foreshadowing her role in the film.
The scene goes onto show the mother figure giving her a present, as this is shown, non diagetic music is used, a piano being played slowly with faded out diagetic sounds of the child laughing and other background noise. Distorted sounds begin to increase in volume and the camera has quick cuts of the girl smiling before blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. 
The music stops for the sound of the girl blowing out the candles which then acts like a trigger to wake up the main character, almost like a ghost. This shows the girl means a lot to the man as it was powerful enough to wake him up.
He wakes up, this is shown using a quick close up. Next, wide shot is used to show the dark surroundings and the piano music continues. The man turns on the lamp and looks at the picture he fell asleep with in his hands, we see that it is the girl he saw in his dream/memory flashback. This gives the audience basic background information on the characters and keeps the story open to imagination.

Final Script

The Forgotten

INT. BASEMENT. NIGHT



LORA hears loud footsteps from above.

LORA

(Wakes up, hands tied behind her back with tape around her mouth)

(Looks around, finds herself tied to something)

(muffled waking sounds escalate to scream)

 

 LORA
(Breathing pace fastens)

(Lora starts to look around, trying to spot something to cut the rope. Sees her jacket across the room, ruffled up).

INT. HOUSE. EVENING

(Flashback)
PARENTS

MUM

I do everything around here. You do nothing; you don’t even have a job anymore! How do you expect us to pay the bills?

DAD
Stop shouting at me! I'm figuring it out!

MUM
You need to take some responsibility for this family, David, otherwise don’t expect me to hang around anymore.

(LORA goes down stairs and grabs her jacket from the side and runs out from house.)





EXT. ROAD. MORNIMG/AFTERNOON.

LORA walks along the road.

(Flashback ends)

INT. BASEMENT. NIGHT

LORA
(Looks around, struggles to free herself from the rope eventually giving up)  

(Silhouette of man appears)

(Sees mysterious man’s silhouette from above stairs)

 (Flashback)

EXT. GARAGE PARK. AFTERNOON

LORA

(Walks into through the garage park. She looks back quickly at kidnapper one.)


KIDNAPPER ONE
(Does a hand gesture to kidnapper two, to alert him)


LORA
(Notices and her walking pace increases gradually into a sprint away from the kidnapper)


KIDNAPPER TWO
(Sees the other kidnappers hand gesture and begins to approach Lora as she's sprinting)


KIDNAPPER ONE & TWO
(Corners Lora)


KIDNAPPER ONE
(Grabs Lora)





LORA

(Screams over the title)

Codes and Conventions

The codes and conventions of a thriller film are:

• Fast paced editing-This consist of quick cuts. This can create an effect of uneasiness if the quick cuts is used because the audience don't have a lot of time to catch up with what is going on.
• Suspense-Uncertainty in the mind. Keeps the audience on edge.
• Optical illusion-Something that deceives the eye when it appears to be something that it is not.
• Subliminal Messages-A message passed to the mind without the person being consciously aware of it.
• Lighting-Darkness, Shadows, low key lighting.
• Music-To build suspense and tension.
• POV shots (Point of View)- Seeing thing through the eyes of the character.
• Special effects- Change the way that the characters and audience look at things.
• Anonymous people- Unknown people.
• Power and authority- People and/ or something that intimidates the characters.
• Mystery- Something that is impossible to explain.
• Mirrors- See things that aren't really there and they can show the characters inner self.
• Obtrusive editing- Something that doesn't fit in and looks out of place.
• Changes in camera angles- You can get a wider variety of angles and then the audience can get more of the feelings of the characters.
• Stairs- Commonly used in thrillers to build suspense.
• Flashbacks- going back to what happened previously.

Draft Script

The Forgotten

Loud footsteps from above/creaky wood noises.

Lora- (Wakes up) “Hello?”

(Looks around, finds herself tied to something)

(scared voice) “Is anyone there?!”
(seconds of silence, slow breathing)
(Creak on stairs, breathing pace fastens)
“HELLO?! HELP ME.
PLEASE, LET ME OUT!”

(Tugs arm at rope, sees dry blood and bruise on it)
Wood creaks. Sees mysterious mans silhouette from above stairs


(Flashback)
Walking out from house, slams door in anger.
*show clothing*
Pulls her jacket/coat over her- brings attention to jacket
Parents in the background arguing.
(Flashback ends, silhouette of man gone)

Starts to try to move around, tries to find something to cut the rope or any clues
Sees jacket across the room, ruffled up and dirty
(Flashback)
Walking in the evening time, slightly dark out, out of an alley two men come out and grab her and put their hand over her mouth, dragging her away into the alley.
(Flashback over)

Synopsis of Our Film Opening - The Forgotten

The Forgotten

A troubled girl awakens in a dark warehouse, handcuffed, bloodied and bewildered to how she got there. Seeing a shadow she begins to experience small flashbacks of the process leading to her arrival there, she was kidnapped. The girl left her house in rage as her parents were arguing once again, walking to nowhere in particular, she was taken by two men. Memories slowly come flooding back in forms of flashbacks as she tries to remember any details, anything to help her escape the future that the men hold for her. 

The Departed - Opening Scene and Title Sequence Breakdown and Analysis

The Departed

The title sequence starts with Narration/asynchronous sound. This makes the film/situation seem more realistic and believable. Making the movie believable is a great way to make the audience feel vulnerable and to build suspense. Building suspense is essential as it is a key convention of almost all thriller films. After this, shots containing Law enforcement remain for a few seconds. This is done to signify social chaos. The next shot contains a riot/civil unrest. This is done to emphasise the danger and shows how society is collapsing. Next there is a horizontal pan. The pan swings from civilians to police officers. This is again done to convey the hostile nature between the police and the civilians. The opening scene then starts. Within the opening scene there are many things done that fit in with the codes and conventions of thriller films; things such as shadows that create a mysterious identity and suggest some form of corruption. There are also point of view shots when walking into the café. This is done to immerse the audience, making them feel part of the busy environment. Again, this is most likely done to make the movie more realistic. One of the last shots is a close up of money. this is done to emphasise the moneys importance within the plot of the movie and could be even used as a red herring to keep the audience guessing. Overall, from this title sequence and opening scene I gather that the movie is aiming to accurately capture the zeitgeist of society was very chaotic.

Pulp Fiction - Opening Scene Breakdown and Analysis

Pulp Fiction

The title sequence starts with a fast-paced soundtrack. This is used to build suspense, while potentially foreshadowing that the movies story line will also be hectic and fast-paced. During the first scene there is no soundtrack. This makes the audience feel unsure about the atmosphere and can even suppress certain emotions. This is really effective in this scene as the characters “snap” between a happy to an extremely dangerous/hostile temperament. After that there is a medium long shot when the characters “snap” and start pointing their weapons at the others in the diner. This shot is very effective as it makes the man seem really big as he takes up a lot of the shot because he is standing on a seat. Doing this emphasises how the two characters have suddenly become powerful and intimidating. This change of the characters temperament is also mirrored by the sudden alteration between the most frequently used medium shot, to the medium long shot.  

North By North-West - Title Sequence Breakdown and Analysis

North By North West

With this film we focused solely on the title sequence, looking at the order in which it was presented. The first thing that we noticed was that the main production company appeared on the screen and lingered for around 15 seconds. After that the actors names appeared in order of how long they starred in the movie and how famous they where at the time of the movies release. The names appeared slanted on parallel lines that resembled the windows of a skyscraper. We thought that this foreshadowed some kind of corruption within multinational organisations. We thought this because a skyscraper represents rich and powerful people. This, compiled with the suspenseful soundtrack gives the impression that there is danger, and corruption going on in this building or its powerful founders. After this, the music changed. The music became much faster, increasing the suspenseful atmosphere of the title sequence. Next the title sequence fades into people walking in, out and around this big building. This is perhaps done to show the importance of the building, and to hint to the audience that what's going on inside could affect all of the city/civilians. Following this, the title sequence just contains a few establishing shots that shows a very busy and hectic city. 

Preliminary Task

Welcome to our blog. This is where we document our work and showcase everything we have achieved.

Our group consisted of:
Alex, Jess, Anam and Connor.
Alex and Jess acted in our piece and Anam was the camera operator.
Connor joined later in the process by edited our piece as we were having trouble.

 This is our preliminary task.

We had to create a short clip containing three key camera conventions:

1. Shot reverse shot
2. 180 degree rule
3. Shot on action

While creating our clip, we faced many challenges. One of the most prominent problems we had to overcome was that a certain scene of our clip could not be edited into the rest of the footage. Due to this, we were forced to re-film the entire film. We found that when editing the second footage, the old scene seemed to be working again. We decided to use the first clip's footage as we thought it was of a slightly higher standard. This meant we wasted time and had to catch up with the rest of the class.

We included music to generate a welcoming atmosphere within the clip.
After receiving feedback, we realised that we could have improved the volume of the music, it would have been easier to hear the dialogue between Jess and Alex if we made it quieter.

What went well was that we managed to produce the best work we were capable of with our limited knowledge of media.