'Personal Response'

The film we have chosen to look at is 'Paranormal Activity'. We chose this film because we have both seen it and enjoyed the film. At the beginning of the film we got to know the characters, and it became apparent that the woman character was being followed by a demon. We identified with the character Mika this is because he is living with the character who is cursed by a demon and he reacts to how any normal person would. The camera used is a hand held, this creates an uneasy aura, it also gives the effect that it is all done by them and at home. I think this would be good to incorporate this into our thriller sequence.

Thriller analysis.

This thriller sequence is very simple and quite to a certain degree effective. The first shot of the sequence is of error codes e.c.t i think this as a first shot makes the person watching very confused about the genre of the film to come up. However i think this also becomes very effective. This group hold a shot steady where appropriate, throughout the whole sequence they use a shaking action to create depth to the sequence, causing confusion and disorientates the scene. They use this well towards the end, when the shot merges into the title. The editing on the title is excellent, making the film look a lot scarier, using fire. The lack of information in the sequence creates an ambiguous feel and leaves the viewer questioning the genre and ethics of the film as a whole. However the sound of the sequence lets it down. There are a lot of pauses for silence, however i don't know if this is for effect or a mistake in not planning enough to have time for a detailed sound track. On the other hand it doesn't give a lot away still creating the aura of suspense and mystery.

For all of these effects and editing techniques we will be awarding this group; 36/60. This is because they seemed to lose track of the aim, and rather than focusing on a good structure, they use there time up with editing for the title.

We will use this information to our advantage, putting this knowledge into our own thriller sequence.

The Dark Knight.

How does is follow generic conventions?
How does it make you feel?
How does it achieve this?

The first thing we see is a comic book looking opening, the cartoon smiles and low key lighting starts the scene with a tense apprehension. Another part of the sequence is the fire, this gives the impression that the film is violent, and the thudding of the music creates a tense atmosphere for the film to begin. The establishing shot is of buildings, this gives the audience a clear cut view of where the opening sequence will be shot. However the convention of a normal thriller hybrid is that it is set at night, but this scene is in the broad day light, which challenges the conventions of a normal thriller scene. The smashing of the glass seems much louder than the music that is playing in the background. This gives the smash a focused point in the shot. The masks that are worn in the whole sequence makes me feel uneasy. I think they used masks to disguise the criminals because a lot of people find masks, clowns, and things that are abnormal scary. They had the same effect on me, they also made me feel scared if the unknown. The use of guns during the whole sequence and how freely they are used made me feel uncomfortable, this is because guns are not meant to be used with a care free attitude. This gave the characters a care free veiw of death, which made it more on edge of what was going to happen next. There was also a hint of mystery when there is a long shot of man holding a mask in his hand and we cant see his face.