Psycho -Shower Scene

In Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock, the shower scene builds up suspense and fear of the unknown when the female is in the shower and a person with a weapon appears at the shower curtain, this is similar to how we wanted to get our flashback scene to look like. As in our flashback with have the female character washing up which is normal and the kitchen is a very public place as it is somewhere that everyone can relate to, then when the main male character steps into the room behind her who is also unaware like the woman in the shower in psycho, it creates that suspense for the audience as to what the person in the background is going to do.

Location Report

This is our location in Ely where we shot our entire film. In the small black circle on the left of the picture above of the orchard this is where the digging scenes in our film was shot, and to the left of that is that track where the van drove down to get there in the opening sequence.

Target Audience

Our target audience will be to 15 year old and older, anyone under this age may not understand the concept of our clip, a younger audience may not appreciate the silence, and the fact that it doesn't have much going on, whereas the older audience will appreciate the suspense created.

Certification 15

If you wanted to buy a ticket to the cinema or buy a DVD you have to be 15 or over to buy it.
The film itself cannot contain discriminative language or behaviour.
Drugs can be shown in a 15 certificate however it must not encourage the use/purchase of them.
No self harm, suicide, and harm to the body may not be used.
Nudity may be used but not in strong detail.
Sex can be talked about but actually showing sexual behaviour is not allowed.
You can show violence but must not dwell on death or injures.


We decided to make a certificate for our thriller, on the reasons above we decided to certificate it a 15.

Editing

Whilst editing our piece we decided to add some transitions in that showed a change in time, and also some transitions are used to show his mind blanking, and tripping, we thought this would be effective to use, to make it look more psychological and freaky.

In the flashback scene we have effectively changed it to black in white to show the change in time and place, also it is effective as it makes the audience make a presumed link that the flashback is the related to the man digging to hide the body bag.

Diegetic Sound & Non Diegetic.

We decided to re-record diegetic sound to the sound more intense, as there is no dialogue we want the diegetic sounds to be very powerful, and we feel on the actual clip it doesn't achieve that, the list of sounds we are going to re-record are -

• Thump of the body
• Rustling of the leaves under his feet
• Sound of the boot of the car slamming
• Breathing and panting of the man
  
• Digging sounds of the hole
• The wind in the tree's
  
• Car door opening/closing
  
• Turning off the car
• Water from the sink in the kitchen scene
• The tap in the kitchen
  
• Car Tyre approaching
• Night time sounds, ie crickets, ghostly eerie sounds.
  

Once we have finished editing we decided to delete all of the original sound as create it all using final cut express. This would work better than using the original as the sounds will be clearer and there will be no unwanted background sounds.

Non Diegetic sound

Kicthen scene-
During the kitchen scene, we have put in the sound of the running tap made from a clip on final cut express, and then also a eerie electronic sound has been put in to add supsense, however the eerie sound is very subtle so that it is loud enough to hear but quiet enough to make it seem more part of the scene and diegetic rather than an added sound.

Digging scene-
We don't think its necessary to use any non diegetic music in this scene as the diegetic sound is going to be far more effective when we re-record it, so we decided that we wouldn't use any music in the scene. We have added background sounds and like crickets and wind blowing as it sets the scene of it being night time and in the dark.

Blair Witch Project

In our clip we used shakey camera work, not quite hand held, like our example, but just a little bit shakey, we used this effect as it makes it look rough, because we filmed in a bumpy location, our main character was tripping over things, we thought by following him with the camera showing him trip up will make the audience feel what he is feeling, and feel like they are experiencing his difficulty and making them feel like they are there watching it.

thriller conventions

Fear of the unknown
Sound - to build up suspense/tension and atmosphere
Hero v villain
Subtle
Location - woods, abandoned house
Lighting - shadowy
Film Noir
Damsel in Distress/Vulnerable female
Flawed hero
Narrative - suspense restricted info
Flashback/Flash forward
Objectification of woman - voyeurism.

We used shadowy lighting to create a gloomy atmosphere, and build suspense, so the audience cant see the characters face.
We used a woody location, as it was suitable for the narrative and also because of the trees and being able to make the sound of wind in the trees this would build up the tension and show his struggle to hide what he has done.
Another convention we have used is a flashback, to a scene in a kitchen which shows a woman washing up and suddenly the main character appears, the reason we chose to add a flashback was because we thought it would further the narrative along as it shows a possible link as to why the man is digging the grave in the woodland and who could be in the body bag.
We also tried to be quite subtle when using some sounds like in the flashback with some eerie electronic sound to build a suspense.
Fear of the unknown has also been used in our film as although the flashback shows the man approaching he woman from behind very angrily, there is nothing to show that she was then killed and that is who he is digging the grave for. So there is a fear of the unknown as to who could actually be in the bag and also the reason as to why he has committed this crime.