Thriller - The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects
Director: Byran Singer, (1995)

We watched The Usual Suspects, which starred Kevin Spacey, who has been in another thriller: Seven. It gave me an insight into thrillers more and the types of conventions that are needed within a thriller.

The music within the film was very mysterious and it had very low notes, giving a sense of mystery throughout. It sounded as if it was piano or violin or a mix of both. It certainly added a good effect to the film.

The lighting was very dark, with dark colours being used. Often it was set at night, adding an element of danger. A good use of lighting was at the beginning of the film, when you could never quite see the face of the villain and he wasn't revealed properly until the end. This was a theme I noticed throughout the film as everything is revealed to the audience in small pieces of information at a time, making the audience want to keep watching to get answers. I believe that this was key within the film, to keep the audience guessing with a narrative enigma

Over the shoulder shots and close-ups were used for really intense moments within the film, and there were mainly straight cuts. There was also a point-of-view shot of the main character when he was on the docks.

There are themes of danger, murder and crime, as well as a serious nature.

There are protagonists and antagonists, in this case the protagonists are the police force and the form of law, and the antagonists are the criminals. There is the threat and fear of a person, the main antagonist, who o-one is sure is real, and along with that, comes the threat and fear of loosing loved ones, family and their own lives as demonstrated within the film, the antagonist, while still a mystery, can get into their lives easily. This creates enormous suspense and mystery over the antagonist and his true identity.

Preliminary Task - Final Edit

                                 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBi3X4bKwNQ

Preliminary Task - Final Evaluation

With our task, I feel that we learnt quite a lot from the Preliminary Task. We did come up against quite a few problems such as the amount of footage as we felt it was too short for the Preliminary Task. I think that together we worked well as a group, bringing in lighting for our piece as well as using a script and quick shots to make it look and be as professional as we could for our first task filming.

Another problem we faced was the filming as we did not have enough footage, especially the start of the storyboard shots as we needed one of the actors to film the scenes in the room first, as she was needed elsewhere. This was a problem, but we did not overcome that part of it. However, we filmed the first few scenes according to the storyboard, apart from one close up of my hand upon the door which was lost during the transition from the camera to computer and there was not enough time to go back and re-film it or find it as other parts needed to be edited too. That was the most major issue we had as the filming needed to be completed to the deadline, regardless of one shot gone. I think we made the film well regardless of it and next time, when filming the Thriller, planning our filming time will be done more carefully in order to overcome these problems.

The planning and brainstorming really helped us with the task and I think we really benefited from it, talking and planning amongst ourselves to get the best idea possible. We did face a few problems but together, me and Alexandra overcame them and worked around them to get the best possible result with our Preliminary Task.

For the final quality of the film, I think we have produced it to a fairly good level of work and we tried to get the best result possible with our shots and working the camera. Apart from the few problems we faced, I think myself and Alexandra worked well together as a team.

Preliminary Task - Editing

We started on the editing, myself and Alexandra working together. We chose the best shots out of the many we had taken and used them according to the story board. We discussed what shot would be best to use, having it sometimes cut to a close-up for dialogue and then back to a two-shot. By editing our preliminary task, it has helped in how to edit properly and what looks good on the actual film. It has given me greater understanding on how to present my own Thriller and given me a few ideas on what to do for the camera shots. Whilst editing, we also thought a lot about sound and if the camera would pick it up or not. We also made sure to get the best shot possible whilst filming, so we could use the best in editing. Editing the preliminary task with Alexandra has really helped me in understand more about the editing process and more about what is needed within the film itself.

Preliminary Task - Filming

We started filming, setting up one of the rooms with lights, as we wanted to add lighting into our piece effectively. I did half of the acting myself, along with a chosen actress that we picked, mainly for the reason she is doing A Level Drama, was Phoenix Cooper-Morriss. We followed the storyboard and made sure to keep to the 180 degree rule whilst filming. We included close-ups and shot-reverse-shots within our piece. We took several shots of the same take, to get one that would be the best, rather than relying on one. We used a tripod and a Canon camera whilst filming. Having a tripod helped us massively as we could pan across and it would remain steady, which is important for quality. We filmed the dialogue, making sure that the camera could pick it up. We also followed the storyboards, making sure that what we planned was done on camera.

Using the camera, helped us a lot in helping us prepare for the Thriller task and making us ready to film it then.

Preliminary Task - Brainstorm & Storyboard

This my brainstorm, showing the ideas that we (myself and Alexandra) both thought of for our preliminary task, such as the setting, the locations possible for filming, the genre of our piece, costume and the lighting. There were several ideas for the script of our piece, however, we made several changes to the script to make it flow easier and we also changed some ideas around the shots to use within certain points during the task. We also discussed the locations of where our piece would be filmed, whether it would be better for the piece to use a science lab or one of the media rooms for the scene, as it does involve a detective and a lab worker exchanging dialogue. We discussed what the actors should wear as costume and what costume would be suitable to use for the characters. As it is a detective and a lab worker, they would both be in formal clothes, such as a suit, but the lab worker would be in a lab coat, showing him clearly to be someone working within a lab environment.

After this, we began, together, on our storyboards. We both drew different parts of the storyboard, discussing it as we went and making sure we both knew exactly how we were going to shoot this. I started on the first opening shots of the detective walking through the corridor and opening the door, entering the room. Alexandra, then continued this showing the shots of the detective and the lab worker in the room.

We decided that we wanted very quick shots, showing a sense of urgency and suspense within the task. The shots would become longer as the dialogue was being delivered, concentrating on it, and also making sure that the actor speaking at the time has a lot of lead space to make it clear that the conversation is taking place between the two of them, as well as making sure the 180 degree rule is not broken whilst the shot is taking place. Next lesson, we are starting to film our pieces.

Final Script

"What was the result?" - Detective (small pause)
"Well, he was poisioned." - Lab Worker
"(impatiently) And?" - Detective
"Arsenic, as predicted. The post-mortem proves it." - Lab Worker
(Detective looking suspiciously at Lab Worker)
"Of course, you would know that, wouldn't you? Because you did it." - Detective

Preliminary Task - Planning

In the first lesson, we were introduced to the course which would be worth 50% of our AS grade, and we went through the course outline such as deadlines, the blog and setting it up, as well as the different tasks set, involving the use of cameras and editing. The Preliminary Task would be a small taster into out Thriller Task later on in the course and it would help with understanding the next task more and have experience with the camera and with editing.

Myself (Philippa Klymowskyj) and Alexandra Hacker decided to work together on the Preliminary Task and we started to plan, thinking about what genre to use, ideas about the script, possible locations for the filming and what sort of shots to use within filming. We discussed the ideas together and started planning, writing our thoughts down.

We considered elements such as the 180 degree rule, action matching and shot-reverse-shot within our planning, as well as the sound and deciding whether we would use music within our preliminary task. We decided upon a plan for our preliminary task to be in the crime genre and a detective would be going to a lab, getting the lab results for a murder from one of the assistants/workers. We began discussing the order of the camera angles and the shots we would use, as well as the dialogue accompanying the task.

Many things changed as we began discussing them more and more. Camera shots changed and more were added as we plan to have quick cuts at the start and slower when there is dialogue within the scene. We began thinking more about where the camera would be placed when taking a shot and where exactly the actors would be within the shot, as well as which shot to use. The dialogue became more scripted, adding directions within it, finding that the script needed to flow and the camera shots needed to be clear, ready for filming.