The film opens with several images in 3D showing mainly credits and characters on top of buildings, which are used as a taster for the rest of the film. One of the images, showing a man on the telephone, Joe, holding his other hand on his head in despair while holding a gun, fades into a real-life image. This shot slowly zooms out from a close up to an establishing shot showing the man’s face, his body, the house he is in, the neighbourhood, snipers on the roof of the building next to the house: the setting, Los Angeles.
After this shot the same smooth camera movement is used to show Jeff Talley, on the phone with Joe, in a birds eye view shot showing him in a long shot, that slowly zooms in ending up showing Jeff’s face in a close-up. These two shots immediately show the audience the contrast between Joe and Jeff in what kind of situation both men are finding themselves. Joe is the hostage-taker who threatens to kill his wife and son, Jeff is a negotiator for the LA Police Department.
Frequent cuts are used to show the setting and what is going on, on the roof. The movement of the camera is slow and it shows a lot of the setting but also emotions and thoughts.
From that point on the roles seem to be switched as there is more shown of what is happening inside the house than outside on the roof. Jeff is shown in a close-up while the camera is circling around his head while he is on the phone speaking to Joe when Joe tells him “God already decided everything” and he hangs up the phone leaving the audience in anxious suspense whether he is going to kill anyone. Jeff is shown in different shot’s and angles while running of the stairs to Joe’s house, all of these shots are in slow motion while the audience can hear a voice-over of Joe praying but can’t hear anything besides that. From this point there is a cutting rate that builds of suspense showing Jeff running to the house filmed with a handheld camera giving a jerky and bouncy shot, and the house getting closer and closer (still in slow motion).
Everything after this seems to happen really fast as the shot’s are brought to a normal speed again. Jeff runs into the house and sees Joe and his wife shot dead in a mid shot. Joe’s son did not die immediately when Joe had shot him. He dies in the hands of Jeff and this is shown in a close-up, shot/reverse shot between Joe and the kid. From the beginning ‘till the end of the opening scene there is dark and sombre music playing in the background. The tones used are very low and slow.
The opening scene in general is just a taster of what is shown in the rest of the film. All of these things aspects of the opening scene makes the audience get acquainted with the main character Jeff, his personality/character and job, but also the genre of the film, location, mood, themes and visual style.
The use of light in 'Hostage' and our own film 'The Missing' are quite the similar. In the beginning of both sequences it is quite light and the light gradually gets darker. The opening sequence of 'Hostage' is set outside and our excerpt is also filmed outside. Both excerpt show someone on the phone on a particular moment. For example in 'Hostage' the main character spends the most time on the phone with someone who is taking his wife and son hostage. In 'The Missing' the stalker shown is on the phone at one point in the sequence as well. Both excerpt show frequent cuts to create suspense towards the plot.
Credit/Opening sequence of Hostage(not the full opening sequence)
Sound/music creates a particular atmosphere and it shows the setting in 3D
Sunday, 19 April 2009
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Introduction
This site contains blogs, which will show you what I have learned by doing Media Studies.
In several different blogs I will answer questions like: How does ‘The Missing’ use, develop and challenge the forms and conventions of a real media product, How does ‘The Missing’ represents particular social groups, What kind of media institution might distribute ‘The Missing’ and why, Who the audience would be for ‘The Missing’ and How we attract and address the audience
The film ‘The Missing’ is about a girl that has gone missing. She gets followed by a guy called Peter after she arrives on the train station when she gets home after a party and walks to her house through the woods.
How does ‘The Missing’ use, develop and challenge the forms and conventions of a real media product
1: There is frequent motion, which does not only give speed to the story, but keeps the story going as well.
(Peter following/chasing Kate takes the most time of the film)
2: At the end there is a Cliff-hanger.
(Last shot is of Kate and you don’t know what happens next)
3: There is a sense of suspense, this is established by the use of different camera angles and camera shots, such as a close-up or low-angle shot.
(The feeling of uncertainty is definitely present in my point of view because you do not know what is going to happen next. This suspense combines perfectly with the cliff-hanger because the uncertainty, tension and the thrill builds up)
4: The use of music is also a part of the suspense, the up-building music, together with the bird's 'singing' creates a particular, maybe even strange, atmosphere as these two aspects don't normally combine together as it is too contrasting.
5: ‘The Missing’ is a psychological thriller
(Psychological thrillers are focused on the plot, but ‘The Missing’ tends to reverse this; it emphasizes on the characters just as much).
6: 'The Missing' contains schema characters which you would also find in other thrillers, such as an innocent girl and a stalker.
Other Psychological thrillers;
(Peter following/chasing Kate takes the most time of the film)
2: At the end there is a Cliff-hanger.
(Last shot is of Kate and you don’t know what happens next)
3: There is a sense of suspense, this is established by the use of different camera angles and camera shots, such as a close-up or low-angle shot.
(The feeling of uncertainty is definitely present in my point of view because you do not know what is going to happen next. This suspense combines perfectly with the cliff-hanger because the uncertainty, tension and the thrill builds up)
4: The use of music is also a part of the suspense, the up-building music, together with the bird's 'singing' creates a particular, maybe even strange, atmosphere as these two aspects don't normally combine together as it is too contrasting.
5: ‘The Missing’ is a psychological thriller
(Psychological thrillers are focused on the plot, but ‘The Missing’ tends to reverse this; it emphasizes on the characters just as much).
6: 'The Missing' contains schema characters which you would also find in other thrillers, such as an innocent girl and a stalker.
Other Psychological thrillers;
7: The sequence starts of showing the audience an equilibrium. Everything is still in balance, nothing has happened yet and everything seems to be normal. In the opening shot a train is driving into it's stop.
8: After this shot the platform is shown with two girls happily talking to eachother.
8: After this shot the platform is shown with two girls happily talking to eachother.
9: The disequilibrium is shown when one of the main characters walk towards the woods and it is obviously shown that she does not see someone standing against a small building. The person standing against the building looks very suspicious.
10: It is obviously shown that the person standing against the small building starts walking when he sees the girl. Showing the audience that something might is going to happen further in the story.
How does ‘The Missing’ represents particular social groups
1: There are 2 main schema’s/stereotypes in ‘The Missing’—Rapist/murderer
—Under aged victim/innocent girl
2: Social class is represented, both are white, clothes are different (girl wearing fancy clothes and man wearing a dark hoody)
3: Stereotype of the rapist is most of the time men, for victims, most of the time female. Men are seen as stronger than woman.
4: Gender is definitely represented in stereotypical way
(as confirmed by the two schema’s)
Picture of the girl. Attractive, slim girl.
Picture of the stalker. Dark hoody, suspicious. Face is not obviously shown.
What kind of media institution might distribute ‘The Missing’ and why
1: To get a clear view of what other thrillers might contain we looked at 3 Movies
(In my case that was ‘Disturbia’, ‘Stille Nacht’ and ‘Don’t Say A Word’)
2: ‘Disturbia’ is distributed by DreamWorks SKG
3: ‘Don’t Say A Word’ by Regency Enterprises
(‘The Missing’ would not be produced by a major Hollywood studio, as it is more for friends and not based on a huge audience, also it was a short film rather than an hour long)
4: ‘The Missing’ is more likely to be released on the internet, such as on YouTube, Facebook, Hyves and Itunes.
The most important thing of all these aspects of the internet is that it is accesible for everone. Including every age-bias. Our film is focused on our own age-bias (15-24), teenagers are more likely to go online and watch video’s on the internet, for example YouTube. Or visit special internet sites for video’s). But also the age group 35+ does use these the internet, which is the biggest growing demographic group there is.
(In my case that was ‘Disturbia’, ‘Stille Nacht’ and ‘Don’t Say A Word’)
2: ‘Disturbia’ is distributed by DreamWorks SKG
3: ‘Don’t Say A Word’ by Regency Enterprises
(‘The Missing’ would not be produced by a major Hollywood studio, as it is more for friends and not based on a huge audience, also it was a short film rather than an hour long)
4: ‘The Missing’ is more likely to be released on the internet, such as on YouTube, Facebook, Hyves and Itunes.
I think that I am right to say that the majority of internet users have heard of YouTube. YouTube is a site on which you can upload, watch and share your video'st for free. In July 2006, 65.000 video's were uploaded everyday and over a million video's were watched at the same time. Some artists found there fame and fortune by uploading their video's onto this site. Therefore this site is one of the best sites to promote ourselves. http://www.youtube.com/
Facebook is an American social Network site for pupils, students and employee's. It is mainly used in English speaking countries and the majority of the users are American or British. In Decembre 2008 grew with at least 600.000 entries every single day. In April 2009 Facebook had over 9 millions active users. Again, this site is a gives a great opportunity to promote our product(s). http://www.facebook.com/
Hyves is a Dutch social Network site, such as MySpace and Facebook. In Octobre 2007 Hyves reached the amount of over 7.4 million users. I personally think that using Hyves to promote our product is a great way. In this way we can reach other countries besides the English speaking ones. http://hyves.nl/
Just like with YouTube, the majority of internet users have heard of Itunes. The programm is a digital mediaplayer which you can use to play music and video's. Via internet connection Itunes can download digital music, tv shows, iPod games, iPod software, several podcasts and films. The last aspect is the most important to us; so our product can be downloaded. http://www.apple.com/itunes/
The most important thing of all these aspects of the internet is that it is accesible for everone. Including every age-bias. Our film is focused on our own age-bias (15-24), teenagers are more likely to go online and watch video’s on the internet, for example YouTube. Or visit special internet sites for video’s). But also the age group 35+ does use these the internet, which is the biggest growing demographic group there is.
Who the audience would be for ‘The Missing’
1: We handed out questionnaires
(With these findings we got a good image of what people like and what they would like to see, almost everything liked thrillers)
2: Audience was mainly between the age of 15-24
3: The audience could recognize and replace themselves in the characters
A ‘U’ film should be suitable for children aged four and/or over. These films should have a good structure and it should show comforting balances to violence, threat or horror.
Why our film should be a 'U' film:
*Theme Our problematic themes, in this case mainly 'threatening', is quite appropriate for a younger audience as there isn't any violence or horror shown.
*Language There hardly is any language used in our film, let alone mild bad or bad language.
*Nudity There is no nudity shown in our film.
*Sex There is no any sexual behaviour shown in the film. There are only references made to possibly 'rape'. *Violence There is hardly any/no violence used. *Imitable techniques There is no dangerous behaviour in our film that children are likely to also there are no weapons used. *Horror Even though the outcome isn't very reassuring for a young audience, there are hardly any horror effects used. *Drugs There are no signs of drugs.
(With these findings we got a good image of what people like and what they would like to see, almost everything liked thrillers)
2: Audience was mainly between the age of 15-24
3: The audience could recognize and replace themselves in the characters
A ‘U’ film should be suitable for children aged four and/or over. These films should have a good structure and it should show comforting balances to violence, threat or horror.
Why our film should be a 'U' film:
*Theme Our problematic themes, in this case mainly 'threatening', is quite appropriate for a younger audience as there isn't any violence or horror shown.
*Language There hardly is any language used in our film, let alone mild bad or bad language.
*Nudity There is no nudity shown in our film.
*Sex There is no any sexual behaviour shown in the film. There are only references made to possibly 'rape'. *Violence There is hardly any/no violence used. *Imitable techniques There is no dangerous behaviour in our film that children are likely to also there are no weapons used. *Horror Even though the outcome isn't very reassuring for a young audience, there are hardly any horror effects used. *Drugs There are no signs of drugs.
How we attract and address the audience
1: Actors have the same age as the people we are target on
(same age-bias, this means they can relate themselves to the characters more and this makes it more interesting)
(same age-bias, this means they can relate themselves to the characters more and this makes it more interesting)
2: Typical Features of a thriller
(by using the typical features of a thriller we addressed the people who like to be thrilled)
3: Question of questionnaire: “If you were making a thriller film, who would your main character be and why?”
(most given answer was: Rapist/murderer, to make keep it interesting for the audience we held on to that)
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