North By North West

North By North West

North By North West is a movie made by Alfred Hitchcock. This movie genre is a thriller. This movies is based on a person called Thornhill who is accused by a government of doing something and suggesting that he is the person who doesn't exist. Mr.Thornhill is trying to survive by getting away from the spies who are trying to kill him,also the police are trying to find Mr.Thornhill because he is being accused of killing somebody who he had not killed.

Alfred Hitchcock uses different types of devices in this movie fro example he uses suspense, red herrings and cliffhangers. Hitchcock uses these devices are used in the auction scene Thornhill is trying to make the auction complicated and he is saying different prices and low prices so that he can get himself arrested and not get him self killed so he can help Eve so she won't get killed.

During the crop duster scene shows tension to the audience by showing them what is going to happen and why it is happing to him. This scene shows that it has a atmosphere as he is the alone there is nobody to see what is happing to him. Furthermore this shows that Thornhill is being attacked by the government who are trying to kill him. Plus as they zoom into Thornhill's face shows that it is a tense scene showing that he is being attacked and showing the audience that there is suspense in the movie. Furthermore as this movie is a thriller this movie contains a plot that the villain has the driven plot. This shows that the hero has the obstacle where he has to save himself. This is the truth in North By North West because it shows that the villain is trying to confuse the hero and trying to tell the hero what is going on, also telling him what he has to do to stop it. This Relates to the Macguffin.

  

The Macguffin is the things the spies think about but the audience that are watching it do not really care about it. In addition the Macguffin is a plot which it catches the viewers eye and makes them pay attention, it also makes the viewers show what the plot is about. The Macguffin is also used for specific personality for example it id used for money, power, threat and many more. The Macguffin is used in films but mostly in thrillers, however it is not the centre of attention in the first part of the scene and it reduce the important parts of the movie. This may come back into the movie, however the Macguffin is forgot at the end of the movie. 

Hitchcock had said that thrillers allow the audience to get stuck in to see what it is like. Hitchcock has succeeded in this film because it shows how the audience are getting into the movie.                                                                                                                                                     

The Birds

THE BIRDS

The Birds is a thriller which was released in 1963. This was Alfred Hitchcock most treiffing film he has made. The thriller bird is based on hundreds of birds attacking the public. This starts to happen regularly in the film, the first time the birds start to attack is when Melanie is coming back from     

Mitch house then she had got attacked by a bird and made her head cut. This shows that they have not noticed that the birds have started to attack them. Furthermore this thriller shows that it is faced paced also it shows that it is always packed with action, this indicates that the story is still moving on with the action going on. For example as one of the scene of the man's eyes have been pecked out it shows the dramatic facial expression the woman is expecting. In addition to this there is a awkward silence going on as she has found out that the birds have been in as she looks at the broken tea cups, as she keep son walking the woman is shocked and there is no noise that she is making. As she has entered the room she is looking around to find out what has happened to the man, as she looks further on she has seen the man without his eyes the reaction was like she was going to pass out as she has looked at him.   

Moving on towards the school scene. This scene shows dramatic irony in it by showing that as the audience start to find out that the birds have started to gather, however Tippi does not know the birds have started to gather around in the playground behind her. As they have started to gather the school children are singing a child song so it gives it that scariness to the audience, Hitchcock had used the well because it gives the
e idea that the birds are evil and shouldn't take nature for granted, this also shows when they are at the cafe it shows a high angle of birds started to pour down and started to attack the humans this implies that as the high angle shows that someone has sent them to attack the people to send a warning possibly.

The Macguffin shows the plot to grab the viewers attention and drives the plot of the movie. The macguufin uses different types of nature for example undefined and generic, and many more this also shows that this commonly explains money, power, survival or a threat. The macguffin is most used in thriller types of movies, however the most general focus is on the first act. This may comeback into the film, although it is normally forgotten at the end of the film.

The scene when Tippi goes up too the room with all the birds in there took a week to do due to the fact that they had connected really birds to her clothing so the don't get away from her. This movie was used in 370 different types of shots.

At the end of the film there were different types of endings that they could have chosen, as one of the shots was the birds were covered over the golden gate bridge. However the film was not finished with a title the end, Hitchcock wanted to tell the audience that the birds have taken over. Due to the fact of the movie called The Birds Alford Hitchcock wanted to tell us that we are harming birds.

Lighting exercise

Lighting

We have looked at different types of lighting techniques and they are:

• Key light
• Back light
• Filler light
• Under lighting 
• Top lighting
• Back lighting
• Low key lighting
• High key lighting

They have different uses in different types of ways of filming. They use lighting to make the effect look better, in the film.

The key light is the most brightest light and the most influential, this is because we can get the look of a object of a person.

The back light provides the effect of the key light or creates an outline of a person or a silhouette.

The filler light provides the softness of the hard shadows that the use of the key light and the back light which they create.

Underlighting is used when the main source comes from the below the subject. The slighting effect is mostly is used in thrillers and horror movies to create a effect to show the viewers that they are dangerous.

Top lighting is the main source of the lighting because it comes from above the person so that they look better than they look before.

The back light shows the source behind the certain subject, this implies that if there is no other lighting used the silhoutettes are created.

Also there are two different lighting which are low-key and high-key.

Low key lighting Is created by using the key and back lights, which will produce a fine contrast of light and dark in different areas on the screen also very deep, distinct shadows will be formed. This is also known as chiariiscuo, this is from the italian word for light - chiaro and dark- oscuro.

High key lighting  is mostly used by filler lights , which shows that the lighting will appear more realistic.
                                                                                                                         
 

The Outbreak sound exercise

The Outbreak sound exercise.

We had moved a short movie on sound so we can show the different sounds we had used and why we used this different types of sounds. There are different types of sounds and they are:

• Diegetic 
• Non-Diegetic
• On-Screen 
• Off-Screen 
• Parallel
• Contrapuntal 

Diegetic refers to the world of text, so we can hear the dialogue, sound effects, music with a source within the the text, for example a radio.

Non-Diegetic refers to everything outside the world of text, this refers to the voice over, soundtrack captions, titles, subtitles.

On-Screen sound is when the audience can see the source of the sound.

Off-Screen soound is when the audience cannot see the source of the sound.

Parallel sounds which match the action.

Contrapuntal sounds is when the sound does not match the action.    

In our group we had used most of the sounds techniques, however we did not use all of the sounds because some of the sounds might of not suited the short movie that we have made.

At the beginning of the movie we use contrapuntal sound and on-screen sound. These goes sounds are used when the radio starts to play the music. This is a on-screen sound because as it moves on you can see where the music is playing from, furthermore the contrapuntal sound is used to show that it does not match the action of the movie this shows that the audience may think that nothing bad is going to happen. We capture the sound effectively because it shows the viewers what is going on and how and where we had use the sound.

Media Written Assignment.

This story was about a dealer trying to give money to his boss, who has the power to do terrible things. So as the person did not pay it on time he has to tell his bodyguard to sort the situation out, then the guard had taken him out then the man that did not pay the money got hit. Then they started to fight and the bodyguard has to find him and try to do something about it. However it doesn't turn out right for the bodyguard.

We had used most of the camera shots but couldn't use most of them, because it was difficult to do because we did not have the right facilities to do the shots, for example crane shot, tracking shot, high angle and pan.

We could of not do the crane shot because we couldn't find a suitable place for that shot because it was difficult to do, also we could of not done the pan shot because it was very hard just to focus on a person moving quickly. Furthermore we did not use tracking shot because if we had used it the camera would have been moving about and would have looked like there was no control of it.  Plus we did not use the extreme close up because it would have not been as good as the other shots because we could not close up on anything.

In the film we had used most of the shots. We had used the medium shot when he was walking up the stairs, this shows that this shot was well used because it shows that he is walking towards us and showing what he is capable. We had used this shot to show that the character is trying to do business and he is nerves walking up the stairs. This shot wasn't successful because the camera was moving as the person was walking up, it should have been slowly moving up wit out stopping. Also we had used over the shoulder which shows that the boss does not want to be recognised because we don’t want to give the identity away of the boss. This shot was successful because we did not give the identity away and just showing the bodyguard and the dealer.  In addition we had used the point of view when he is searching for the dealer; this shot was successful because it gives a good view of what he was seeing and was successful because it shows what he was looking for and looking at. Furthermore we had used the tilt when the dealer had hit the bodyguard, which indicates that the character got knocked out and the shot was successful because it shows that he got knocked down and the tilt shot shows that it was a good thing to do.

We did hold the shot steady for most of the parts but we could of have improved the by not stopping and then moving the camera next time.

The most positive element in our film was when we had done over the shoulder and the clock going at the same time because it shows that the dealer time is nearly up. Also the tilt shot was good as it also included the point of view which shows that we a seeing his point of perspective as he had gone down.

We had made mistakes which we can improve by the noise which we had put in to the movie match to what scene we are doing, because we need it to match, also we could have improved it by filming it when people are not in the shot. Also we had to re-take one some of the scene when we do our really project that would not happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0scKzcgJRc  

Genre and narrative

Genre and Narrative 

There are key technical type of elements used in film and they are divided into two different key categories and they are;

Macro elements; this refers to genre and narrative  

Micro elements; this refers to camera work, sound and editing and small detailed.  

Genre

We have learnt different type of genre. Genre refers to different types of category in media which has the same form or type of product. There are different types of genre for example;

Horror, comedy action, animated, sport, western and many more.

Different genre has different types of scene for example horror includes, dark settings, death, ghouls, ghost and paranormal activity.

Narrative

Narrative refers to story, structure, linear and non-linear. Story is a sequence of events, also referred as the plot. Linear is the sequence is the events which are shown in order that they took beginning, middle and end.