MacGuffin

A MacGuffin is a plot element that catches the viewers attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction. The aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are willing to do and sacrifice anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is. In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot. Common examples are money, victory, glory, survival, a source of power, a potential threat, or it may simply be something entirely unexplained.

'We have a name in the studio and we call it 'MaGuffin' it is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is always the necklace and in spy stories its always the papers.' - Alfred Hitchcock

The Thriller - Alfred Hitchcock

The aspects of the thriller - Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock was the master of suspense whose films came to be the benchmark for 'Psychological' thrillers.
Hitchcock was knows as the master of suspense.

"The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them"
"There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it"
"Always make the audience suffer as much as possible"
- Alfred Hitchcock

"Under the strong influence of Alfred Hitchcock often began with a crime and the accusation of an innocent bystander, were the accused to contact the authorities, no doubt the case could be promptly solved but instead the poor bystander runs from the law thus further jeopardising life and limb"
- Rick Altman

The Thriller

What is a Thriller?

• Physco
• The birds
• Paranormal activity
• Point break
• North by north west
• 127 hours
• Source code
• Saw

'Thriller is a very difficult genre to pin down because it covers such a wide range of films, Thrillers are films of suspense that are supposed to instil the terror into the audience' - Susan Hayward, Key concepts in Film Studies.

Different categories of thrillers:

• Spy Thrillers
• Political Thrillers
• Conspirisacy Thrillers
• Legal Thrillers
• Phycological Thrillers

"When you enjoy something you must never let the logic get too much into the way. Like the villans in the James Bond film whenever Bond breaks into the complex - 'Ah Mr Bond, welcome, come in, let me show you my entire evil plan and then put you in a death machine that doesn't work' " - Jerry Seinfield.

Film Language

Camera framing
Camera framing is what we actually see within the frame of the camera screen, we concentrate on how far the camera is from the subject and from what angle the shot is taken. There are different types of shots these are; Long shot, Close-up, Point-of-view shot and Mid shot. Different types of shots are used in combination to give you information about where and when something is happening.

Camera Movement
Camera movement is used in the same way that framing is used to enhance out involvement in the film action, as the way the camera is moved can be used to direct our attention to a particular viewpoint.
Camera movement includes:

• A panning shot - this is where the camera moves slowly across from side to side from a fixed axis
• A tilt shot - this is where the camera moves up and down from a fixed axis
• A crane shot - this is where the camera is mounted on a crane moves around at a distance above ground level
• A tracking shot - is where the camera follows the action
• A rolling shot - is where the camera moves diagonally, which makes the image askew

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock (Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock) was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. In 1956 he became an American citizen, whilst remaining a British subject. Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in his whole career.

Alfred Hitchcock was born on the 13^th August 1899, Leytonstone, London and sadly died on the 29^th April 1980 (aged 80).

Hitchcock's films sometimes feature characters struggling in their relationships with their mothers. In North by Northwest (1959), Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant's) is an innocent man ridiculed by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him. In The Birds (1963), the Rod Taylor character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself of a clinging mother (Jessica Tandy).

Preliminary Task

Preliminary task:

The Preliminary task is not awarded any marks, but if you do not complete the task you lose marks.
The preliminary task is a demonstration of continunity editing.
It must show you can successfully use;

• Match on action
• Shot/reverse shot
• 180 degree rule
• eyeline match

Key Edits:
Match on action - We see a character start an action in one shot and then we see them continue it in the next.

180 Degree Rule:
The 180 degree rule is a basic guideline that states that 2 characters (or other elements) in some scene should always have the same left/right relationship to eachother.

If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the 2 subjects, it is called crossing the line.

In the sequence we should see the following action unfold:

• Character A walks towards a closed door
• Character A enters through the door and crosses a room in where character B is seated

This means character A and B have a dialogue, one eyeline match and either character A or B exits.

This is my preliminary task:

Paranormal Activity

Paranormal activity was made in 2007, it lasts 87 minutes and the genre is a Horror/mystery. This film was released on 25^th November 2009 in the UK.

The film is about a couple moving to a Suburban home, then the couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence.

Director:

Oren Peli                              

Writer:

Oren Peli

Stars:

Katie Featherston , Micah Sloat and Mark Fredrichs

This film cost them £15,000 (estimated) to make, this is a good budget to have as most Hollywood films cost over £100,000 to make so therefore Paranormal Activity is a very cheap film to make and because of this they earn a lot of profit.

The main problem in the paranormal activity films are that they make supernatural seem believable, other films that also have this problem are ‘the exorcist’.

The suspense is achieved by many screens in daylight is them analysing what happened throughout the night.

The amateurish filming makes it believable, so like we could do it ourselves.

The ways the director makes us believe the film by:

·        Bringing an expert in

·        Dr Fredericks and Dr Abraham

The handheld camera they use within this film makes it seem more realistic, also it becomes our eyes as we are watching through the camera to see when any spooky events happen. Also we are watching them sleeping, this acts as in we are in the film too.

Also in this film there is no non-digetic sound, also simple noises become scary. Furthermore there is an effective use of light/shadows/darkness, which creates evilness as we can barely see what’s happening so we struggle like the main characters do.

Finally in this film we are waiting all the time for the demon to strike, as this is what happens all throughout the film so therefore we expect it.