The Birds

          What Alfred Hitchcock did with this thriller is give the audience a threat from nature. He made a thriller using birds as the villeins, it was unheard of using such harmless creatures as the main threat of a thriller, but Alfred Hitch Cock was able to pull it of.

          The trailer of "The Birds" is ironic, the reason for this because we see a old woman saying how birds are such beautiful creatures. "Birds are not aggressive creatures Miss. They bring beauty into the world." Then after that in the trailer we see lots of birds attacking people. This makes it even more horrific, the reason for this is because the audience can agree that birds are beautiful creatures, and that they bing beauty into the world, what the audience then see is a load of birds gathered together attacking people. The effect on the audience is a great impact of surprise and what gave this impact is when the birds are attacking the kids and one falls over and smashes her glasses. Another reason why this trailer makes the film "The Birds" look horrific is because the old woman then goes and says, the birds wont bring the end of the world. Straight after that we see a explosion happen because of the birds. What this does is get the audience thinking. Is it actually possible for the birds to bring the end of the world? 

          Often in Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers theres nowhere to actually hide. In this film he has used a small town called Bodega Bay, a place where no one has heard of or know of. This means that it doesn't matter where people are to run of to the birds will come. Even small places like Bodega Bay means there is no where to run or hide, even though we have never heard or know anything about Bodega Bay before. 

In this image we can see that after the film, Hitchcock was also able to successfully get Bodega Bay known.

          Suspense was used extensively, a example of this is where they are all in the house waiting for the next wave of birds to attack. Good use diegetic sounds were used of the birds, because we knew that when we heard birds, there was going to be a attack of some sort and that people are in danger.

Hitchcock had a great use for sound. A example is in the schoolyard scene. In the schoolyard scene we can hear the innocent children singeing. The contrast of the song is evil natured. This is ironic as we see the birds gather up for an attack in the school playground as they sing this song. 

 

Studio Idetnts

         For this blog post I will be speaking about four major studio idents. The studio idents I will be speaking about are Columbia, Universal,
Paramount and Walt Disney Pictures.

         The reason why I am doing this is because it will help give me an idea on how to create mu ident when it comes to making my opening sequence of a thriller.

Columbia Studios
       
         Columbia studios has had many idents over many years, they have kept to the theme of the woman standing. Columbia is a American film production. It is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment. Sony Pictures Entertainment is a subsidiary of the Japanese, it is one of the worlds leading film studios. Columbia studios was founded in January 10th 1924 in LA. The founders were Harry Cohn, Jack Cohn and Joe Brandt.

All films have a studio ident, this is to show the studio that the movie was either funded by or make the film. All studios have there own idents to show that the film was made by that company or helped be created by a company. Companies like Columbia Studios are known, which means that it will help publitice the film which has been made by them, this helps sell the film to people to watch becuase people know that it has been made by a major company.

Rope

     

Blog 3 - "North by North West"

‘’North by North West’’ Crop Duster Scene

        "North by North West" is a film which came out in the year 1959, it is a thriller which as written by Ernest Lehman and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The stars of the film are Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The film is about a "innocent" New York advertising execurive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and os pursued across america while he looks for lots of ways to survive. 

        This scene starts of slow starts of slow and it was in the middle of nowhere, a dusty scenery and this is the mise-en-scene of the scene. What Hitchcock said was that a typical thriller scene would be at night where it’s all dark on a corner of a street, in the city, floors maid from cobble washed with water and rain, standing under a straight light, a person looks through a window, having a black cat run across a wall waiting for a limo to come kill the person waiting, but what Hitchcock also said that he wasn’t going to make his scene. He wanted it done fresh and new, ‘’Therefor, will make the same scene with nothing.’’ He wanted it to be unique and different but keeping all the effects of a thriller.  Another thing that Hitchcock said about this is scene is ‘’A man is told to go to a spot and there the audiences suspect he will be shot.’’ Another thing I want to say about the mise-en-scene is that Cary Grant is all dressed up smart in this scene, this indicates to the audience that he is about to have an important meet up, but the scenery he is in also indicates that this is building up to something much bigger.

       

         I would like to speak the camera work in this scene. In this scene what we see a lot of is a establishing shot and what the establishing shot does is to show that his alone with no buildings or shelter.We see a lot point of view shots from Roger O. Thornhill, what this is indicating to the audience that he is becoming impatient continuslly looking up the road waiting for a man called George Kaplan. We also see medium shots of Roger O. Thornhill and what this is showing the audience the impatient look on his face as he waits. There is also long shots of him which indicate a scens of fear when we see a car coming down the road, we as the audience amidently suggest that Roger O. Thornhill is going to be shot. We then see a pan shot of the car passing Roger, then goes to medium shot of Roger as the car passes by and we see Roger slightly relieved yet disappointed. What he felt relieved for that someone didn’t shot him as the car passed, what he was disappointed about was that it wasn’t Kaplan. Then we have a wide shot of the two men and what made this made the audience think was that the other man was Kaplan when it wasn’t and this mislead the audience to think it was because the audience knows that Roger O. Thornhill is waiting for this guy called George Kaplan. Once the we know on what is going on, and we know that a plane is chasing Roger O. Thornhill we see the good use of a steady cam used when Roger O. Thornhill is running away from the plane. The steady cam was used to show the audience that something big is happening.  We see that it is a tense moment and by seeing a steady cam of Roger O. Thornhll running we can see that he is trying to get out out of this situation, but at this moment his not quite sure how he is going to get out of the situation. This makes the audience feel the same danger as Roger O. Thornhill in this situation and we feel sympathetic for him, this is because we know that he has been mistaken for George Kaplan, this is the only reason why he is getting gunned down by a plane.

Mise-En-Scene

            Mise-en-scene is a French tearm for “in the scene or frame”.  There are five elements of mise-en-scene and what these five elements are setting and props, costume, hair and make-up, facial expressions and body language and positioning of characters and objects in the frame. 

            Colour in a scene can show and explain to an audience on what may be going on with them without having to use dialog. An example would be the colour red. The colour red may suggests things like love, lust, blood, danger, anger and heat. An example of this would be if the scene had a red colour it could indicate to the audience that there may be danger close.  


This picture is a scene from hunger games, and what we can tell just by looking at this scene is that there is a scenes of danger and love, this is because of the colour red which has been used in this scene. In the Hunger Games Katniss is wearing red in a red colored scene to show a scenes of danger to others tributes which are also in the Hunger Games. But there is also a scenes of love because of the colour of red in between Katniss and Peter and this is why red was used in this scene. Another thing which is in this scene is that Katnisses face expression looks worried which links back into the scenes of danger is coming. Katniss has also be made to look pretty using make up and doing up her hair because she is representing her district. Just from looking at this scene from the Hunger Games I have identified the elements of mise-en-scene because of the technical use of colour, make up, face expression and the color of where its set.

            Black and white movies indicate that it may be a fantasy or old fashioned and coloured films indicate to the audience that it is reality. This technique was reversed in the movie the Wizard Of Oz. This because the films starts of black and white which gives it an old fashion feel but also that it is reality. Once colour is introduced to the film it is indicating to us that she is in a fantasy land.
In this image we see dorothy going from the old fashioned reality scene into a coloured fantasy land.

Denotation and Connotation

            Denotation is the literal description of on idea, concept or object. Connotation is what we associate with a particular idea, concept or object. An example of this is by using colour. A colour like red could indicate danger, love or blood and this is an example of a denotation. A example of Connotation is when you see the colour red as real blood, or if there really is love or danger in the scene.