Genre Research: Panic Room

Another movie that came to my mind after talking with my group was Panic Room. Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart star in this movie as a mother and her daughter whose house is invaded by robbers and they have to stay safe. While watching this movie, I paid close attention to all of the details put into it by its creators. Such details include camera movements, angles, shots, mis-en-scene, editing, and sound. The camera angles that I noticed throughout the movie were establishing shots, two-shots, three-shots, low and high angles, medium shot, close-up, medium long shot, over the shoulder, and medium close up. The camera movements seen in this film lacked variety since there were only a couple used. These were pan, tilt, tracking shot, and zoom. As for mis-en-scene, there was a lot of thought put into each scene. For costumes, the characters wore clothing that was appropriate for who they represented. For example, the police officiers wore their uniforms, a robber wore a black ski mask, and a neighbor wore his pajamas during the middle of the night. There was a variety of lighting as well such as natural lighting in the daylight and at nightime and articial lighting in the house. Also, in the house's panic room, there were fluorescent lighting that at one point began to flash. The acting in the movie by each actor and actress was exceptional as was the makeup that was able to showcase a burn on a robber's face, sweat from the mother's face, and blood on a captive's face. Some props seen in the movie were a gun, flashlight, cell phone, cameras, and a watch. The setting in entire movie was set in one specific house with a panic room that was mainly filmed too.

Unlike "Secret Obsession," in this movie there wasn't a large range of editing techniques used. After watching the complete movie, I noted that there were only a select amount of editing techniques used that would be repeated and replicated in the remaining scenes. Such techniques include jump cuts, cutaways, eye-line matchs, and action matches. The most common technique used similiar to most crime movies was cross cutting. This allows the audience to see what is happening to both the criminals and the innocent with two different scenes that are occurring at the same time. This movie also used a couple of sounds. Like most movies, there was dialogue, diegetic and non-diegetic sound present. However, this movie also had incidental sound and ambient sound. At one point, no sound was used to accentuate the importance of a lamp falling down in the near future which would alert the robbers.

There were both elements that I liked and disliked in this film. I believe one element, not commonly used in crime movies, were the allusions to certain things such as Edgar Allen Poe and the Titanic. These allusions incorporated some relationship between the audience and the characters since it helped me personally better understand what the characters were doing or thinking. Another element that I liked was that the movie began with incidental sound right away. This made me gain interest immediately on what was going to happen in the future. An element that was commonly used in this movie that I didn't like so much were the scenes that were supposed to create tension but actually made me bored. Such aprts included conversations that would've been better if they got to the point faster. In these scenes, the directors decided to make it longer than necessary making the situation last for a while and this led to multiple scenes that were dull.

Genre Research: Secret Obsession

After talking with my group, we decided which movies we were each going to watch. The first movie that came to my mind that used a crime genre was "Secret Obsession." In this movie, a women loses her memory and is brainwashed into believing that a stranger is her husband until she realizes the truth and attempts to escape. A lot of thought was put into this movie regarding its camera movements, camera angles, mis-en-scene, and sound. I tried to pay attention to the small details that have the biggest impact and took note on them to better understand the conventions of crime movies. In this movie, the camera movements used most often were tilt, tracking shot, and zoom. These camera movements were used to make sure that there was more intensity in each scene depending on what was occurring. There were a variety of camera angles used as well such as establishing shot, medium close up, medium shot, close up, extreme close up, dutch shot, long shot, aerial shot, three shot, two shot, point-of-view shot, and over the shoulder shot. These camera angles used help the audience know the importance of each thing being shown in a scene. For example, the alternating low and high angles used signify that Brenda Song is weaker than Mike Vogel. 

The mis-en-scene used in this movie was essential in creating the correct concept and environment for the idea that the directors were trying to convey. The costumes in this film were casual and reflected typical clothing that one might wear on a normal basis. Additionally, in the hospital, the nurses were given scrubs to wear and in the police station, the officers were wearing their uniforms. In the movie, the types of lighting used varies profoundly. For one, during the night of the car accident and the murders, the lighting is very dark and there are many shadows. There is also plenty of articial lighting and natural lighting seen as the characters are inside of a building and when they are outside with sunlight. The acting used in the movie is very dramatic and well thought out as all of the people seen act accordingly to their role. The makeup displayed in the movie was extremely appropriate. For example, at the beginning, Song had her macara smeared because of the tears and rain, which also caused for her hair to be soaking wet and she also had blood on her face from the car accident. Towards the end, Song had a large bruise on her ankle and scratches on her face made by sticks and twigs from her fall. Some props seen were a knife, keys, lighter, rope, gun, flashlight, computer, and a walking cane. Most of these props fit the conventions for typical crime movies as they help set an omnimous and thrilling mood. The settings utilized included a hospital, a police station, a bedroom, a garage, an office and a tattoo parlor. This variety in settings helped develop a sense of where the scenes were occuring, especially with the help provided by the establishing shots.

The sounds used most commonly were diegetic sound, non-diegetic sound, dialogue, incidental sound, and ambient sound. The editing techniques that I noted were reaction shots, eye-line matches, jump cuts, action matches, graphic matches, cross cutting, cutaways, dissolves, and fade outs. In this film, there were a couple elements that I liked and disliked. I liked the flashbacks that Song would occasionally have during the film because it would share with the audience small hints as to her background which would help us uncover the mystery. I think the parts of the film that I didn't prefer were the unneccessary scenes that lacked the tension and suspense seen in other parts. All in all, this movie fit the majority of crime movie conventions and yet was able to incorporate some new aspects that challenged them. 

Genre Research: Chosen Genre

My group and I spent some time thinking about which genre would best fit the pitch that we chose. We decided that having our film be about crime would be better than having a dramatic or comical aspect. Using comedy as the genre wouldn't show the audience the seriousness of what is occurring in the first two minutes of our film. Using drama as the genre may have resulted in a typical kidnapping movie that has been seen quite often. By focusing on crime, we would ensure that the audience isn't confused and understands the main point of the movie by only watching a small clip. Additionally, crime provides a higher level of suspense and tension compared to the other genres. These two factors are important as they maintain the audience's interest in the movie and grab their attention. Given these characteristics of the crime genre, we came to the conclusion of heavily incorporating it into our movie.

Genre Research: Drama and Comedy

Genre Research: Crime PowerPoint

In the PowerPoint,I talked about all aspects of crime and movies that incorporate this genre. I talked about lighting and how crime movies usually use black and white lighting or low-key lighting, which creates a chiaroscuro effect. I said that panning shots are used to go from one scene to another. Usual props most commonly used are guns and knives to increase the tension in the film. Crime movies often have elements of harm to others which increases the tension and suspense in certain scenes. I mentioned some examples such as The Godfather and Scarface. Sounds used are mostly non-diegetic and incidental music to build suspense or the conflict. The elements that I favor are the worry and fear instilled in the audience that increases interest. I also favor the suspense and action that occurs throughout the entirety of the movie which makes it worthwhile to watch. An element that I dislike is that sometimes the plot builds up very slowly and it takes a long time for the conflict to be introduced.

Crime is Popular Among My Group

When my group and I discussed our pitches to each other, we were thankful that we all had somewhat similar ideas that related to crime. This was important as it removed one more aspect that we would have to talk over to come to a conclusion. Our teacher had given the class a tip to look at our ideas and build up on them as if we were planing on filming the entire movie. She said that this would assist using gaining clarity and having an understanding of what should be included in the film. As we brainstormed and talked about what we could incorporate into each idea, we began to see how some pitches stood out from others when considering different issues, such as the realistic approach, setting, and lighting. With this in mind, we were able to narrow down our pitches to two instead of three. These two ideas were mine and Aitan's pitches.
Katherine's pitch was to show a restrained girl who wakes up and has flashbacks to her kidnapping as she realizes that she's trapped and has to escape without being caught. For this pitch, our group was able to develop the story and what would occur in the first two first minutes of the movie. This is beneficial as it would allow us to move faster through making the storyboard and deciding on camera angles and movements. Another strength of this pitch is that we would already have one of its ideal locations set. Katherine's room can be used to show the scenes of the trapped girl. We figured that this room would be convenient as the shutters could be closed and give a stronger allusion of a confinement. Additionally, in this space, the hallway that leads to the main room is very dark when the sun is down but enough sun seeps in to have good lighting while we film. The garage would also be available to us to film any scenes from when the girl was originally captured. This pitch however, also has disadvantages such as the lighting for any scenes filmed outside. We would have to calculate when would be the best time to film in order to get a semi-dark sky and the time gap between this option and a very dark sky would be pretty small.
Aitan's pitch was to show an important woman to the United States government who gets kidnapped and has to find a way to escape. The idea behind this pitch was very strong and my group would have a lot of information that we would be able to include into the film. My group and I contributed to adding a lot of details into this pitch and small features that we could add. This helped get a thought of how the final outcome would actually look like. Such details include a background at the beginning or end of the two minutes that would suggest that the woman was considered important to the government such as a call from a government official or documents that she may carry. Another good thing of this pitch would be the heavy amount of tension and suspense built leading up the woman getting kidnapped. Like the other pitch, this idea also has some obstacles. For one, we believe that the actual execution of certain scenes may be a little difficult. If we stick to this pitch, we would have to include a scene where a woman is getting kidnapped and this scene would have to be filmed clearly and can not be confusing for the audience. Similar to the lighting concern in the previous pitch, we would have to be strategic regarding the time we should film and how much time we believe it would take us.
After taking a long time considering both pitches and how they would be carried out, we all finally came to a conclusion. We decided that the pitch that we would use for this project would be Katherine's because of its convenience and practicality regarding the filming process. However, since we liked Aitan's idea as well, we will be incorporating some of his thoughts from the old pitch into the chosen pitch.

Start of Final Task

Hey guys! My name is Katherine and I am 16 years old. I am a tenth grader and a part of the class of 2022. I consider myself a hard-working student and always try to make school my priority. I am a part of the track and cross country team at my school. I have been running since I was 11 years old and I haven't quit because of the incredible feeling of accomplishment that I feel every time I run. When I'm not at practice, I tend distract myself by reading dystopian novels or getting ahead on any school work. I also volunteer whenever I'm available to remind myself of what's important and to help out my community either by working at a food bank, a church, or at a library. I've been considering college a lot lately and I wanted to ensure that I was a worthy candidate. With this in mind, I have recently applied to two jobs and started exploring the different scholarships available to me. Aice Media Studies was one of my choices for an interesting and challenging coarse that I wanted to take this year. I have been fortunate to be able to work with two of my friends who which I work great with, Amy and Aitan.
During the first couple of weeks of taking this class, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to grasp to knowledge associated with the material. However, after a while, I finally started to understand and relate what I was learning to the real-world. By doing this, I realized just how detailed each film is and the effort and thought put behind each one. In this class, I have learned the different types of camera angles and camera movements and the purpose for their use. I also learned about the importance of costumes, lighting, actors, makeup, props, and setting to deliver the message of a film properly. By being in this class, I've paid attention to sounds and their functions, how some deliver an increase of tension while others belong particularly to one character. The part of this course that has interested me the most however, has been the editing incorporated with the making of a film. I have learned so many things regarding editing a film such as creating a split screen, changing the dimensions of the video, and cutting the takes to fit the sound that goes along. I'm most excited to deliver on my editing skills for the upcoming project. I like to challenge myself with new ideas and tasks in order to continue learning new things.
For the video that we were assigned to make for Aice, my team members and I each came up with a pitch each. A pitch is a summarized version of an idea for a film in 25 words or less. My pitch idea was to show a restrained girl who wakes up and has flashbacks to her kidnapping as she realizes that she's trapped and has to escape without being caught. Amy's pitch idea was to show a psychotic girl who falls in love with a serial killer. Aitan's pitch idea was to show an important woman to the United States government who gets kidnapped and has to find a way to escape.