Jerry Seinfield

" When you enjoy something, you must never let logic get too much in the way like the villians in all the James Bond movies. Whenever Bond breaks into the complex - ' Ah,Mr Bond, welcome, come in let me show you my entire plan and then put you in a death machine that doesn't work"

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock was a British film director and producer, who made his techniques in creating suspense and his psychological thriller genres famous. After his career set off he moved to hollywood and in 1956 became an American citizen.

Near to the end of his life , he started to work on a script for a spy thriller called ' The Short Night', unfortunately the film was never actually filmed due to Hitchcock's deteriorating health and his wife. They eventually published the script in a book about Hitchcock's last years.

Some of Hitcock's Famous Films - 

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) The 39 Steps (1935) Secret Agent (1936) Sabotage (1936) Young and Innocent (1937) The Lady Vanishes (1938) Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) Suspicion (1941) Saboteur (1942) Bon Voyage (1944) Spellbound (1945)

Stage Fright (1950) I Confess (1953) To Catch a Thief (1955) The Trouble with Harry (1955) The Wrong Man (1956) Vertigo (1958) North by Northwest (1959) Psycho (1960) The Birds (1963) Frenzy (1972)

Quotes - ' Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.'     

                 'If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear                                                  

                 idea of what was going on.'

Preliminary Task

In this sequence we should see -

• Character A walks towards a closed door
• Character A enters through the door and crosses a room in where character B is seated.
• Character A and B have dialogue, eye line match and either A or B exits.

This is Lucy Green, Chelsea Rackham, Tia Simmonds and my preliminary task.

Foundation Portfolio Preliminary Task

• The idea of this task is for us each to show demonstration of continuity editing.
• In this task we need to show that we are able to use : Match on Action, Shot/Reverse shot, 180 degree rule and Eyeline Match.

Match on Action

Match on action is seeing a character start an action in one shot and to see them continue it in the next one. For example opening a door in one shot and  walking through the same door in the next.

180 Degree Rule

The 180 degree rule is a basic guideline that states that the 2 characters in the same scene should has the same left/right relationship to each other every time we see them in a shot.

If the camera was to pass over the imaginary axis that connects the two subjects, then it is then know as 'crossing the line'.

Shot/Reverse Shot

Eyeline Match

Chuck Jones & The Rules

• The road runner cannot harm or upset the coyote except by going 'MEEP!MEEP!'
• No outside force can harm the coyote, only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products.
• The coyote could stop anytime - if he were not a fanatic.
• No dialogue ever, except 'MEEP!MEEP!'.
• The road runner must stay on the road - otherwise, logically, he would not be called the ' Road runner'.
• All action must be confined to the natural environment of the 2 characters. The Southwest American desert.
• All materials, tools, weapons or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from Acme Corporation.
• Whenever possible, make gravity the coyote's greatest enemy.
• The coyote is always more humiliated by his failures, than harmed.

Different Types Of Thrillers

• Spy
• Political
• Conspiracy
• Legal
• Psychological

Normal Openings To A Thriller

Scene setting - sense of normality - introduce a character that is isolated and vulnerable

Point of view shot - camera moving - an element of mystery

Introduction of discordant non-diegetic music

Viewer anticipates what will happen next

People are scared - (vulnerable people the audience identify with)

There is an element of mystery

Thriller - What is it?

Thriller - What is it?

'The 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 instill terror into the audience'

- Susan Hayward, Key Concepts in Film Studies

Paranormal Activity Review

Writer/Director - Oren Peli

The Story - The film is based on a young couple Micha and Katie. Katie has had a presence that has haunted her as long as she can remember and fears that it has followed her to her new house. Micha takes it upon himself to fix their haunting problems and purchases a video camera that he will leave on in their bedroom every-night to see if they can capture an unusual sightings. The video camera continues to capture alot of 'paranormal activity' over the next few nights, including doors violently slamming shut and footprints next to their bed. The following nights proves disastrous and this haunting demon possess young Katie and she kills her boyfriend Micha. 

The fact that nearly all of the  film is filmed by a   handheld video camera it really brings you into the story and makes you feel like your apart of what's going on. It makes all of the activity real for you and that is why you jump and scream in unison with the characters because it feels like you are in the scene.

To horror and thriller films it is vital to make us believe what is happening. And Paranormal Activity does this very well. It has it sense of normality that we can relate to; for example it has not only the night scenes that are captured on the camera but they also include daylight scenes where both Katie and Micha analyse what happened the night before. There is also the camera. The fact that is it just a simple camera put in the corner of a bedroom, means its just as easy for you to do the same. The reality of the haunting is clear to us when they bring in experts and even search the internet to find the information their looking for.

Source Code Review

Directed by - Duncan Jones
Written by - Ben Ripley
Source Code is an action thriller that is based around a dead military soldier who wakes up in another man's body and is forced to complete the mission of finding the bomber of a Chicago commuter train.
He has exactly eight minutes each time to discover  information that will lead him to the bomber and save the people on the train . Each time he fails to do so the train blows up and they send him back in.



This is an action packed thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It has both a sense of romance and mystery.


Most of the action that happens occurs on the train, for example when 'Sean' tries to take the gun from the top of the train and is caught by the guards.

This film is mainly a detective story. 'Sean' the solider in disguises has exactly eight minutes a time to find out who the bomber is and help to save the people on the train in an alternate world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkTrG-gpIzE         

The Manchurian Candidate Review

1962

2004

The Manchurian Candidate(1969) is a political thriller where the son of a parliament US political family is slyly brainwashed into being an assassin for the Communist party.

The Manchurian Candidate(2004) is also a thriller that focuses on the kidnapping and brainwashing of soldiers during the Gulf War. 

Both have the genres; psychological thriller and political thriller down to a tee.  With their tension and suspense building scenes.

The Birds Review

The Story - A wealthy woman from San Francisco travels to Bodega Bay; a small northern Californian town, to follow a potential love interest. Although mysterious things start to happen in Bodega Bay upon her arrival. Bizarrely all the birds come together start to attack and kill people, in a very vicious manner.

There are certain scenes within the film that contain fast pacing and frequent action. An example being Cathy’s birthday party scene; the children are playing in the garden when suddenly a mass amount of birds swarm down and start to attack the children. Another example would be the café scene.

The film has your typical story characters . The male hero being Mitch Brenner ' Rod Taylor' who saves the damsel in distress who is Melanie Daniels 'Tippi Hedren'. And of course you have your typical villains the birds who terrorize the small Northern California Town  and viciously kill  its residents.

It took the crew one week to shoot the scene of Melanie being ravaged and viciously attacked by the birds.Hedren had  been reassured by Hitchcock that they would  use mechanical birds but that was not the case. It was said that she had endured various marks on her cheek and close to her eyes from being attack and had been ordered a weeks rest before returning to filming.

There are various different endings to the film and Alfred Hitchcock said that he wanted to give the impression of unending terror. To keep fear in the viewers that the birds might still be out there.

Psycho Review

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock 
Writers – Joseph Stefano (Screenplay)                        Robert Bloch (novel)

The Story - The film is about Marion Crane stealing $40,000 and planning to run away with her boyfriend Sam with the money. She stops at Bates’ Motel  and is greeted by Norman Bates who seems to come across as a confusing and strange character .Later that night ,whilst in the shower ,Marion is murdered by who we believe to be Norman’s mother;Mrs Bates. Norman protects his mother and covers up the murder and hides all the evidence in the swamp. It appears he got away with it all until a private detective turns up questions Norman on the whereabouts of Marion. And once again Mrs Bates appears and kills the detective. Following these events we soon see Marion’s boyfriend and sister turn up to the motel to talk to Mrs Bates, and they are   astonished by their findings.




Psycho will be known by many for its infamous shower scene. This scene includes 77 different camera angles and approximately 50 cuts, altogether. Psycho has its fast paced and frequent actions scenes but does well to build up suspense and tension in the end seen where Marion’s sister is searching the house and finds the supposedly alive mothers dead corpse.

 Psycho will not only be remembered for the shower scene but also for its memorable discordant music, which tries to imitate that of a psycho.

North By Northwest Review

Director - Alfred Hitchcock
Writer - Ernest Lehman  


The Story -  An innocent New York advertising executive gets mistaken for a government agent by spies and is pursued across the country whilst  looking for ways to keep alive.


The red herring of the film is Eve Kendall. When we first see her we think she is there to help Roger Thornhill , but as events unfold we soon begin to find out that she is actually working with the villains. But the question is why would she be helping him if she is acquainted with the villains. This question stays with us for a while in the film until we find out that she is actually a double agent and is working for the government, undercover.


The biggest action and tension building scene would have to be when the villains try to kill Thornhill with a plane. Roger Thornhill has been sent to the countryside by Eve Kendall to supposedly fix this misunderstanding. The tension builds as many different cars drive by and one man is dropped off on the side of the road, at first we believe him to be who Thornhill is supposed to meet but out of nowhere this plane appears and goes straight for Thornhill. They have multiple attempts at this attack and lead him into a field of crops where he cleverly takes cover, as they retreat after an unsuccessful mission.

As Coursework

Marks are awarded for demonstrating excellence in the following criteria:

1)Holding a shot steady
2)Framing a shot
3)Using a variety of shot distances
4)Shooting material appropriate to the task that is set

The Brief

The titles and opening of a new fiction film that is in the thriller genre, to last maximum of two minutes.

The coursework is 50% of the whole course.

Welcome to my media blog, this blog will chart my progress throughout the next two years as I complete my media coursework,


Enjoy.