When comparing any of Hitchcock's horror/murder-thriller to any more modern horror, such as Disturbia, one must remember that back in the 50s and 60s when Rear Window and Psycho arrived on the cinema screens this was the first encounter for many of the horror genre to such an extent that can be found within these, whereas in modern times something as fear inducing as the Bates serial killer can likely be found on any soap opera.
So for people back in the 50s and 60s films, like Psycho, were terrifying, whereas something like that has no effect and is almost normal for any media text to include, and so some may see Disturbia as less of a movie because it just isn't scary enough. However this does not make it less of a horror film, but simply the fact that it is a more soft-core version of the genre, as opposed to hard-core titles like the Hostel or Saw franchises which are seen as more scary due to the fact that they fit into the realm of torture porn, which would never have made it through pre-production stage back when Hitchcock was fighting for the rights to take Psycho from book form to a feature length film.
The difference in time is also the reason why people refuse to watch old films such as those of Hitchcock, purely because they are either in black and white or because they think the visual effects do not look good enough, and this couldn't have been helped because of the lack of special effects and less advanced technology. Admittedly Psycho was filmed years after Hitchcock had began to film in colour, however this was for effect and the ability to use syrup as blood without the audience knowing any different. The only benefit of this is that modern directors take these ideas from older films, such as D.J. Caruso with the adaptation of Rear Window, which leads to people who enjoyed the new film to go back and revisit the original, and so a whole new group of people have their minds opened up to the classic horror genre, meaning that these older films will always keep their relevance within the film industry.
Thursday, 2 January 2014
Wednesday, 18 December 2013
Filming 17/12/13
On Tuesday 17th November I had my second, and hopefully final, shoot with actors. For this shoot I only had Charlie, playing Arbogast, as the few shots in which Norma Bates is present there was no need to reshoot.
Before we started filming Charlie and I reviewed the footage so far, with Charlie having some valuable pointers, such as the way that he fell down the stairs not looking good enough, and so we made plans on how to change this.
We began with the exterior shots, when Arbogast walks up to the house, which we thought was going to be tricky at first as it was raining slightly and so we thought that this would ruin the shot, however when we tested the shot we found that the image was fine. Due to the sun going down quite early we did not have to wait long for darkness to fall.
What was good about it being so dark was the lights from the lamp posts on the street as this added to the noir feeling, as the yellow light from the streetlights gives the shot a shadowy and melancholy feel. This also gave it a very low-key lighting look.
These exterior shots were easy to complete and were completed by the time the rain really started to hammer down. So we moved on to re-shooting some of the interior shots, such as the point at which Arbogast falls down the stairs. We changed this by having the camera, operated by myself, running down towards Charlie as he fell backwards, this is a slightly modernised version of the way the original fall happened, with the camera staying at the same distance from Arbogast as they travel down the stairs, however for this the camera has a much more jerky feel to it, and a lot faster (as after looking at the original fall we believe it is too slow to realistically be a man falling down a flight of stairs) and in my eyes almost gives the audience a feeling of being inside "Norma" Bates head as she attacks the detective.
All in all this has concluded the production stage of the scene, meaning that I can move on to getting everything completed in post-production, including colour grading and timeline editing. I am happy with the footage that was both captured on this shoot and previous filming sessions and will be able to complete the project very soon, there is a chance that within the post-production stage I find there to be something wrong, such as a continuity error which I should be able to overcome through various editing software processes, for example if the lighting changes from one shot to the next colour grading should be able to fix such a problem.
Before we started filming Charlie and I reviewed the footage so far, with Charlie having some valuable pointers, such as the way that he fell down the stairs not looking good enough, and so we made plans on how to change this.
We began with the exterior shots, when Arbogast walks up to the house, which we thought was going to be tricky at first as it was raining slightly and so we thought that this would ruin the shot, however when we tested the shot we found that the image was fine. Due to the sun going down quite early we did not have to wait long for darkness to fall.
What was good about it being so dark was the lights from the lamp posts on the street as this added to the noir feeling, as the yellow light from the streetlights gives the shot a shadowy and melancholy feel. This also gave it a very low-key lighting look.
These exterior shots were easy to complete and were completed by the time the rain really started to hammer down. So we moved on to re-shooting some of the interior shots, such as the point at which Arbogast falls down the stairs. We changed this by having the camera, operated by myself, running down towards Charlie as he fell backwards, this is a slightly modernised version of the way the original fall happened, with the camera staying at the same distance from Arbogast as they travel down the stairs, however for this the camera has a much more jerky feel to it, and a lot faster (as after looking at the original fall we believe it is too slow to realistically be a man falling down a flight of stairs) and in my eyes almost gives the audience a feeling of being inside "Norma" Bates head as she attacks the detective.
All in all this has concluded the production stage of the scene, meaning that I can move on to getting everything completed in post-production, including colour grading and timeline editing. I am happy with the footage that was both captured on this shoot and previous filming sessions and will be able to complete the project very soon, there is a chance that within the post-production stage I find there to be something wrong, such as a continuity error which I should be able to overcome through various editing software processes, for example if the lighting changes from one shot to the next colour grading should be able to fix such a problem.
Thursday, 12 December 2013
Technical Analysis Conclusion
For my technical analyses I have looked at two other Hitchcock films, Rear Window (1954) and The Birds (1963), and Disturbia (Caruso, 2007) and found that there are many correlations between the two, however they vary also.
I chose Rear Window and The Birds because Psycho was directed by Hitchcock in between these two, and so this allowed me to see how Hitchcock's filming changed during the creation of the three films, and whilst much of the camera techniques changed between the release dates of Rear Window and The Birds there is still a lot of the individuality that Hitchcock brings in to his films in all three. For example Hitchcock's films work off of characters reactions, all of which are apparent within all of the films, as every shot could be argued as a shot-reverse-shot, in which we see something from the character's point-of-view (POV) followed by a shot of their reaction to this, such as the camera looking as a car speeds towards "the audience", followed by Tippi Hedren backing off as much as possible as the car carries on towards her, then we go back to a shot of the vehicle, and so on.
This is also shown in Rear Window as James Stewart's shots are back and forth from him to the surrounding area of the flat.
The use of shot-reverse-shot also becomes apparent within Caruso's Disturbia, as for a lot of the shots within the scene, "Caught in the Act," the audience are positioned in a POV through the camcorder lens, which will then be followed by a shot of Shia LaBeouf's character reacting to what the audience have just witnessed. This carries on for much of the scene, so that the audience can understand, and feel, the same amount of fear and angst that LaBeouf shows.
One thing that I have also noticed in the works of Hitchcock is his use of "basic" shots, by which I mean the camera stays fairly static throughout and stays eye level and straight, instead of using techniques such as the Dutch tilt. This is extremely effective in all of his films as it doesn't explicitly tell the audience that something bad will happen, and it keeps the movie quite human and so the audience feels like they are a part of the film and action, rather than feeling that they are watching through the eyes of the camera because they're positioned through a bird's eye view.
As for music, which is an important of aspect of film as a whole, it is very much more than a simple gimmick with Hitchcock's and Caruso's films, in a sense it is another character more likely to be on the antagonist's side than the heroes, as the use of it as a "jump scare" for audiences adds to the feeling of being inside the movie, as before a character is being attacked the tension builds through the use of an eerie silence or a much lighter and fainter piece of music, which suddenly erupts into a crescendo when the evil character presents themselves, either appearing from a place they could not previously have been seen from or, more scarily, when they get grabbed from behind. This shows why the music is so important for horror films as it really connects with the audience and enhances the enjoyment with a sense of camaraderie with the viewer, as my previous experience of cinema going has shown when going to see a Paranormal Activity films in which after each jump scare deployed on the viewer caused everyone to look around to each other as the laughs begin to fill the cinema as everyone suddenly feels they have been through the same terrifying ordeal together.
I chose Rear Window and The Birds because Psycho was directed by Hitchcock in between these two, and so this allowed me to see how Hitchcock's filming changed during the creation of the three films, and whilst much of the camera techniques changed between the release dates of Rear Window and The Birds there is still a lot of the individuality that Hitchcock brings in to his films in all three. For example Hitchcock's films work off of characters reactions, all of which are apparent within all of the films, as every shot could be argued as a shot-reverse-shot, in which we see something from the character's point-of-view (POV) followed by a shot of their reaction to this, such as the camera looking as a car speeds towards "the audience", followed by Tippi Hedren backing off as much as possible as the car carries on towards her, then we go back to a shot of the vehicle, and so on.
This is also shown in Rear Window as James Stewart's shots are back and forth from him to the surrounding area of the flat.
The use of shot-reverse-shot also becomes apparent within Caruso's Disturbia, as for a lot of the shots within the scene, "Caught in the Act," the audience are positioned in a POV through the camcorder lens, which will then be followed by a shot of Shia LaBeouf's character reacting to what the audience have just witnessed. This carries on for much of the scene, so that the audience can understand, and feel, the same amount of fear and angst that LaBeouf shows.
One thing that I have also noticed in the works of Hitchcock is his use of "basic" shots, by which I mean the camera stays fairly static throughout and stays eye level and straight, instead of using techniques such as the Dutch tilt. This is extremely effective in all of his films as it doesn't explicitly tell the audience that something bad will happen, and it keeps the movie quite human and so the audience feels like they are a part of the film and action, rather than feeling that they are watching through the eyes of the camera because they're positioned through a bird's eye view.
As for music, which is an important of aspect of film as a whole, it is very much more than a simple gimmick with Hitchcock's and Caruso's films, in a sense it is another character more likely to be on the antagonist's side than the heroes, as the use of it as a "jump scare" for audiences adds to the feeling of being inside the movie, as before a character is being attacked the tension builds through the use of an eerie silence or a much lighter and fainter piece of music, which suddenly erupts into a crescendo when the evil character presents themselves, either appearing from a place they could not previously have been seen from or, more scarily, when they get grabbed from behind. This shows why the music is so important for horror films as it really connects with the audience and enhances the enjoyment with a sense of camaraderie with the viewer, as my previous experience of cinema going has shown when going to see a Paranormal Activity films in which after each jump scare deployed on the viewer caused everyone to look around to each other as the laughs begin to fill the cinema as everyone suddenly feels they have been through the same terrifying ordeal together.
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Rough Edit of Int. Actor Shots
These are the main shots of Arbogast when he is inside the house and is attacked. Much like in the original the camera is mainly static and this is seen within this rough edit.
A couple of the shots were hard to film and this is apparent, for example the birds eye view shot of the attack, as to get the shot I was stood on a stool out of shot holding a leg of a fully extended tripod, which was extremely difficult to keep steady. This is likely to be reshot.
When Arbogast falls down the stairs it is easy to see that Arbogast seems to be walking back down the stairs as opposed to falling down them.
Technical Analysis: Disturbia (Caruso, 2007) Caught in the Act
(0:00 - 1:37)
Duration: 8seconds
Technique: LaBeouf is shown sat on his chair in long shot. As a scream is heard he stands up and walks just to the right of the camera, as he does so the camera crabs up and right in order to keep LaBeouf in the middle of the shot.
Duration: 3secs
Technique: An extreme long shot, most likely from the POV of LaBeouf looks out to his neighbours house where, in the distance, we can see woman running through the house.
Duration: 6secs
Technique: LaBeouf, in mid-shot, picks up his camcorder. The camera keeps LaBeouf to the centre of the shot in a mix of smooth and jerky movements.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: A quick look at the house through the eyes of the camcorder, it is jerky, showing the adrenaline running through LaBeouf's character.
Duration: 1 second
Technique: This close up shows the determination on LaBeouf's face as he tries to get a good view of the house.
Duration: 5secs
Technique: The camcorder zooms in on the girl who is bashing against the window, as this happens the shriek music gets louder and closer to a crescendo. The camera then suddenly zooms back out.
Duration: 2.5secs
Technique: Another close-up of LaBeouf working the camcorder.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: Another camcorder shot, in long-shot, showing more action from the woman inside the house.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: LaBeouf with the camcorder again.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: The camcorder shows a close-up of the girl. The music suddenly picks up again as a figure appears behind her. This is done in a jump scare fashion which is much like the violins from Psycho.
Duration: 3secs
Technique: Another shot of LaBeouf shot in the same style as previously shown, however this time we see him reach for something out of shot.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: A more shaky shot through the camcorder in which we see the woman being dragged away by the man.
Duration: Half a second
Technique: A close up of LaBeouf as he stands up. He accidentally presses the flash on the camera, in which an effect is used to make the screen go white with the flash.
Duration: 3secs
Technique: A mid-shot of LaBeouf post-flash where he ducks for cover. The camera is far more shaky here, to emphasise how scared the character is and how frantic the scene has got.
Duration: 4secs
Technique: The shot begins in mid-shot directly in front of LaBeouf as he settles himself, the camera tracks into his face until close-up. As LaBeouf reaches for something on his right, the camera whips left to follow him, a monitor in the background shows the action from the perspective of the fallen camcorder, allowing the audience to feel more involved with the scene.
Duration: 20secs
Technique: In this long duration shot, the camera is in mid-shot, showing LaBeouf remove the camera from the tripod. The camera tracks LaBeouf's face so that whilst the audience sees what he is doing they can also get a feeling of the terror in the characters face as he uses his cunning to use the camcorder to his advantage.
Duration: 5secs
Technique: A shaky shot from the camcorder reveals a man in the opposite house walking around his house, the woman is not present.
Duration: 3secs
Technique: This mid-shot shows the desktop as LaBeouf's head appears in shot as he attempts to stabilise the camera. The audience can almost begin to feel at this point that something bad is going to happen or be seen.
Duration: 4secs
Technique: Another camcorder shot pans, shakily, over the house in which the man cannot be seen.
Duration: 5secs
Technique: In mid-shot LaBeouf trades the camcorder for a pair of binoculars. This can be seen as a nod to the original theatre poster for Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954) in which James Stewart is shown peering out his window with a very similar pair of binoculars.
Duration: 5secs
Technique: This short is much like the camcorder shots, however it is more zoomed in and clearer through the binoculars. It is very shaky as the camera sweeps over the house, the binoculars whip past a window, then whips back and suddenly we see the next door neighbour staring directly at "the audience" in the POV shot. The music once again screeches in a classic jump scare fashion.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: A mid shot shows LaBeouf pull his face away from the binoculars as the wind leaves him when he realises he has been caught. He drops out of shot.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: A close-up of LaBeouf's face as he drops to his knees in shock.
Thursday, 28 November 2013
Technical Analysis: The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963) Trapped in a Phone Booth
(0:00 - 0:33)
Duration: 4secs
Technique: Long shot (LS) of people retreating from the diner as Tippi Hedren moves to the phone booth. We see the reaction of four other characters as the birds attack them.
Duration: 4secs
Technique: Mid-shot of Hedren as she is attacked by a bird and shuts herself in the booth. She covers her face with her arms.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: Mid-shot inside the booth, Hedren is on the left side whilst the phone is positioned on the right. Visuals of birds attacking can be seen in between them, representing the distance between people and communication.
Duration: 1.5secs
Technique: This static LS shows the gas station of the village on fire, as people with hoses attempt to douse the flames. The visuals are partially obstructed by the birds.
Duration: 1second
Technique: A reaction shot as Hendren looks out of the booth, unable to help the people.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: A mid shot of the people attempting to stop the fire. The audience can see a car on fire and a lit stream of petrol running across the road.
Duration: 1second
Technique: Back to a reaction shot of Hedren as she backs off from the window.
Duration: 3secs
Technique: A bird's eye view shot of Hedren as she comes to terms that the booth is surrounded by birds.
Duration: 1second
Technique: Back to the static mid shot as Hedren turns back to look out towards the gas station.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: POV shot, as Hedren in the booth, of the road in which we see a car hurtling towards "us" as people also run in front of it as they fight off the birds.
Duration: 1second
Technique: A close-up of Hedren as she turns in horror as she believes she is about to be crushed by the car.
Duration: 1second
Technique: A static mid shot looks across fire as the car comes into shot, a man inside the vehicle has a seagull attacking the back of his neck.
Duration: Half a second
Technique: A quick close-up reaction shot of Hedren as she looks back round to see where the car has gone.
Duration: 3secs
Technique: Back to the mid shot of the car in which the man is still being attacked by birds, he drives off, the camera stays static.
Duration: 1second
Technique: Hedren quickly looks round to the other side of the booth.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: LS of the bay as the car hurtles down the road and spins, knocking into another car that is on fire. Once again the shot is partly obstructed by birds flying at the booth.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: A reaction shot of Hedren as she brings her hand to her mouth in shock of the crash.
Duration: 2secs
Technique: LS again of the crashed car, the driver manages to open his door and escape the vehicle, still being attacked by the bird.
Duration: 1second
Technique: The final close-up of Hedren in the booth. She begins to turn around, as if to exit the booth.
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