What lies beneath

Over the christmas holidays I watched many films one being the thriller movie-What lies beneath. It is quite an old movie but seen as it was on one of the Sky movies channels I thought i'd watch it especially as I love thriller movies.

The film is basically about Harrison Ford who plays the main character of a lecturer and is married to his wife. But he embarks on an affair with one of his students which leads to him murdering her and he disposes of her body in the lake next to his house.The student then comes back to haunt him and his wife in the house and the clues that she leaves leads to the wife eventually realising that the lake contains something important. Soon, everything is revealed and Harrison Ford then attempts to kill his wife but it all backfires when the ghost of the student comes back for revenge...

The film is definitely a thriller full of suspense and kept me on the edge of my sofa! There is a specific scene that is repetitive just like in Paranormal activity where the bed scene foreshadows that something scary is about to occur. In this case, it is a bath scene where every night the wife sees the bathroom door open with steam coming from it and she hesitantly approaches the bath which is filled with water. One time, she saw the reflection of a ghost another time she saw a message on the mirror and at times nothing happened.This is what kept me hooked as I did not know whether something scary was about to happen or not.

The ending is implicit rather than explicit as it does not explicitly show you how Harrison Ford dies, it is left down to the audience to come to their own conclusion about his death. I think this technique is far more effective as it leaves the viewer questioning the event and allows them to interpret it as they wish. Also it is still left open so it could continue onto a follow up.

Music Research

Music in a film plays a major part as it reflects what is happening and has a huge impact on the audience.For our film opening we need some sort of background music to add to the suspense of the stalker-(Billy) following the dancer(Elle).We have been told we need to create the music ourselves using GarageBand so we have been researching the type of music we want. There are four types that we particular like;






Although this piece of music has a voice over it, it still fitted well with our film opening as it consisted of drums violins and pianos. All these added to the suspense and reflected the happenings in the film opening and we played this piece over our work and it worked really well.







We also discovered the Saw music and found that this fitted even better ! It added suspense like Massive Attack but this piece did not have a voice over so it was more effective. Also, where the chase actually begins and the characters begin to run, the music builds up to add to the tension of this scene.



Rihanna's latest released song really appealed to us as we thought it would make great background music to our film opening. We also played this piece over our work and found that it also created suspense as it consisted of loud heavy beat drums.




Emma came across this song my Eminem and told us all about it. We thought this could be another one of our background music options as you can actually hear a music box being wound up and this reflects one of our scenes. Also, if the lyrics are muted the rest of the song is the sound of a music box which reflects our title.

These four are the first four pieces of music we have come across during our research and I am sure we will discover some more to add to our option list. We are hoping to use aspects of all the music we have researched so far and on GarageBand create a piece of music that will reflect our idea and create suspense successfully.

Fourth edit to our film opening

In the third version we inserted the dance scenes but we did not include them in the fast transition clips but in this one we did. We included one of her feet, her doing the splits and one dancing with the pole. We thought these quick clips should be inserted so it is clear to the viewer that she is a dancer within the first 20 seconds of the film opening.

We also experimented with the imovie effects and whenever Billy spots Elle it turns to a negative/x-ray effect. We added this and thought it would be effective as it adds to the whole idea of the stalker being psychotic. Also, it stands out against the rest of the film so that it becomes clear to the audience that Elle is being followed.

Third edit to our film opening

In our third editing piece we inserted all the dancing scenes and the scenes of Billy in the car winding up the music box. This was the first fully completed piece of work we had as it included all of the scenes needed.We also included the text on the black background which I previously mentioned.

Editing the beginning

After seeing the trailer to Paranormal Activity, Blaire Witch Project and The Fourth Kind our group came up with another idea. Since all of these films are based on real stories and claim to be "true" we researched the start and endings of these films. We've realised that at the start or the end of the screen they have a black screen with white writing saying that the killer is still out there. To make our film opening different and unique we decided to incorperate it into our film.

Since at the end of our opening we cannot have "Billy has still not been found" as it makes a conclusion to the film, so we decided to put at the start, "Thanks to the Metrapolitan Police for allowing us to screen this case". We feel that this will make our film seem as if it is based on true events and make it more scary.

Also we added a zoom then fade to black and another shot came up but this time saying "The case still remains open". We hope that this will scare the viewers in making them think that the killer, "Billy" is still out there and make them think that he may come after them. Hopefully this will trick the viewers into believing that it's real.

Second edit for our film opening

We then after filming on Sunday, uploaded our stuff in our free period and were eager to edit it into our film so it would make sense. We then added in all of the shots of Billy winding up the music box and getting out of the car and walking off. With these shots we put the exposure up, so all the shots of him were grainy which gives the audience an effect, due to the mise en scene that he is "trouble" and this is shown through the grainy effect. In contrast to this we added all the shots of Elle dancing and put them in the effect "Dream". We used this effect as it brightened it up and also due to the mise en scene, it shows that Elle is happiest dancing. This happiness then contrasts at the exact moment she walks out the door. This could show that at the exact moment she walks out the door she's being watched.

We also edited the shots together with some cross blur/zoom transitions which gave the effect of time passing. I think that this makes it look better as you don't have the bore of watching her travel everywhere. We also realised that on imovie you can record sounds. We therefore put the music box up to the computer screen and recorded its melody. We used this over the top of the shot of the music box in the film. However, when the shot of Elle spinning was shown we played the music backwards, which in itself sounded scary, but we thought that this gave an extra effect that she's different and to distort the audience into thinking something is going to happen to them.

Paranormal Activity

Yesterday on 07/12/09 me and about 10 other girls from my media class and Ms Foster all went to the cinema to watch Paranormal Activity. I wanted to watch this film anyway and seen as though Ms Foster had suggested we all go as part of our research I thought I would go along.

Once the film had started the first 10 minutes which are supposed to grab my attention did the completely opposite as I was beginning to lose interest and found it quite boring. It was in high key lighting so did not scare me at all and I was quite disappointed. But as I had seen the trailer beforehand, there was the bedroom shot which was evident throughout the film and as this shot came on screen I instantly became scared as I knew something scary was going to happen.

Most of the scary scenes happened in the bedroom shot at night and as it was in nightmode it added to the whole scary effect. The thrillers began mildly and gradually built up night after night until it reached the end that was so scary I was screaming out loud and jumped out my seat !

The first few bedroom shots were just the couple sleeping but no scary action, the reason for this was that they wanted to build the suspense so that when something does happen it appears shocking. The first scare was when the bedroom door shut slowly. Then it gradually built up with faster door slamming, heavy breathing, footsteps and shadows. The ones that I found the scariest were when Katie was dragged out of bed by the demon, when the footprints were seen in the powder and when Katie was standing watching Mika for hours and hours. I found this creepy as it made me think why she was doing it as it was really strange ! The footsteps were effective as it was revealed slowly by the use of a light. When Katie was dragged out of the bed I found it really scary but as Sophie was already laughing I ended up laughing as well!

The build up and suspense as to what was going to happen next was effective as whenever the bedroom shot came up I was guessing what was going to happen next as I had gathered that the scary action was going to increase night after night.

However, the camera angles were shaky and unsteady to show a real life home made video and although it portrayed this idea well it was annoying and uncomfortable to watch. The editing was also appalling as I mentioned to Ms Foster and she said it was meant to be like that but it annoyed me as I am currently in the process of editing our two minute film and we want it to perfection but there editing was terrible.

Everything the audience sees on screen is what is being filmed by Mika so if he is not holding the camera filming then we do not see what is happening. During one of the night scenes, Mika and Katie hear a noise and go downstairs as they are curious as to what it is. When Mika was heading downstairs trying to find the demon or some trace of it everything is seen through the video camera and the camera is used as a light source. I was constantly shouting 'Put the light on!' as it made it increasingly scary as we did not know what was to appear on screen next as we relied on the light source.

The end was the scariest as it was jumpy and I definitely found it jumpy as I jumped out my seat, screamed out loud and even scratched Ms Foster ! It also left us on a cliff hanger as the text appeared on the screen at the end with 'Katie's whereabouts still remain unknown' , this sent shivers up my spine...and then the lights came on ! The whole group had mixed opinions about it, some girls were saying ' That was so rubbish! ' whereas the likes of me and Trisha were still shocked by the end and Ms Foster was frozen !

I suppose it is the type of film that you either love or hate-I definitely loved it. For a low budget film that only took $10,000 dollars to make it is one of the scariest films I have ever watched.From watching this film I have learnt that buliding suspense throughout a film then ending with a shocking ending and a cliffhanger has such an effect on the audience.