Our preliminary task is based around the style of Alfred Hitchcock, and focuses on his techniques. A character walks into a room and exchanges at least four lines of dialogue with another character, the sequence has to be at least thirty seconds long.
Our idea is that there is a flashback of two characters having a conflict, the film will be in black and white and we will use some non-diegetic music to create atmospere and suspense.
It will start off with an establishing shot of a stairway with a man walking down the stairs, he will then walk into a room where the audience will see a girl looking out of the window. Behind the girl is a doorway, in which the man will come through and start shouting, but the audience will not be able to hear the shouting because he will be the other side of the window. There will be music to accompany this shot.
The music then stops and the camera is in the room looking over the shoulder of the man, and the girl is on the other side of the window, where the camera was. The camera then zooms slowly into the girl's eye, fading into black.
Then the camera is fully zoomed in on an eye, and pans out to show the girl stood outside with the man, this shows a time shift, as if a flashback has occured. They exchange dialogue and the audience is left with the staring eyes of the girl and the sense of mystery.
By Poppy and Laura.
This first shot should last no longer than 2 seconds. It will be of a man walking down a flight of stairs, but not showing his face. This will make the man mysterious. It will be a long shot of his legs at a low angle to show that he is powerful. There will be no camera movement for this shot; the camera will just watch him walking down the flight of stairs. Accompanying the shot will be non-diagetic music. It will be quite fast paced music to show that he is alert and on some kind of mission. The transition for this shot to the next shot will be a cut. This is so that it is fast paced.
This next shot will also be a 2 second shot and it will be a high angle, shot looking down at the man's feet. The camera will be hand-held to make it seem like the audience are in the character's eyes. The non-diagetic music will continue throughout this shot. The man's feet will be the only thing in the shot which shows that he is dominating the whole shot and that he is a powerful character. The camera will not show the man's face to conceal his identity and still make the audience suspicious of who he is. The transition from this shot to the next will be a cut
The third shot will reveal more of the man, showing all of his body, apart from his head. This shows that he is becoming more and more dominant throughout the scene. This shot will last another 2 seconds and will be a low angle shot to show that he is in charge and that he is the more powerful character. It will be a mid shot which will turn into a close up of his legs because he is walking towards the camera. As he walks closer to the camera, his body gets bigger and fills up more of the screen which shows that he is powerful. The non-diegetic music will continue throughout this shot. The transition from this shot to the next shot will be a cut which continues to make the scene fast paced.
This next shot will show the back of the man's head, walking away from the camera. This is the first time we see the man's head, however, he is walking away from the camera which could show uneasiness. As he walks away from the camera, he is getting smaller and smaller which shows he is becoming nervous. This shot will be a mid shot at eye-line level, however you cannot see his eyes. The camera will slowly follow the man as he walks out of the door in front of him using a panning movement. The non-diegetic music will continue playing throughout the shot. This shot will last about 2 seconds. The transition for this shot to the nest shot will be another cut to keep up with the pace of the music.
The next shot is an over the shoulder shot of a girl looking out of a window. However, this over the shoulder shot will not be from behind the girl, it will be from the front. This is so that both of the character's faces are revealed which shows that they are both equal at this moment in time. The camera will be filming from the other side of the window so that you cannot hear what the man is saying to the girl which makes it mysterious and will make the audience want to find out more about the character's history. This shot will be a mid-shot so that both of the characters can be seen. The camera angle will be at eye-line level of the girl so that the man will look bigger than the girl and also more powerful. The window will frame the shot which will show that the two characters are in a confined space together which will build up the suspense and conflict. The non-diegetic mucic will carry on, gradually picking up some pace to build up the suspense. This shot will last about 6-8 seconds long. This shot will be longer than the other shots because we have introduced a new character and the pace will slow for this character because the girl is more laid back than the man. There will also be no camera movement during this shot. The transition from this shot to the next shot will be a cut to keep up with the pace of the film.
This next shot will be a close up, slowly zooming into the girl's eye to become an extreme close up. This is to represent a flashback or a time lapse is about to happen. It also making the audience feel emotionally closer to the girl because they are looking into her eyes and trying to understand what she is feeling. The camera angle of this shot will be at eye-line level so that the audience feel that they are equal to the character and that they are becoming involved. The music to accompany this shot will change. The non-diegetic music which had been playing in the previous shots will gradually die down to a very low level of volume and a non-diegetic twinkling sound will start as soon as the camera starts to zoom into the girl's eye. This is to let the audience know that something is about to happen. It will seem as if the little girl is going off into a daydream and blanking out what the man is saying behind her. This shot will last another 4 seconds because the camera is focussing on the girl and whenever the girl is on screen, the pace slows down. The transition from this shot to the next shot will be a flash to show the audience that they are about to watch a flashback.
This shot will be an extreme close up of the girl's eye and will then slowly zoom out to reveal that she is stood somewhere else (outside). This shows that this shot is a flashback. When the camera starts to zoom out of the girl's eye, more of her is revealed which shows that she is becoming more confident. This is the only shot where it is only the girl in it. The rest of the shots have had the man dominating the shots. As the camera starts to zoom out of the girl's eye the non-diegetic twinkling sound will stop and the non-diegetic fast-paced music will merge back into the shot becoming louder and louder as the camera reveals more of the girl. When the camera is fully zoomed out, the shot will change into a long shot with a mid-angle.This shot will last another 4 seconds because if it was too quick, there would not be much mystery about the shot. The transition of this shot to the next shot will be a cut to start up the fast pace again because the man is about the come back into the shot.
This next shot will be a two-shot with both of the characters looking straight at eachother. This shot will be a mid-long shot because it has to show that both of the characters are making eye contact for the first time. There will be no camera movement for this shot because there will be some dialogue. The man will say 'have you got it?' This piece of dialogue sounds mysterious because the audience will not know what he is asking for. As there will be some dialogue, the non-diegetic music will slowly decrease in volume and the conversation will begin. This shot will only last 2 seconds because the pace is gradually picking up again because the man is abck into the shot and he is the one causing the conflict. The transition from this shot to the next shot will be a cut.
The penultimate shot will be an over the shoulder shot. It will be over the shoulder of the girl and the man's face will be facing towards the camera. The man will then say, 'I don't want to have to ask you again'. This shows that these two characters have had conflict with eachother in the past. However, it is still a mystery about what they are actually talking about. The non-diegetic music will be playing at a low volume so that the character's voices can be heard clearly. There will be a slightly low angle to this shot. It will seem that the man is looking down to the camera as if the audience are at the same level of the girl. There will be no camera movement which shows that the pace is at a stable level so that the two charcters can compromise. This shot will last about 3 seconds and then will cut to the final shot.
The final shot will be an over the shoulder shot. It will be over the shoulder of the man so that the girl's face can be seen when she is talking. The girl will then say, 'I don't like the dark'. This shot will be at a slightly high angle so it is like the audience are seeing out of the man's eyes, looking down at the girl. This shows weakness to the girl and power to the man. There will be no movement in this shot as they will still be talking. The non-diegetic music will then stop when the girl says her line. This shows that there is some significance at what she has just said. The words ' I don't like the dark', may make the audience wonder what the man wants the girl to get. We chose this to be the last line of dialogue because it will leave the audience on a cliffhanger.
Our main aim of doing this preliminary task is to discover any problems now and learn how to over-come them before we start our main task. This preliminary task is a psychological thriller. Thrillers which have influenced our preliminary task include the Shawshank Redemption and Psycho. The Shawshank Redmption infuenced our idea of the flashback because there are a lot of flashbacks used in that film. Psycho influenced us because during the shower scene, the camera focuses on the plug hole and then fades into her eye. This is where we got the idea of the flashback by zooming into an eye.
