Nouvelle Vague

Alphaville (1965)

Breathless (1960)

This week I have been looking at films from the late 50s-60s French movement in filmmaking, Nouvelle Vague, to try and evoke some new spirit of inspiration. I like this style of it being quite roughly edited, slightly arbitrary in its progression but allowing for this with heightened artistic and poetic merit.

Survey Statistics Analysis

Age
My target age group is primarily teenagers and young adults, encompassing the age range 15-24, with the majority in the 15-18 range. However, when asked their mental age in terms of film watching, the vast majority of participants placed themselves in the 19-24 range.

Film and TV Watching


Almost all participants said they watched 2 hours of TV a day or less and none said that they watch more than 4. Whereas most said they attend the cinema relatively frequently. Nearly half of the people surveyed said they normally watch films online, with a quarter watching on DVD. Roughly 2/3 of the people who were asked how often they watch film trailers online answered either frequently or very frequently 

Genre
The 4 winners of most appealing genre give us a complex hybrid thriller of psychological/disturbing/surreal/violent/gory - excellent. 




The more hollywood style options given were the most popular among participants when asked which of the examples of thriller they had previously enjoyed.
The bottom 5 options (A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Donnie Darko, We Need To Talk About Kevin, The Lovely Bones) are more the type of film I think I'd like to make.





My target audience is people who are fascinated by serial killers.

Qualitative Audience Research

TARGET AUDIENCE SUMMARY
The vast majority of my audience will be 15-18s and more broadly, 15-24. However, I feel age is utterly irrelevant here. People who are into film - go to the cinema fairly frequently, watch new films at home and have a good interest range when it comes to genre. Specifically, those who are more inclined towards psychological thrillers, disturbing film - surrealism, violence, gore; people with morbid fascinations.

THIS IS ENGLAND: Notes on Thriller Openings

This Is England

• Montage of old footage – an eclectic mix of grainy clips – relevance to England establishes the setting and time frame
• Political scenes, violence, skinheads – the clips get progressively more violent, showing riots, brawls, wars – gives context and an idea of the themes of the film
• First shot establishes the date ‘July 1983 – Last day of term’ in a faded white font, matched by the peeling paint on the wall. The time (7:45) can also be seen on the clock so the audience are given a very clear idea of where the events are taking place. Thatcher speaking on the radio (again shows time and context) and the framed picture of a man in his military gear, his eyes shadowed by his hat, shows the boys values and pride in this photo
• The shot tracks backwards and pans to the left to reveal our protagonist, curled up in bed. As we get further out, hazy rays of sunlight can be seen, filtering through at the base of the window – this, the overall gritty look of the scene and the decrepit state of the boys room are reflected in his dazed awakening
• When he eventually gets from the bed, the head on mid shot of the bed does not change to accommodate his movements. Instead the focus is drawn in on his body, as this is now all that can be seen in the close up – shows his age, his lack of grooming
• His sighs, sniffs and breathing are exaggerated in the quiet bedroom. Background noise and a dog barking are heard more quietly from outside – gives a feel of isolation
• Several wide establishing shots of the boy walking – from his house, along to the shop – again, he is isolated and lonely in these large, photographic shots. The warm light and the muted colours are aesthetically pleasing
• More establishing of time period in the people he passes – two girls in typical eighties disco get up

PSYCHO: Notes on Thriller Openings

Psycho

• Vintage black and white ident, original score; dramatic strings
• Wavering, fuzzy picture
• Very simple and bold opening credits – black and white, plain text with no imagery and a simplistic font, quite nice graphically
• Establishing shots of a visually rich cityscape, shaking, slightly stop-start pans across the array of buildings – all of it very photographic, uniform, industrially beautiful. The shot zooms fairly rapidly, honing in on a specific building, the changes are cut faster – we fade closer into the building, moving to a close up of a specific window, cut closer still – the bottom of the window (left ajar) can now be seen, and details such as the straight lines of the blind and the rows of bricks
• We move into the blackness of the gap between window and sill, still with the shaky, stop-start filming (this may or may not be deliberate, I am unsure. However, it is effective)
• The location (Phoenix, Arizona), the date (Friday, December the eleventh), the time (two forty-three PM) are all established through separate titles, ascending in meticulousness with the nature of the shots – everything is very specific and therefore regarded by the audience as highly significant. The lack of digits in the date and time is unusual, drawing further attention to them
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• Much of the time, the man’s face is hidden (by the cut off point of the shot, by the girls head) or in shadow, he is a figure in the background or seen from behind but the mystery this creates around him actually draws the focus onto him rather than the women, simply through the audience’s curiosity to explore what they do not understand
• The soundtrack is now more gentle and mournful
• Of course, the title is a giveaway and as a viewer, one is eager to work out who the psycho is – at first assuming it is this man that we are originally introduced to but with the change in music, the tone of the dialogue, the languid camera work, the overall feel is a calming one and so the audience begin to question their original assumption, recomposing the air of mystery

THELMA & LOUISE: Notes on Thriller Openings

Thelma & Louise

• Wide establishing shot of a baron field extending into the distance by a dirt track and framed with mountains in the distance – the black and white, blue tinted shot fades to a more purplish tint as the shot pans right to focus on the mountains and the approaching road that leads far into the distance
• The shot slowly gains colour, staying on the mountains for a significant while – the audience are quite fixated on it, as the country-western original score continues to play – the colour is changing slowly, gaining saturation and darkness before fading to black
• The general aesthetic of the shots has a warm, grainy, antique feel
• Credits font is a sandy colour, has the look of an old western
• This fades back into a long tracking shot in the diner – there is nothing to distinguish Louise from the other waitresses, other than that the shot follows her about her work, throwing the other actors into the more blurry background – we are not even particularly aware of her dialogue, though it can be heard (over a non-diegetic country-western ballad and the general bustle of movement and conversation in the diner)
• The diner is rich visually and the action, though mundane, is quick. We get a sense of her hurry as she serves two girls, from the quick changes between shots – she doesn’t wait for a response to her brief ‘you girls are a bit young to be smoking – ruins your sex drive’, of depleted expression
• Louise is again shown in a close up, smoking as she makes a phone call in the back. Other waitresses in identical black-adorned white dresses move and converse behind her but the audience’s attention is drawn to Louise in the foreground and in the smoky, steamy kitchen, the extras draw very little focus
• As Louise gets frustrated on the phone to Thelma she bangs through into a quieter room – drawing attention to the newly heightened importance of their conversation. We follow her through the door from behind before cutting to show Thelma enter the new room and move into an extreme close up (towards the stationary camera)
• Thelma’s husband is shown with darker lighting or at the edge of the shot to highlight his irrelevance and aggression
• The scene of Thelma’s kitchen is also full of background noise – the TV, the clatter as she does the dishes (both cross-cutting scenes establish a sense of speed and activity but also a restlessness from both the starring women)

TAXI DRIVER: Openings To Thrillers

Taxi Driver

• ·     The painterly opening shots of the taxi pulling through the fame, engulfed in yellow smoke as it reflects the lights – pulls through on the climax of the brass backing music to the title in a motel-light style font

• ·     We follow the pain character into a room (tracking shot) still traces of the smoke to introduce him and with the same ominous and dramatic music
• ·      Low angel shots of the main character establish him as powerful, he appears shifty, amused and guarded – the shot pans in on him as he smiles to himself – draws attention to this and leaves the audience on a close up of his face
• ·      The shot of the man behind the desk from behind the main characters back pans upwards as it appears that he has caught him out and this shows the rise in his power

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• ·      Echoing shouts in the parking lot and all the yellow taxis in rows
• ·      He walks out onto the dingy street – again with the taxi’s lined up and the antique tint on the image