The silence of the lambs presentation - George, Ben, Toby and Dom

The opening of the film starts of in a different manner compared to films of a similar genre around the time. The opening shot pans on a forest with credits appearing suddenly on the shot, in the background there are lots of bare trees with fog concealing them, the scene seems calm, however the music suggests otherwise by giving a worrying tone in it melody. A crow squawks as the first few credits begin to show. The crow is a predator of nature and is heralded as being smart, possibly foreboding how the main character of the film will be preyed on later on in the film through the use of smarts from Hannibal Lecter. As the credits appear, they are in a Bold white outlined black font, appearing in the center of the frame, punching in and out suddenly, this contrasts heavily with how the scene is behaving, as the camera pans slowly the credits come in sharply, this possibly suggests how the film will change pace heavily later on.
As the camera pans slowly, tension builds up until we see Clarice climbing up the hill with a rope, retaining that tension as Clarice attempts to run the course quickly. The close up of her face shows how determined she is while running, this can relate to her later on when she is determined to find information on Hannibal. The music also intensifies, adding in higher sounds from violins, giving the impression she is being chased. The impression of her being watched through the use of a tracking shot is also apparent. As she comes down from the rope wall, the medium shots allows the light from the sun to show on her face, revealing the sweat, further reinforcing how determined she is.

The next scene takes place in a prison where Hannibal Lecter is being held. As Clarice and the man with her walk down the stairs, they are behind red bars, the red bars could signify the hellish environment behind them. When the two stop in front of the bars as the man tells Clarice about how Hannibal brutally attacked a nurse after lying about chest pains, the two are in red light, as he tells the story the red light shows how close to evil they are, the close up of Clarice's reaction to the photo is unsettling. The man however receives an extreme close up, showing how he is not moved by the event he is narrating, as he has probably seen worse since he works in the prison. The bars open and two walk through, Clarice begins to talk when a buzzing noise and the bars shutting interrupts her, possibly showing how she is now trapped. An over the shoulder shot is introduced after she suggests the idea of her going in by her self, in the background behind the man we see a white room with a security guard dressed in white too, possibly showing that the area where he is kept is not hell, but maybe a step further, the white may signifies nothingness, relatable to how Hannibal feels nothing when he kills and is always calm. After entering the room, a 360 degree shot begins to take place, firstly we see the CCTV system, in which we see the man running up the stairs, showing how he wants to get away from the area. As the camera pans we see the environment and people inside, such as the security guards and guns on the wall, this also shows Clarice is observant. After introducing herself and talking to Barney the guard, she walks through the next barred gate, again the gate closes and she is now trapped even more, with two sets of gates blocking the escape. When Barney tells here what to do, he says "He's past the others" referring to other inmate with the harsh word, possibly signifying they are not human. As she walks through the 3rd gate, which again closes further trapping her, the audience is shown p.o.v shots of the prisoners, showing the diversity of the inmates. We also see that the conditions of the cells are pretty standard and bare. However when she see's Hannibal, we immediately see he has a better condition than the other prisoners. Hannibal also is behind Perspex glass rather than bars, relating to how the man earlier told Clarice about the brutality Hannibal can cause if he can get near to people. This shows he is much more dangerous than the other inmates. After meeting him and introducing herself, Hannibal immediately recognises her as one of Jack Crawford's detectives, showing he is smart. Clarice originally came to the prison to question Hannibal, but straight away Hannibal is commanding her, he asks for her credentials, telling her to come closer and to sit. He then straight away begins to question her, showing he has the power.

Preliminary task preparation

For our Preliminary task we have made a few idea videos and photos of locations and shots we could use. The task is;
Show character A entering a room from a corridor and opening a door. Inside the room Character B is sitting down. Without saying anything A gives a piece of paper to B. B reads it and reacts. A displays some kind of emotion and leaves.

We have chosen to keep it horror themed, we are still currently discussing ideas and story boarding. However the following videos are ideas we have had.

This video was using the polarize effect to possibly induce a scary effect in the video.

This is a recording of the schools alarm sound, the idea is that once A is leaving B begins to chase, the alarm could possibly then be used.

We experimented with a Point of view shot when opening the door to add suspense and tension. Placing the audience in the Emma's position.

The low Angle Canted shot is going to be used to help show the fear Emma will feel when confronting Catherine.

In this long shot, Emma walks down the corridor and is startled when the lights begin to flicker. We hope to shoot this at night to add to the effect.

In this shot we used the pause to create a quick continuous edit of Emma walk and turning into the next shot. (note scary dancing)

This shot is similar to the one above except we experimented with using the location and changing to our will. Emma walks to the right, which in the school leads to an art room opposite to that in the shot, but we exploit that change of direction to appear at the other art room which contains a dark room.

The above three pictures are of other places we are considering filming for this task.

Silent Hill Analysis

For this task I joined Emma, Georgia and Catherine to analyse the opening of a horror/thriller film. The film we chose was Silent Hill, a film based off a video game series that is also of the horror genre. Below is the video in which we present our analysis.

The recording misses the end of the presentation due to time constraints.
After saving Sharron the camera pans as a long shot, showing the family all huddled together, but also showing a cross in the distance. All though the cross is illuminated by lights, at first it appears to be on fire, re-enforcing the religious connotation that later become predominant in the film. The idea of the burning cross also forebodes the "Evil Religion" that is revealed later on in the film. The long shot also strengthens the idea of how strong the family is, however the family is all curled up on the floor, showing they are all vulnerable.