Rough Edit Questionnaire Feedback

1. Could you estimate the time of day during the film?
   Morning: 7
   Noon: 4
   Evening: 9
   Night: 0
   We mostly got good results from this question as the majority of people who answered believed it to be evening which is what we were looking for although a moderate amount also believed that it was the morning but the amount wasn't enough to consider re-editing the film and moving it into Adobe After Effects.
2. Were there smooth transition between shots?
   Yes: 15
   No: 1
   Didn't Notice: 4
   We found that most of the audience did in fact think that the transitions were smooth which was great as one of our main concerns was that the 'bittiness' of the shots was going to come across as a lack of editing skill rather than adding to the effect of the movie. One person said that our transitions weren't smooth but when asked for a reason they simply wrote “Some panning shots are a bit”. So we looked at our panning shots and decided that after the fairly useless comment we wouldn't change it. And lastly 4 of our audience didn't notice our transitions which was okay as we know they aren't the most prominent feature of our film, also it is important to remember that we simply screened the film to a group of our peers and not film critics or experts so it's fairly normal to not pay complete attention to our transitions.
3. Did you find the opening effective in drawing you into the story?
   Yes: 18
   No: 1
   “Sort of”: 1
   Most of our audience found our opening did want to draw them into the story, for such reasons as they wanted to see what would happen next, there was a cliffhanger, the use of music was effective and it simply kept them interested. This was obviously great as Jack took a long time on the music making it work alongside the visuals, and we also took time to frame the shots well using the weather we had i.e. mist etc. One person said that it sort of found it effective in that it left lots of questions unanswered which was good but it was in fact too slow so therefore didn't draw them in.Lastly one person said no as it was they didn't really understand it. So we looked at our thriller and to perhaps make it more clear of the times that the videos were taken we put dates and times on the video of emily as a child and also of Liam cycling up the driveway. This also solves the problem of people thinking that the video is taking place early in the morning.
4. Do you think the ending of our opening was appropriate for a thriller film?
   Yes:17
   No:2
   'Kinda':1
   We found here again that most people thought that the opening was appropriate, reasons people gave were, there was a cliffhanger, it was mysterious, leaves questions unanswered and because you're completely focused on it. One person said yes and no, because of slight continuity errors such as when Liam gets off his bike then back on the go up to the house, we decided that perhaps it wasn't clear enough that Liam saw something then went up the house, but in all honesty we couldn't think of any way we could change this without re-shooting. So we decided to risk it and leave it a it was as it wasn't the majority who were concerned about why he got off his bike.
5. Would you pay to watch the entire film?
   Yes: 12
   No: 8
   Here we had the majority who would pay to see the entire film but also quite a few who wouldn't, while at no point am I trying to make excuses I think maybe the question should have been worded better. As it may have come across as “Would you pay around £5-7 to watch this 2 minute clip at the cinema” rather than “If this were made into a feature length film would you pay to see it”. I also think this as one comment was 'No, I wouldn't because it's 2 minutes long”
6. Do you feel this film is true to the thriller genre?
   Yes: 18
   No: 2
   With this question it's important to remember that not everyone in the audience would know much about the ideas of thriller genres, but I think it was important to see if the people who would be watching the film and paying to see it thought it was.
7. Which gender are you?
   Male: 6
   Female: 14
   This was just to see if there may have been a correlation between the amount of people there and whether it was the gender difference that made some of them like the film and others not. Stereotypically males would like thrillers more but here we saw that we got mostly good feedback even though the majority of our audience was female.
8. How old are you?
   15-16: 5
   17-18+: 15

Vacancy Opening Analysis

The introduction of Vacancy has been called one of the best and most effective thriller openings that has been seen, it's use of typography and colours is advanced for it's type of film, and has been studied by many different people over the yeas it's been around.


When it comes to camera shots in the car it is fairly limited but this is used to good effect when paired with the pitch black of the rest of the screen, for instance when there is dialogue you are totally focussed on what the characters are saying and also their facial expressions to go with it. It also makes use of the 'thirds' rule, which is when it's said that you pay more attention to something in the left or right third of the screen, so in the majority of shots the characters faces are in the pitch black of the screen on either the left or the right. Also it works with the idea of being trapped being a convention of a thriller. It gives an almost claustrophobic feel which works well in focussing on the character and then you are brought back into the real world in the car. Also the idea of being trapped and not being able to see is a large part of a thriller convention and this works well as the only source of light we have is coming from the car headlights. In the opening titles a fast moving camera movement is used which gives it a really fast paced feel which almost 'pumps you up' for the first scene which is actually quite slow in comparison.


The main talking point of the opening are the opening titles at the very beginning, firstly the style of having the credits at the start of the film is something tat was a lot more common in older films, so this could be considered as the director Nimrod Antal trying to go back to the Alfred Hitchcock, Kubrickian times where it was believed real thriller/horror pictures peaked. 
The red text used could most easily signify blood, but it can also represent anger, hatred, violence or even love, which surprisingly are ideas that go hand in hand case in point Romeo and Juliet. The scratches could most easily be shown to represent a killers strikes upon his victim, and this paired with the quick camera movements could represent the killer moving quickly from victim to victim.
At the end of credits they all come together to form a maze which moves well with the next scene to which the main male protagonist has become lost. Also throughout the film the couple get stranded in a maze like system of tunnels, moving from room to room in and out of danger.     

Q Magazine

Q to me is the type of magazine that would appeal to people in their last year of college and upwards. the magazine is entertaining enough that it keeps a slightly younger audience interested while also catering for the older generations want for entertainment. One of the main advantages of this magazine is the variety of music it covers. It covers old bands, new bands well known award-winning bands and new up and coming bands.

This would appeal to people who love making music or just love reading about it, there are very few articles which are anything other than to do with music, this means that anyone who buys this must be fully committed to having music as a passion.

So for the majority anyone above the age of 16/17 would read this easily, they could be the sort of student types who may or may not play an instrument, are just starting to learn to drive etc. The sort of people who read this seem to be the sort that may watch the history documentaries on Channel 4 on some nights, co-incidentally studying for a History degree at Manchester University.
I make all these judgements based on not only what is in the magazine but by also the cover and the feel of it. It has a polished cover which is much more expensive to make and therefore also to buy, also the sheer volume of pages is massive compared to that of NME. To put it into more practical terms, Q and NME, and the equivalent  of FHM and Nuts Magazine (And yes there is a difference). It is hard to make judgements by what type of music is in the magazine especially as I pointed out earlier that it cover such a wide variety of music. But one of the safest bets I can make is that the main audience of people who buy this are probably upper-middle class working families or above.

No Country for Old Men - Scene Analysis

In No Country For Old Men (NCFOM) all of the items on screen move the story along in one way or another. this is known as 'mise-en-scene' which is another term used for everything in the scene.

In this particular scene the antagonist (Chigurh) stops for fuel in a gas station in the middle of the desert. He tells the store owner to call a coin toss. There are things in this scene that progress the story and change the appearance of the characters.

The peanuts Chigurh eats throughout the scene are the reason he went into the shop in the first place. This could be thought of as the Macguffin. This is something that moves on the story at hand, it could be small an insignificant or it could be a major part of the storyline. Similar to Marsellus Wallace's suitcase in Pulp Fiction.

Chigurh unnerves the audience, which is the same reaction that the store owner has, so this makes the audience empathise with this man's situation. His appearance also makes him him more like the antagonist of the story as he is wearing dark clothes and has dark hair, he has very little that would make him stand out of a crowd, this is the direct opposite to the store owner who wears a bright yellow checked shirt and who's portly appearance gives us the impression of him being friendly. This helps us recognise the characters for what they really are more quickly.

As Chigurh approaches the counter he already gives off a bad 'vibe' as the counter and register are suddenly covered in shadow, darkening the room. He has turned a light friendly place into a dark and unpleasant one. also the cables behind the man also seem "noose-like" giving a subtle impression here this conversation between the two maybe going. Working with the idea of light and dark, one of the main sources of light is behind Chigurh  almost to give the impression that the store owner would have to get through him to get out which he knows wouldn't be an option. The way Chigurh carries on eating his peanuts also increases the tension of the situation as    it throws the shopkeeper off how this man can seem so intimidating and scary yet still be able to carry on eating.

the main piece of mise-en-scene is the coin, obviously as it's known as the coin toss. The coin could represent many things but I feel the main thing it represents is life and death. Both literally and metaphorically the right or wrong side of the coin may cause life or death.Another possible idea is that the coin has two sides just as there are two sides in this scene of good and bad, each character has a side and whose-ever side it land on will live.

The editing of this scene is fairly normal and doesn't vary between two over-the-shoulder shots. This could be misinterpreted as a lack of imagination but I think it boils down to have as little as possible to distract you from what is going on, for instance there is very little non-diegetic sound, if any at all, during the dialogue, this is one of the most tense scenes in all of the film, and I found that in all of NCFOM, scenes can go from quiet to loud very quickly, mostly with the aid of a gun. so the audience is very ready for this to happen again.

Disturbia

I) This is a dark mystery thriller about a teenage boy who has been sentenced to three months house arrest after assaulting one of his school teachers. Kale's father is killed in a car accident and and few months later his tutor comments on it and while Kale is under house arrest he starts to believe that his neighbour, Mr. Turner, is a notorious serial killer. One night, he witnesses what appears to be a murder going on in Mr. Turner's house. Kale becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind these murders but, after a few unsettling run-ins with Mr. Turner, it becomes a matter of life and death. The film is based on a story and screenplay by Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth, directed by D.J Caruso, the film has 5/6 characters which reoccur throughout the story and these are Kale played by Shia LaBeouf, Ashley ('The girl next door') played by Sarah Roemer, Kale's Mother Julie played by Carrie-Anne Moss, Mr Turner, his next door neighbour, played by David Morse, also Ronnie, Kale's best friend, played by Aaron Yoo.

Lastly is Officer Gutierrez, the cousin of the teacher Kale assaulted but also the police officer that

Kale feels is out to get him. As most of the film takes place between two houses it was all filmed on

location in the houses of 6221, 6222 and 6227 Painter Ave, Whittier, California, USA. The film was very successful at the box office being nominated for 8 awards including 'Empire's Best Thriller' and winning 4 of them. The production company predominantly involved were Dreamworks and Paramount. The film was rated a 15 in the U.K. for sequences of terror and violence, and apparently 'sensuality' and from watching this film several times i can say that there is nothing which calls for it to be pointed out in the rating. The film did excellently at the box office quadrupling it's budget ($20,000,000) to gross at $80,050,171. 

II) The film can be reduced to an 'American Suburbs Murderer Neighbour' film. So this film could appeal to a large audience, the film is rated a 15 but as the storyline is fairly simple and easy to follow this is just because of the content, I feel that if the sole storyline was just the idea of there possibly being a murderer next door then this film could also appeal to an older audience, helped mainly by the presence of David Morse but for this they would have to sit through 40 minutes of Kale being sentenced to house arrest and him spying on Ashley the 'girl next door'. Most people would take this to be another american teen film which severely closes down the audience but actually this is a fantastic thriller that doesn't really focus on the teen romance side of it as a main storyline. I also believe that the film would appeal equally to males and females, basically because, stereotypically males may watch 'girly' films for the attractive females, similarly here the males would watch this for the action and (After asking several female friends) for Shia Labeouf's performance, but of course this is a stereotyped and speculative view to hold.


Looking at User Reviews Disturbia's IMDB page I found that with a rating of 6.9 this film has a 
largely successful following and I have picked one good review and one bad at random.

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Surprisingly Good!, 20 September 2007

Author: willpbudd from United Kingdom

I came into the movie theatre with no high hopes. I went in thinking it would be just another Hollywood thriller with regular Jump Scares and a weak script. Disturbia was really good. Its not an amazing work of art and will probably be forgotten in 4 years time. Disturbia is one to watch with your friends on a Friday/Saturday night. The casting isn't amazing and i did get sorta annoyed with Sarah Roemer. Shia LaBeouf is amazing in this movie and i think its maybe his best acting role to date. Disturbia keeps you going throughout and i rarely got bored. Im glad the movie didn't keep making you jump too much (like 1408). I give this movie 8 stars as its definitely my thriller of the year. So go buy your tickets!!!

I think what this film struggled with most was that people would go into it with low expectations (as this review highlights) but this does mean that with most of the reviews I saw a lot of people were surprised with the quality of the acting from LaBeouf who still saw him as Louis from Even Stevens which while critically good, did portray him as an immature naive character. The reviewer liked that way the film didn't classify itself strictly to the horror or crime genre, for instance they liked the way the film wasn't just 'jump scares'. But then again it wasn't 'tame' when it came to jumping either.

Here is another review:

30 out of 46 people found the following review useful:
I am outraged that this trash has gotten good reviews!, 7 August 2007

Author: Shelly Alexandre from Seattle, Washington

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I hated this movie! I don't care what kind of star power you have ( if you can even call the kid from "Even Stevens" a star), how much money you have, or how well your movie is made, if the script is bad you have nothing. Disturbia is a stylish, highly-polished thriller. Everything looks good, it is well-directed, well-acted, and has an authentic, modern-suburban feel to it. However, once you get past the impressive first five minutes, the film falls completely flat! Without giving anything away, the movie has absolutely no surprises. In fact, Disturbia is so formulaic that anyone over the age of 10 should be able to predict exactly how the movie ends, including what happens to every single character. The dialogue is cheesy and ridiculous, every character besides the main kid (Kale) is completely one dimensional. By the time anything that is supposed to pass for scary happened I was so bored I didn't care who lived or died. This movie had absolutely no emotional resonance. I watched it alone, late at night, in the dark and was not scared once! I have worked in video retail for almost six years. Maybe I've just seen so many great movies that this one just seems especially bad. It is a mediocre film at best. There are good performances, but the actors really had nothing to work with. David Morse's suspected killer is a complete waste of his talent. I am happy I have a job where I can directly influence what people are renting (at least in one neighborhood of Seattle). I am going to make it my personal mission to keep Disturbia out of as many hands and homes as I possibly can!!!

This reviewer was the same as the last but came in with low expectations but believed that the script was awful and the the most prominent acting came from LaBeouf, who is the reason in fact why many people wouldn't give this film a chance. Most of the criticisms come from the script in this case, she even says that ' Everything looks good, it is well-directed, well-acted, and has an authentic, modern-suburban feel to it'.

III) Technology is rife in this film whether it's a prop or even the ways in which it was used in production and throughout it's release. Firstly, the film was brought out in 2007 which means that the production team had access to all the of the equipment that we have at the moment (for the most part). The Film has it's own official website, when you open it you are greeted with a similar but different picture from the front cover of the DVD, later the trailer automatically plays which automatically will make whoever is watching scroll down and watch it.  Finally underneath that is the cast list and a synopsis of the film which is something I have never seen before. The trailer itself doesn't give the best impression at the beginning with the few couple of minutes being american Pie style humour, which involves looking at girls in bikinis and hanging out with your friends but later on the mood all changes and becomes much darker and suits the film much more in my opinion. they should have just kept that last two minutes of the trailer to have a real impact. Once you enter the site you are greeted by Kale's room and the objects lying around also act as links, for instance the video camera on the floor links you to clips of the film and other trailers. Being online also opens up its audience to much more people who may not have seen the television advert, or maybe use web services such as rotten tomatoes or IMDB more to find the films they would like to watch, they were also able to read up fully on the film before watching and able to see who directed and who wrote it which is very popular. 

IV) I'm now going to analyse the trailer of Disturbia mainly because there aren't many moments in the actual film which show off both sides of the films feel. (Note: This is not the same trailer I commented on earlier).

 Music: From the start there is a low 'chanting' which immediately gives the film a 'wary' sort of feel. the music progresses to when Kale is measuring out how far he can go in the garden, where it changes the tempo up slightly to give it a more paced feel, as if something is going to happen. This stays the same for a while with Kale's voice-over playing on top of that, he sounds excited and happy at first until it stop and the music gets more fast paced and then the colours seem to dim a little  while the darker side of the story starts to unfold. Kale's voice (and other character's too starts to become lower which makes them sound nervous and uneasy. the music then goes down to a hi-hat, which while allowing the tension to build, keeps a sense of pace. Finally there is the sound of wind rushing past as we see the antagonist brandishing a knife.

Colours: At first the colours are all bright, this is similar to the film in which the scenes where Kale is at home and before his dad's death are all rich is colour. Whereas in comparison to the second half of the film (and therefore the trailer) everything has been dulled down, this shows you that along with the music the mood has changed, so going through this film all of the areas where things are okay in Kale's life such as fishing with his father and just doing what he wants at home, everything is bright, but as soon as he starts spying on his neighbour and seeing strange and unexplained things it all becomes dulled down.

Editing: Shot lengths at first are short and snappy changed with each bar of music, there are times during certain sections early on where the music picks up pace and the shots rapidly change to keep in time with the music. As the trailer moves on shots become longer and longer so as to build up tension and just when it's gone on just too long the trailer ends.

V) when it comes to social groups, there are only one or two subtle references to this, firstly there is the stereotypical view that Kale is living in a 'perfect little suburban bubble' which is broken by the idea of a murderer living next door, this is almost an attempt to break the stereotype. the second could be that it just so happens that the teacher that Kale punches was of Spanish decent and therefore it could be that a part of the violence in the film could be racially caused (Obviously it isn't but this could be subtle hint from the film makers). Lastly women in the film for the most part seem to be shown as a little 'ditzy' and unaware, for instance all of the victims in this film are female, which gives the impression that it seems females are the only ones whom are easily captured, similarly the main female character was not permanently captured but she was the only main character to be isolated by the antagonist.

Thriller conventions: The main point of this film is about a boy who is 'trapped' within his house which is obviously a main convention, also the idea of him not being able to escape. There are red herrings throughout such as the deer which the antagonist claim to have hit with his car which the protagonist originally thought to be a body, as for characters there is the psycho (Mr. Turner) the detective character (Kale) and an authoritative police character played by several people (The judge, Officer Gutierrez, the woman who fits Kale's ankle bracelet). The entire of the last fight sequence takes place hidden under the house in a water filled ditch, with water being one of the main thriller conventions, the fact that it's dark and a torch is used highlights the shadows (another convention). The street is also full of street lamps, and their dull glow also gives off dim shadows too.