How does Welles create an air of mystery in the opening to Citizen Kane?

How does Welles create an air of mystery in the opening to Citizen Kane?

Welles uses lighting to create an air of tension in the opening scenes by drawing the audience’s attention to the upper right corner of the screen. This wide shot gives the illusion of isolation, and asks the question why is this mansion in such desolate surroundings?

The editing of the fences leading to the house shows the audience how secure this building is; with three individual fences match faded in towards the house. During the time when the fence is the focal point of the shot, the background is blurred. This gives a feeling of the area being forbidden. The house itself mimics the intimidating exterior through the use of the light shining through the window. The use of match fading on the window to transition from outside the house to inside the bedroom contrasts with the light, in the light goes out in the bedroom while the light “turns on” outside. This raises the question, what is the light and what does it mean?

Many of the shots in the bedroom revolve or focus upon the snow globe, the famous low angle shot aimed at the door at which the nurse enters is refracted through the snow globe, pointing out the prop as an important item to the story of the rest of the film. The word “rosebud” – the only word we hear the man say before he dies – is followed by silence, giving the viewer a moment to contemplate the word and what it could mean. The effect of the diegetic sound (the smashing of the snow globe) is the first sharp noise we hear; and so it breaks the tension built up by the preceding scenes.

The editing used in the opening scene is used to create an effect. The fade to black transition is used quite often; leading the viewer to believe there is a lapse in either time or story development, which adds to the air of mystery as we don’t know what that development is. The editing style is quite slow, which adds to the tension as the story reveals very little to the viewer, and the viewer’s intent to know more about the plot is undermines by the lack of information that has been given.

The non-diegetic sound in the forests, stereotypical “horror movie” music, give a pathetic fallacy of fear and darkness, despite the film is not in this genre and does not carry on as such after the opening scene. This adds to the feeling that the man in the bedroom is seen as someone to be feared, and his death, while important, is not met with much fanfare.

It is strange for a house of that size and security to be occupied by only two people, which adds to the mystery of the status of the man, and what level of power or relationship does the nurse have with him?

It is also strange to see the man die so suddenly; which leads me to believe he had a previous health problem. If so, why did the man, who is in a position of power and wealth, not have more healthcare available to him and why didn’t the nurse not react to his death?

The cinematography used also creates mystery. The scenes quickly go from wide, long shots when the house is been viewed from outside, but from inside the bedroom, there are lots of close-ups, with very little detail given to the setting or the props in the room. There is a distinct sense of uneasiness created in the opening scene, with Welles playing on the audience, that in hindsight, this scene will make sense despite containing very little information.

Thriller Opening Storyboard

Notes on editing

What is editing?

Putting together film, video clips together, while adding special effects and sound.

Transitions

These are way that shots are joined together.

The most common transitions is a straight cut – where a shot continues straight into the next shot.

Keeps continuity.

Dissolve

A gradual transition from one shot to another, can help continuity show a move from one location to another, indicates that time has passed.

Fade to black/white

One shot fades to black/white. Can show time passing or flashbacks.

Cross-cutting

Action cuts between two sequences to link parallels or contrasts between storylines and their settings. Can create tension.

 

Analysis of Coldplay: Clocks

 

When does the shot change?

The shot changes either when there is an important line in the song being sung (where it zooms in n the singer) or when there is a break in the song, where the camera focuses on the other band members or the crowd.

 

What is the effect of the editing?

The effect of the editing shows the emotion created during the song, both for the audience and band. The pace of editing is slow at the beginning and end, and reasonably fast during the middle. This creates the effect of momentum and paces out the song, splitting it into three defined sections, when is backed up by the piano playing in the intro and outro. The straight cuts between the audience and the band shows the connection between them, and therefore between the band and us.

How fast/slow is the editing?

 

The pace of the editing was quite slow during in the verses, and sped up during the chorus.  This is to signify to the viewer that the chorus is important and the build-up before it has culminated in the chorus.

 

Notes on the decline of the studio system

The Studio System – its decline and the institutes today

 

The businessmen of South California buy sets, director and stars when people realised money was coming in from the film industry. Before this here were no studios. It was very competitive and they did not show rival films.

 

In the Golden Age of Hollywood; there were five major studios:

MGM, Paramount, Fox, RKO and Warner Bros.

As well as three small ones:

Columbia, United Artists and Universal.

United Artists was owned by the actors, such as Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.

 

Most scholars date the Golden Era of Hollywood between 1924-1957.

After this, American New Wave films became the property of independent film makers.
 

Thoughts on the day of filming and editing

We had to improvise quite a lot on the day of the shoot as we did not realise how small the rooms we were going to be filming in were, which made some of the angles and distances between the camera and Chris quite awkward. We experimented with different camea positions (for example, through the window and taking the camera off of the tripod) to find the most natural angle we could film at. It stopped raining halfway through the day, so we had to refilm the opening scenes to keep continuity.

The had some problems in editing the opening together as we did not know how to add titles onto it. We hadn't filmed some transitional shots so we had to use cutaways to lapse enough time to make the scenes appear natural. There was a scene we wanted to use where there was background noise from a plane flying past, so we had to turn down the audio on that one clip so it couldn't be heard.

Revisions of our final idea - Idea 3

We have decided to use Idea 3 as this had the best appeal in our pitch presentation, was one of the easiest to film and the response to our questionnaire said that this style of film was the favourite among our intended age group (teenagers). We have decided to remove some of the on-screen violence and mature imagery in favour of implication to move the age rating of the film from a 15 to a 12. This allows the demographic to be wider as more people can watch our film.

The original story had the main character as an adult, but we have changed this to a late teen as we are using Chris (a 17 year old) in our film as we feel he would not be convincing as an adult and this would take away from the feel of the opening.

We have changed the idea of the fire to one of gambling debt as getting footage of a fire for the flashbacks would either be too difficult to edit together whist looking realistic or dangerous to do it in real life. The change still allows for a similar feeling of tension in the opening.

We originally had no props, but we are now going to use a passport and pictures of young girls. Since we only have one character, having pictures of other people makes everything feel more connected and gives it more of a story without having to use dialogue.

Reactions to our Idea Pitches

Idea 1

Whilst the idea sounds decent enough, the idea is simply too overdone and obvious to stand out. The difficulty in making an original opening makes this idea pointless without a lot of modification.

Some problems we could face include:

• Filming in a forest means the lighting is limited, especially at this time of year when it gets dark early.
• Since the plot of the idea features a dog, we need to ensure that the dog can behave in a way we want it to. 

We were advised to watch The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity as these are films set in a similar location and achieved great success with a very small budget.

Idea 2

The idea would be very entertaining if done correctly. We had asked Peterborough United F.C if we could use their stadium to film during the week, and they said yes on the premise that we make a donation to their children's charity.

Some problems we could face include:

• The stadium on match day would be very difficult to film in as there would be people in the way and lots of background noise. Our plot involves Peterborough scoring, and so if they didn't it would makes things quite awkward to edit in.
• We would be given a collection of club staff to act as extras during the week, but we would need to go to a game on the Saturday to film establishing shots.
• Filming someone getting stabbed convincingly would be very difficult.
• We would need lots of extras to make it look realistic during our filming in the week.

We were advised to watch The Football Factory and Green Mile as they are good examples of films that feature hooliganism in football.


Idea 3

This was the idea that had the most appeal, both in terms of critical opinion and the practicality in how we would shoot it. We felt before the pitches were presented that this would be the case, although we would need to make a few changes to the plot to keep the overall message we are trying to convey.

Some problems we could face include:

• The original story had the main character as an adult male with a family, but since we only have access to a 16 year old, we would need to change the plot to keep it more believable.
• Since some of the filming would take place outside, we would need to migate any continuity errors if the weather changed. 

We were advised to watch the first episode of Supernatural as it is very similar to what we want to do.

 

Plot of our thriller opening

The plot of our thriller opening is a man (played by Chris Gent) is returning to his old, abandoned house after he has committed the crime of killing his former friend’s daughters over a large poker debt. He finds the house exactly as he left it, and he sets to work finding his passport in a chest of drawers. He finds the passport, but he also finds pictures of the girls he murdered. He quickly grabs his passport and goes to leave, only to find the front door he’d just been through had locked. The scene ends with him going upstairs to be ambushed by the man whose daughters had been killed who had been waiting for Chris to come back.

Thriller opening Questionnaire

Questionnaire

Age: 0-9 10-17 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-60 61+

Gender: Male Female

Where do you prefer to watch? Cinema Home

What is your favourite thriller movie?

What kind of thriller do you like?

What do you expect to see in the opening of a movie?

What age rated films do you like watching?

U PG 12 15 18

Thriller Opening Pitch

Preliminary Self-Evaluation

Preliminary self-evaluation

1)      I felt we completed the three objectives we were given (match on action, 180^o rule and shot-reverse-shot) very well and the whole video flowed very well. The editing, upon watching, feels very natural and not disjointed. I felt we had a wide variety of shot types, including mid shots, POV shots, close-ups and over-the-shoulder shots) and they were used effectively to allow the video to feel like it shows the viewer everything they need to know to understand the story. We feared the video may be too short with the footage we shot, but through re-shoots and clever editing we made it a good length. The actors we used to be in the video took their parts seriously and so we could get through the filming of scenes very quickly. The pacing of the video feels natural as if the conversation is actually happening and no scenes are missing or added unnecessarily.

 

2)      One part of the video I felt went well was the opening few shots of Matt walking towards the door, putting his hand on the handle, opening it, then walking through from the other side. We had planned how the scene would play out in the two storyboards we had made previously and so we knew exactly what angles to film at once we were on location. The whole match-on-action scene plays out so well partly because we edited it so well; we spent a few minutes cutting fractions of seconds off each time to achieve perfect continuity.

 

3)      One of the issues we had was we had to film some new scenes on a different day. This meant that we had to make sure the actors on screen wore the same clothes as they did on the original shoot to ensure the video is continuous throughout. We had a problem in one scene were Matt plays the guitar; as he wore a different shirt on both days. To avoid this, we set up a low-angle shot which focused on the guitar and below, so his shirt was not visible. We also had an issue with the size of the room we filmed in. This caused problems as it was difficult to manoeuvre the tripod into tight spaces, and sometimes this required us to move objects to accommodate the space. This itself caused mise-en-scene problems, as occasionally, we had framing issues and we had to make sure objects in the background remained in the same place. On the first day of filming, there was a drama class going on next door, and on the second, there was not. This was an issue as noise from the class could be heard on the footage. We solved this by turning down the audio on the scenes where background audio could be heard.

 

 

4)      We have gained the skills of shot composition, the importance of continuity, how to use the camera and the tripod, and how to edit our footage on iMovie (and what it is and isn’t capable of) and then how to burn the finished video onto a disc using iDVD.

 

5)      As a result of this knowledge, next time we will understand better what the camera can see, as we felt that the footage was not zoomed in enough as there was too much background showing and so the action was hard to focus on. We will plan our time better in order to film what we need in one day, which negates the need for the actors we use to wear the same clothes. We will also film more cutaways as when we edited the video down, there were some awkward transitions that could be made less awkward with a cutaway shot. 

 

 

 

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Shutter Island opening notes

Shutter Island opening

 

 

The opening non-diegetic music adds mystery to the boat emerging from the fog. The exposition of the character’s backstory shows the human side to the two officers, and the death of his wife shows that his job is the only thing he works for. The marshal on the island seems glad they are there but is still uneasy, unsure o their ability to help. The setting of the wards is very upmarket, which adds mystery due to the dangerous people housed there. The amount of security leading to the wards, including the man sweeping being in cuffs, leads us to believe that these people are very dangerous, despite the viewer not knowing why. The second officer struggles to remove his gun from its holster, after being in the force for 4 years. There is only one way on and off the island.

Analysis of the No Country for Old Men opening

Analysis of the opening to No Country for Old Men

The film starts with a slideshow of long shots of a rural, desolate landscape, all with a narrator giving some back story to the scene. Straight away, connotations of a Western film have been conjured, despite no characters have yet appeared on screen. This is immediately questioned in the next low angle shot of the two men with the police car; and with the conventions of Westerns being laid out, it is obvious to the audience within the scene that one of the men will take the archetype “villain” character.

The use of the wide shots of the landscape gives the audience a moment to reflect on the narrator, which implies what he is saying is important. The non-digetic music also adds to this, with the wind blowing softly to emphasise the isolation of the setting, which just makes the placement of the characters all the more bizarre.

The police car can be used to date the film to the 1980's, which makes this a modern Western. This may have been done to exploit the locations that Westerns use and use some of the typical scenarios, but the film can still take advantage of using modern technology to explore new areas films set in the late 1800's couldn't.

There is almost a match dissolve between the villain sat in the darkness in the back of the car and when he's in darkness at the back of the prison wall. This gives me the impression that this process is one he is used to and has experience with, as he is very calm up until he kills the policeman.

The policeman is the first character we hear talk, which builds audience empathy for him as he is killed as we can see the killer walking up behind him, and through dramatic irony we feel somewhat sorry for him. The lack of any non-digetic sound at this point increases the tension as he walks up behind him as if you could physically feel him getting closer.

Again, the lack of a soundtrack when the killer chokes the policeman shows the lack of perceived importance the film shows for the character's death, as it doesn't warrant the need for one, which mirrors the lack of empathy the killer shows for killing the policeman. The lack of emotion he shows when killing his first two victims (the policeman and the man whose car he steals) builds up a reputation in the audience's mind of him being heartless and has no empathy for his actions.

The scuff marks on the floor and a slow pan up, stopping before it shows any gore, gives the viewer a moment to think about the brutal way this man has just been killed, which is more effective that if the killer had just shot him. The oxygen tank that the policeman talked about is used immediately following this scene, which tells the audience that the killer had used before killing the man in the car at least once before.

Prelim. Planning - Mise-en-scene plans

SoundIn our preliminary task, there will not be any use of non-diegetic sound. we feel that it won't be appropriate for the short film and it would not fit into the film.

Diegetic sounds in the film will include the sound of the door closing and the placement of a glass on a table will also be included.

Props
Props in the film will include:- Books - on the table to add something to the setting and will take away the feeling of emptiness from the setting. A close up will be focusing on one of the books and it will be used as the main conversation point of the film.
- A glass - will be drank by one of the characters and a close up on it will be featured. It will add something to the film and will provide a pause in the conversation, allowing a change of topic for the conversation or it will add tension to the scene.
- Chair - one of the characters will move the chair towards the table whilst sitting on it. This will clearly show the character sitting on the chair and will feature just before the conversation starts.

Editing
Most of the editing between shots will be straight cuts. It is a very simple edit but it is very effective.

Cinematography
The film will feature several 'Over the Shoulder' shots. Mainly,they will occur during the conversation part of the film. they are useful because it shows where the character is placed and also shows what the character is looking at. an 'Over the Shoulder' shot will also be used as the first shot to show what the character is looking at and will show the setting inside the room.

A 'POV' shot will be used in the second shot to show the view from the other characters perspective. It will also show the rest of the setting.

A 'Wide Angle/Low Angle' shot will be used to show the two characters in the same shot and will also show one of the characters walking across the room.

A 'Birds Eye View' shot will be used to show a book on the table. This will be a main topic for the conversation so it is an important shot to feature in the scene.

'Noddy Shots' will be used to show the characters reactions to various parts of the conversation. They are important because they show how the character feels and would show what parts of the conversation are very important.

Prelim. Planning - Shot Demonstrations

Prelim. Planning - Shot Demonstrations

Match On Action
The match on action shot will be demonstrated when the first character opens the door. It will show the character reaching for the door handle from one angle, a mid shot, and then it will cut away to a shot from a different, closer angle, a close up, on the characters hand on the door handle.



Shot/Reverse/Shot
A shot/reverse/shot will be demonstrated during the characters conversation. Over the Shoulder Shots will be used during to show the shot/reverse/shot. We will make sure to stick to the 180 degree rule so the viewer will not be confused by the changing shots and character position.



180 Degree Rule
We will demonstrate the 180 degree rule at the same time as the shot/reverse/shot, during the conversation scene. This is a good time to demonstrate it as the shots are constantly changing between two characters, therefore it is important to stick to the 180 degree rule so it does not become confusing.

 

Thriller Movie Poster

Basic glossary of cinematography terms

Mise-en-scene is everything on screen. This is both the digetic and non-digetic sound, cinematography, editing and any props or costumes that are used.

 

Costumes/props: physicals objects and things that are used to achieve an effect.

Editing: the use of software to manipulate the original film and order them in a way that makes sense.

Cinematography: how the shot is laid out eg lighting

Digetic music: dialogue and sound effects; things that the characters can hear.

Non-digetic music: soundtracks and other sounds that the viewer can hear but the characters can't.

 

Low-angle shot: shot is taken from below. This gives the subject a sense of authority or power.

High-angle shot: gives the subject a sense of helplessness, or a lack of authority.

Trading shot: Camera follows action on a trolley. This gives a sense of speed to the action.

Pan: The camera moves from left to right. This gives a sense of movement or speed

Tilt: Camera pans up and down. Gives a sense of size.

Shot types

Shot types

Extreme long shot

Extreme long shots are taken to show the surrounding and to establish a location. They can show the scale of the action, and there is no distinct subject.

 

Long shot

 

The subject takes up almost the full frame. These can be used to show a subject in action.

 

Mid (medium) shot

 

This shot type is useful if someone is talking as it allows room for hand gestures; it is like seeing a full person.

 

Medium close shot

 

This shot type shows the face without getting uncomfortably close. This style is often used in interviews.

 

Close-up

 

This shot shows a certain feature in detail. It is used to show emotional state.

 

Extreme close-up

This shot shows extreme detail and is uncomfortably close to the subject. These shots are difficult to get the correct reaction from the audience, and so there needs to be a very good reason to use one.

 

Cut away

This is a view something that is not part of the action, they can be used to make the editing seem more natural between scenes.

 

Two shot

 

This is used to show an equal prominence between two subjects and relationships between two subjects.

 Over the shoulder shot

 

This is shot over someone's shoulder, with the shoulder taking up about one third of the screen. It shows a connection between two people and how close they are.    

 

Noddy shot

This is often used in interviews and makes the editing seem more natural and makes the person talking feel less boring to watch. These are filmed after the interview.

POV shot

This shows someone's point of view. Usually, it is edited in a way so it is obvious whose POV it is. It gives the watcher an emotional connection with the character.

 

Controlled/Dutch angle shot

The camera is not angled straight towards the subject. There is a sense of being out the ordinary, and can be used to show a dream sequence, or something out of the ordinary.

Zoom in/out

 

Can highlight important or significant object to the audience.

 

Steadicam

The camera moves with the action, it gives the viewer a sense of realism and can be used to add excitement.

Crane shot

Single high angle. It gives a sense of size and scale.

 

Aerial shot

The camera is in a plane or helicopter. It gives a sense of location or size.