What interests you about intertexuality in film

Intertextuality is visual referencing between films. It is very common for a film to 'borrow' ideas from another film in order to enhance their film. Not only will they 'borrow' the ideas, they may also use the same type on mise en scene, camera shots, sound types and editing skills.

Common types of intertextuality within different genres are:

• horror - haunted house, dark colors, blood and gore. e.g saw - in saw, the majority of the film, it is just blood and gore to show the amount of deaths and fights and struggles that happened. This is also done to try and scare the audience. The people get locked in a house and the only way out is to play the 'game' that is made by the jigsaw killer. He has a very twisted mind and uses that to his advantage. A scene in saw that i found to have intertextuality is when one of the guys dies in the shower. During this scene you can see that the shower is white adn that the blood is going down the drain. This idea was 'borrowed' from 'Psycho' from the famous shower scene
• thriller - long pauses, loud/scary/creepy music, dark colors. e.g the stepfather - there is a long pause when david kills jay to really build up suspense and tension and there are dark colors when ever a death has just happened. The loud, scary and creepy music happens all throughout the film and is there to emphasise what has just happened. i.e at the beginning of the film when david is walking into the room with the dead bodies the change in pace from slow and gentle changes to slighty faster and not as soft to show what we are about to see is something bad. - these kind of things are used in other films aswell, the pauses to build up tension and the dark colors to show that it is not a happy scene. Also, the creepy music is used to try and get the audience scared into what will happen next.

list of thriller sub-genres/what film inspired me and why?

Examples of couple thrillers:

.Action thriller (phonebooth)

.Supernatural thriller (what lies beneath)

.Murderous passion thriller

.Political thriller (the firm)

.Crime thriller (hostage)

.Psychological thriller (the shining)

Personally I think that psychological thrillers inspire me the most. This statement is all because of a short clip from a film called shining. I love the way these thrillers engage the audience making them feel as if they are living the experience themselves right in their living room. Psychological thrillers usually consist of things that relate to the mind for example leaving an open thought or mind games and tricking the mind/characters.

A good example of this is a film called 'The Shining' made in the

early 80's which is a great psychological thriller to watch.

within the movie there is a specific scene where the boy is driving

(pedalling) his trycicle along the corridors and the camera follows

his every move as if we (the audience) were in the film which is

engaging us to the film. The camera positioning also creates

tension because it is quite low and right behind him so we don't

have a clear vision of whats ahead. This keeps me on egde to

find out what we (me and the character) are going to encounter.

suspense

The word SUSPENSE means when we experience a feeling of anxiety or uncertainty because of a certain action. This mainly refers to the the audience's perspective. An example of suspense may be caused by something like dramatic irony, when the audience know the 'two rivals' are about to have their first encounter before the characters even know themselves. this creates suspense because as the audience we know that there is tension between the two so when they meet.. it's going to kick off.
















Suspense usually consists of:

• Darkness
• A Victim
• Intriguing for the audience
• breathing heavy
• a build up
• Suspenseful music
• Pauses
• Dramatic irony
• Visceral effect
• False plateau

Analysis of Thriller Clip in class

What Lies Beneath


In class, we all looked at different thriller clips. The one that stood out the most for me was from the film 'What Lies Beneath'.

This film sub-genre of What Lies Beneath is a supernatural thriller.

Right from the beginning of the clip when the title shows up, special effects are used to make it look as if there it water surrounding it. That already made me want to carry on watching, and also the sound that was used to introduce the title was very intriguing and it was already building up suspense for the rest of the clip. There is quite a long pause in the clip where there is just the music and a dark screen. This is building up even tension as you don't know what will come up out the screen next.

The first image of a person that you see isn't a human face, but not too shortly after a human face appears. The face we saw at first looked like a zombie of some sort. After we see the human face appear, we can see that the woman was trying to drown herself and couldn't do it. The heavy breathing and gasps for air give the impression that she was doing it to forget something not because she wanted to kill herself.

The camera is slowly zooming in on her as if something is coming to get her, but we soon see that nothing is there it was just used to build up more suspense. The next shot we see is of her picking up a blowdryer and then using it to clear the steam in her mirror. As a audience, we immediately assume that when she clears the mirror, someone will appear behind her but as we watch the rest of the scene, we see that noone does. They used this as a false plateau.

Her blowdryer stops working and as she checks the socket she gets a little shock and then it starts working again. I think that they did to to foreshadow that something is going to happen later on.

The end of clip is of the woman blowdrying her mirror. It is left on a cliffhanger and leaves the audience wanting to know what happens next.

An analysis of a title sequence which inspires you?

Arlington Road

1.The Distribution and Production companies for Arlington Road is, Gora/Samuelson Production


2.Information from that is given in the title sequence is mostly about the setting. Images of houses and buildings are shown quite allot. Inverted effects are used to initially create the creepy atmosphere that is projected again through the sound used. The name of the film' Arlington Road' is established as a street name, makes us believe that this is the main location. Many shots of people in the distance are shown and kids running around on the field. Everything seems to look disorientated as the camera slightly shakes why the tile sequence is happening. At about 1min 58 secs we get a close up of the word 'Emergancy' and are brought into a hospital with a close zoom of a guy. We then start to believe that something is horribly wrong.

3. Title sequence timeline:

• 0:01- Film Entertainment
• 0:07- In association with Lakeshore entertainment
• 0:13- Gorai/ samueson production
• 0:15- A mark Pellington film
• 0:19- Actors are introduced
• 0:28- Title of film
• 0:33- Actor
• 0:55- Casting is introduced
• 1:00- Co-producers
• 1:02- Music director
• 1:12- Costume
• 1:18- Editing
• 1:30- Executive producer
• 1:35- Production people names
• 1:49- Director
• 2:00- First actor introduced

4. The film title is shown 28 seconds into the title sequence which is at the beginning of the film.

An analysis of a film title sequence that inspires you

Arlington Road

1.The Distribution and Production companies for Arlington Road is, Gora/Samuelson Production

2.Information from that is given in the title sequence is most casting crew. There is a lot of inverted effects such as negative effects as well as black and white, the soundtrack is very creepy, there are a lot of bars and outside areas such as houses, parks etc which may tell the audience that it's main setting is in outside areas. Lastly the first character that we come aross does not speak, he only drinks water from a fountain.

3. Sequence Timeline

• 0.01 - Polygram Filmed Entertainment
• 0.07 - In Association with Lakeside Ent
• 0.13 - Production Company
• 0.15 - Mark Pellington
• 0.19 - Actors
• 0.28 - Title
• 0.33 - Actor
• 0.55 - Casting Crew
• 1.00 - Co-Producer
• 1.18 - Editing
• 1.30 - Executive Producer
• 1.35 - Production Team
• 1.49 - Mark Pelllington
• 1.58 - Introduced to the first character

4. The film title is shown 22 seconds into the title sequence and it is, pkaced on a road sign hence it's name Arlington Road

What interests you about intertextuality in film?

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is a term used to describe visual referencing between films. Most times films tend to 'borrow' from eachother. This is usually done depending on the genre of the film. Many horror films for example tend to borrow the opening of a 'haunted' 'creepy' house and the weather being 'a dark and stormy night'. Although it is not only the setting of films that are 'borrowed' from one another. Some films may copy some areas of mise en scene, snippets of sound or techniques in editing. An example where intertxuality is used is within Fatal Attraction. The shower scene that is originally in Psycho is used in Fatal Attraction both the type of shot and the white tiles and curtains within the shower. Furthermore both women are in shock/shrieking because of the attacks they are recieving.

What interests me the most about intertextuality is that film makers can take elements from other successful films and add them to their film to further that success. Furthermore the continuation of takng particular forms of mise en scene, camera angles, or snippets of sound e.g broken glass or openings of creepy houses can be turned into essentials for thriller films which helps the audience identify the type of film they are watching. Finally by using intertextuality I think it creates a link between films in the 70s earlier or later and films of today, which creates a bigger culture for the film industry.   

Psycho



Fatal Attraction