Alfread Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on the 13th August 1899 in Leytonstone and died on 29th April 1980. He was the second son and youngest of three children of William Hitchcock. He was an English film director and producer. He created many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in Britain, he was later named Britain’s best director. Hitchcock later moved to Hollywood to carry on his directing.

After he moved to Hollywood, he was then recognized with a well known directing technique which he was noticed for. He created a technique that uses the camera and makes it move in a way that mimics a person's gaze. This forces the viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. He also framed his shots to maximize anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovation when editing films. Many of Alfred Hitchcock's films have a twist to the endings and thrilling plots featuring depictions of violence, murder and crime, although many of the mysteries function as decoys or "MacGuffins".

Some of Alfred’s films are Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, North by Northwest, Rear window and many more.

In 1924, Hitchcock collaborated with Graham Cutts and he had to go to Germany for this. The film ‘Die Prinzessin und der Geiger’ (‘The Blackguard’) in 1925, was directed by Cutts and was co-written by Hitchcock. This was first produced in the’ Babelsberg Studios’ in Potsdam near Berlin.

Lighting Exercise

Thriller Questionaire

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Thriller Convention

·  Central to plot- Justice vs. injustice, blurred line of good and bad, enigmas, red-herrings, plot twists and cliff-hangers.

·  Sub Genres- Mystery, crime, psychological, political

·  Moods-Murder, Menace, Mystery, Paranoia.

·  Characters on a dangerous mission, Esceme seems impossible.

·  Edge-of-your-seat, Tension, Climax, Suspense, Chase, Pursuits, Deadlines.

·  Complex characters- troubled, Multi-faceted, Morally Complex.

·  Society-seen as dark & corrupt.

The Rules for 'Road Runner'

• Chuck Jones in a animator who worked at Warner Brothers for decades making short movies starring "Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Company".
• He also made 'Road Runner' cartoons and from the first episode, an elaborate set of rules have emerged.  

1. The Road Runner cannot harm or upset the coyote except by going 'Meep! Meep!'
2.  No outside force can harm the coyote, only his own ineptitude or failure of Acme Products.
3.  The coyote could stop anytime-if he were not a fanatic.
4.  No dialogue ever, except 'Meep! Meep!' 
5.  The Road Runner must stay on the road-otherwise, logically, he would not be called the Road Runner.
6.  All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters-The Southwest American desert.
7. All materials, tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from Acme Corporation. 
8.  Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy.
9.  The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.

Evaluation

Pre-Production- The Brief:

•  Short description of what you were asked to do

For this task, I and my group had to create a preliminary where certain things had to take place. We had to show one character which was me having to walk through a closed door, at least one use of ‘eye line match’, me having a conversation with someone else which was Ibs and then me and Ibs exiting.

Production- How  you achieved it:

• Who did you work with?
• How did you plan for it?
• Where did you shoot?

For this task, I worked with Ibs and Derrick. Derrick was the camera man who made sure he tried all of the camera techniques and Ibs was the other actor who was in conversation with me and I was the person who contributed ideas and planned what we were going to do in the film. I and Derrick also edited the video alongside Ibs telling us what to do in certain areas. We shot the film in a hall way and along some stairs.

Post-Production- Was it successful?

• Did you work well as a group?
•  Who did what?
• How does the final edit look?
• Include screen grabs from the computer-to show editing.

 In general, I think we worked well as a group but it could have been better. We all had great ideas on what we were going to do but, deciding who was filming and who was doing what was a bit of a problem. Derrick is usually the person on the camera but Ibs wanted to have a go and he wanted Derrick to act. The only problem was that Ibs didn’t really know how to use the camera so Derrick just took over. The final cut for the film looked really good. Every shot was taken accurately, speech was heard clearly and everything went well together. As a result to the final cut looking good, I think we would work well again together. If we overcome our problems, I think we would be fantastic in other projects we have to take on.