The Girl on the Bridge

Directed by Christian Fechner

The clip that we saw used various editting techniques to create suspense and tension within the scene. Accompanying the applause of the audience at the beginning of the scene is a fanfare sound which immediately establishes the importance of the impending act. At first we see the stage from the point of view of the audience, before seeing the point of view of the performing characters. These two perceptions contrast and the faces of each of the characters are fixed on for long periods of time, prolonging the suspense. A similar technique is used when the main character pulls the curtain shut, overlapping editting is used to extend the length of the act. This puts emphasis on the significance of the action and creates tension in the audience. When the non-diegetic music begins the audience falls silent, this drastic change in the crowds reaction accentuates the apprehensive atmosphere. The selective sound of the knife is emphasised to contrast with the silence and creates tension every time one hits. Fast cuts are then used when the knife hits the board to show the contact and then to move the focus back to the reaction of the two characters involved. This leaves the audience unsure as to what has happened and drags on the suspense throughout the scene.

Although this films genre isn't the same as the horror genre that we want to pursue for our course work, it includes some simple but effective techniques to create tension that we may be able to emmulate in our piece.

Horror genre Ideas

The aim of the opening scene of a horror movie is to introduce a villain or monster, and introduce it's characteristics through the use of a victim.
It should evoke a feeling of suspense or tension from the audience that will entice the audience to continue watching.
The Monster:victim ratio is suited to the type of monster and storyline.

Questionnaire Results Analysis

Will on comedy: After looking at the results of the questionnaire, we found the most popular genre to be comedy. This broadened our horizons, giving us the option for a comedy based film, but as we watched more comedy movies, it became clear that a lot of them weren't funny and it took a funny director to make them, and we're not funny.
Louise on comedy: We researched the opening sequences to various comedy movies, but decided that the first few minutes of the film don't necessarily reflect the comedy genre as we feel they rely more on the plot to emphasise the humour. Since we only time for the first few minutes of our piece to appeal to a certain type of audience, we decided that it would be more effective to create a suspensful sequence of a horror movie instead.

Preferences

Questionnaire Results

Our film

School Questionnaire Results

12-15 = 4
16-18 = 17
19-21 = 0
22- over= 1

male = 13
female = 11

comedy = 11
action = 2
horror = 5
romance = 3
thriller = 2
other - musical = 1

DVD = 7
Cinema = 15

Questionnaire - email the results to geo-yeh@hotmail.co.uk or post in a comment.

As an A level media group, we request 2 minutes of your time to fill out this questionnaire. This primary task will fuel the research for our own film.

Tick the correct box that applies to you.

1. How old are you?

12-15
16-18
19-21
22- Over

2. Gender?

Male
Female

3. What is your favourite genre of film?

Comedy
Action
Horror
Romance
Thriller
Other Please state ............................................................

4. Do you prefer to wait till DVDs are released or go to the cinema?

DVDs
Cinema

Thank you for your time.

Camera Angles

Our short film comprised of a range of camera angles and camera shots.

1. medium close up shot
2. pan left + right shot
3. Tracking shot
4. long shot
5. eye level shot
6. over the shoulder shot
7. point of view shot

Preliminary Task

The brief was to film someone walking into a room and exchanging a few lines of dialogue with another person.
We chose a corridor to film our entrance scene .
Using the 180 degree rule, the camera panned from left to right following the 'actor'. We incorporated various different filming techniques such as :
- Eye line match
- 180 degree rule
- Over the shoulder shot
We acheived all of these and believe they worked well.