Memento summary

Memento-Christopher Nolan 2000

Memento is based on the character leonard who has a condition that causes him to forget everything that he does after a few minutes. The plot of the film is shown in a non-linear way, most of the time being backwards showing each scene leading up to the scene before. This raises alot more questions than showing it in a normal fashion would due to leonards condition.

To keep the audiance interested they keep conceal the real identities of many of the characters until the end, for example they don't reveal that "Teddy" is actually a cop until right at the end of the film.
There are two main narrative strands running thoughout the film which are what Leonard has done leading up to killing "Teddy" and a telephone conversation that he is having with someone unknown. The telephone conversation is in black and white which helps it to contrast with the rest of the film. The two strands eventually link together into a scene where Leonard is confronting "Teddy".
There is very little ellipsis of time involving the narrative which means that almost all of a complete section of time is shown.
The ending of the film still raises questions even thought most have been answered, this is conventional of thrillers

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino is an american director, producer and actor whos films are renowed for their non-linear storylines and themes or violence.

He has directed:
Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill volmumes 1 & 2 and Inglourious Basterds

Acted in:
Pulp Fiction, Desperado, Alias and most of the other films that he has directed

He has also produced:
From Dusk til dawn 1,2 & 3, Hero and Hostel parts I and II

here is the opening scene of one of quentin tarantinos most famous films Pulp Fiction:














http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Tarantino
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000233/bio

Thriller directors

Some of the most popular and most well known thriller directors are: Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan.

Alfred Hitchcock:
Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most well known names in thriller he made a large contribution to establishing the genre. He began filmaking in the 1920's and continued up to the 1970's. His most famous films include The Birds and Psycho.



A trailer of psycho where Hitchcock explains some aspects of the plot.

Sources: http://movies.toptenreviews.com/directors/list_thriller_director.htm
, http://hitchcock.tv/

Definitions of a Thriller

1. They are types of films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension.



http://www.filmsite.org/subgenres.html



2. Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)



3. A film that tells an exciting story about murder or crime.

www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/thriller

Thiller sub-genres

one of the most moticable features of thrillers is how they can be combined with almost any genre to form many different sub-genres such as:

Action Thriller: contain fast paced exciting narratives with a large amound of action usually in the form of guns, explosions etc.

Conspiracy thriller: When the protagonist is up against a conspiracy usually carried out by some kind of antagonistic organization

Crime Thriller: When the narrative is centered around a crime, usually it is the protagonists aim to capture the perpetrator

Disaster Thiller: Contain some kind of disaster that the characters have to deal with

Erotic Thiller: A cross between erotic film and thriller

Legal Thriller: When the main character is involved in the legal system.

Medical Thiller: When the main character is involved in the medical proffesion and may be trying to fight a deadly virus or some other unusual or dangerous health concern

Psychological Thriller: very suspenseful and usually require alot of thought to understand. usually have complex narratives or characters

Political Thiller: When a main character tries to keep his government stable even against powerful forces

Religous Thiller: When the main events are related to some kind of religous prophecy or scripture, can be controversial due to the way religions may be represented.

Spy Thriller: When the protagonist is an agent or spy who has to retreive somthing or take down an enemy agency

Supernatrual Thrillers: When either superpowers, magic or other paranormal forces are involved.

Sources:
http://action-films-thrillers.suite101.com/article.cfm/subgenres_of_the_hollywood_thriller

Thriller Conventions

Some of the main conventions of the thriller genre are:

•They Often have a complex narrative with many clues, red-herrings and other enigmas
•A narrative that consists of many revealing enigmas that keeps the viewer interested in what is going to happen
•A protagonist who often has to overcome the antagonist even though he has a lot less power in some way
•Characters the audience can identify to, usually the protagonist
•The protagonist usually has a weakness which the antagonist uses to his advantage
•A crime of some kind at the center of the narrative
•They often overlap with themes from other genres
•The antagonist may be an organization or some kind of natural force rather than a character
•Elements that “Thrill” the audience

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)#Directors
http://barney54.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/thriller-conventions/

Evalutation

We showed our film to our media studies classthe feedback we got was mainly positive. The elements that were being analysed were continuity, furfillment or brief, mise-en-scen, camerawork and sound. We were given at least good and excellent feedback in all criteria, However the one it seemed we had most to improve on was sound. I also showed the film to some people outside my media class, the feedback was also positive. The audiance said that the lighting was good and that it looked fairly professional.


I think we did fairly well at acheiving continuity in our piece, we did have a few shots that we took that may have comprimised the continuity of our film however, we took these out during the editing process. I think our film flowed smoothly most of the time.
Our brief was to create a film that contained a character walking down a corridor sitting down and talking to someone, while including continuity, 180 degree rule, eyeline match and a graphic match. I think our film included all of these although the graphic match that we originally intended to have which was a hot of the gaurd punching the captive going into one of the bosses foot moving so instead we used the shot of the gaurd pulling the sack of the captives head form different angles as our graphic match.
I think our camerawork was pretty good, we could have used a larger variation of shots however using to much of a variety of shots may have made it the film seem a bit over dramatic. I am proud of our use of the master shot and the floor level shots we had of the gaurd and boss walking.
In my opinion the area that we did best in was mise-en-scen, this is because we found a good location which suited our intended genre, we also had the actors wearing suites which also suited what we were intending.
The aspects of sound that i think went well were the gunshot effects used and the part of the soundtrack before the shooting.

One aspect of the continuity that i dont think worked as well was the gunshot scene, it seemed to jump straight to will screaming, altohugh this does work for dramatic effect i dont think it improves the smoothness of the film.
Another thing that i would change next time would be the brightness of the black and white effect we used, in some of the shots it was hard to see what was happening, the audiance commented on this and we also realised this after viewing our finished product.
I don't think there is much we could have done to improve the mise-en-scen, although one of the audiance did suggest that the captives shirt could have been more ruffled up to make it show that he was in bad conditions.
Another thing which we could have improved on was our stunts such as where we planned to have the guard punch the captive which we did not include in our film because we did not have good enough footage. I think if we had put more plan into how we would act out this part it may have worked, also the fake blood in the scene didn't really work either so improvement in how we use it may also be a thing to work at.
One of the areas which i think needs most improvement would be sound, although our soundtrack did basically fit our film i think it could have been alot better, to improve it i think we would need more practice using garage band and to find an easier way to quicly test whether a certain piece of music fits with the film.

Overall i think we did a good job and learnt many skills involved in making films