Soundtrack Analysis- 'The Scilence of the Lambs'.

Silence of the Lambs (1990) is regarded as one of the best psychological thrillers ever made. It won Oscars for Actor, Actress and Best Film.

The Opening

The music makes the audience feel that something bad was going to happen, but nothing actually did. It built the eerie tension up.
We see a character running through a wood on an assault course. The music from the start is an eerie piece of classical music which is immediately unsettling. In fact we are waiting for something to happen. The character's face does not look scared, and we soon see why she is running as we see her climb a rope web. The music makes us predict something in the visuals.

Our opening does not have tense music, but calm and relaxed piano music playing, as Anna is running to her 'sanctuary'. As our film is unconventional and as an opening, it is quite busy with the voice over as the narrative which means that the audience have to be constantly involved, although I feel that the filming sequence rather speaks for itself and the audience can tell what is going on.

The Interview

The soundtrack plays as she walks towards Hannibal Lecter. It is used to unsettle the audience without going to its full tempo.

The Escape Scene

The scene opens with diagetic classical music playing. This suggests a peaceful scene, however we soon see that the scene is very horrific and violent where the cut joins two different sounds together. After the violence has ended, the classical music starts again. The high tempo soundtrack creates immediate anxiety and tension. The pattern I noticed in the music was that the music went from diegetic to non- diegetic to diegetic again which meant that classical music, while usually it is used to heighten peace, was used in this scene to overall heighten the horror of the fact that Hannibal Lecter's heart rate does not raise higher than 85 when he kills, and he is fully capable of listening to classical music calmly before and after killing.

Our film can be linked to 'Silence of the Lambs' because we used a somber piano piece as our soundtrack, even when it came to the tension in the wardrobe when Zoe reaches out towards Anna and at this point, the music does change slightly, but it is still piano throughout, whilst 'The Silence of the Lambs' had the difference of its own soundtrack as well as the piano music which Hannibal Lecter is listening to.

'Buffalo Bill' is killed

As Clarice staggers around in the darkness the soundtrack builds again to a Crescendo until she shoots him and then it dies down. The audience is familiar with the soundtrack from its use of key moments in the film. It is very loud which can be draining.

We made sure that our voice over was louder than the music so that the narrative could be heard, and the music would not over drain the audience.

Our planning for our Opening

Group effort written up by Zoe

Begin with Anna in the present tense running towards her 'sanctuary' her fast running and facial gestures of deep breathing and anxiety would be shown through close ups. And the suspense and tension will be shown through her determination and speed. Though we'll have a sobre piano playing and all diegetic music will be muted.She then stops beside the train bridge (underneath) to take a moment to 'catch' her breath, this would allow time for the audience to begin contemplation on the character, yet no direct shots of her face will be shown to keep an essence of mystery. She'll then continue on her way.
Arriving at her destination this allows us to shot our trademarked 'rooftop shots'. It will show Anna in solitude, in contemplation and in deep though. The Narration may begin here, if not now then possibly whilst she's running. The emotional script and sombre piano with the silence and emptiness of the location would hopefully draw strong emotions in the audience. After these few shots we'll see a POV shot of Anna's feet as she sits upon the bridge with a large distance to fall.
A simple fade to either white or black (undecided) will be our transition from the present to past tense.
We then see a young girls feet (Anna in the past) as she's about to open a playground gate. We then see the park through the eye's of a child. This requires a variety of complex shots and camera movements which are hard to describe with out refrencing to the annotations on the story board. This scene would signify the equilibrium stage and begin portraying a false depiction of Anna's life as a child. It's a false representation as she had a brutal and tragic upbringing which would later be revealed. We've discussed idea's wether to shot the flashbacks in black and white to show a clear contrast. This will also work well with the dark railway scene previously, as too much of a contrast could be startling on an audience and 'throw' them off.
This scene would then show Anna leaving the park holding her mothers hand. This could then fade once more to enter the next scene.
We've had breif discussions about filming the movement of clouds over several hours to then fast forward them to show an artistic backdrop to display the title (Clouds). This is still under deliberation. If it was to be done, it would occur now. Then fading to white the next scene would continue.
It shows Anna arriving home from the park at her door then running up the stairs. In a POV shot in the style of the famous film Halloween. She then hides in the closet and you see her hiding. This would hopefully add a sense of mystery and be unsettling to the viewer. The narration would have stopped at the titles and piano would fade in, yet not as a sobre peice but to be more epic and intense.
The scene would then suddenly end which a sharp anticlimatic build and which a fast fade to black.

The Treatment for our Thriller Opening

Group effort written up by Zoe

With the opening we began brain storming some ideas neither group member had a definitive idea. We began thinking of character idea's and weather there would be only one antagonist, and we how we can turn a standard character in an ambiguous one.Our initial thoughts were to have both a male and female, but to include the sense of uncertainty and ambiguity we decided to show the male to be the vulnerable one in a more passive tone, and still being very 'male', in the way he acts (mannerism), characterisation and other conventions. We thought for the women to be the antagonist as this could be represented as a unavailing twist as the story progresses. Next we had to construct a relationship dynamic between the two. We decided to have them as step brother and sister.This helped us branch out to a narrative idea, we thought we could tell a brief story of their family dysfunction (as past tense). We thought this would be perfect for filling the story with enigma's and it would also help us, more easily, draw audiences in to the characters by creating a sense of sympathy. More idea's were that the male, as a young boy, could have been the 'favourite', or that the younger girl suffered abuse and neglect.We decided to no follow the conventional narrative structure by simply representing an equilibrium stage, but rather throwing the audience into the chaos. Yet from the woman's perception we'll see flashbacks of her past through the film to reveal to viewers why they have grown up to be the people they are today. We decided due to their family dysfunction they'd grown up to be outlaws to society, they'd be condemned in the eyes of others to be able to live a 'normal' life. Our film idea is now taking on a more Drama style genre as one of the main themes is turning out to be family and family dynamics.We need to begin thinking what could have happened during their childhood that began a chain of negative events and thought patterns. An idea came up that we all agreed upon that the little girl (past tense) saw her brother either being physically abusive or murdering either the mother or step father. As you see this whole film through the perception of the girl, you witness the dysfunction of the boy, as a child and in the present. Yet it's not until the ending where it reveals to the audience, she's just as messed up as him. As the viewer all along you'll be believing her narration and believing she's completely sane and grounded. Yet as the flashbacks reveal more and more they reveal her abandonment as a child and these foundations she's learnt from have caused her memory scares disabling her to behave/live appropriately in society. This brings forth huge ambiguity to her character and the film would have a huge element of mystery and suspense.As the boy was very aggressive at the young and vulnerable stages in his life, we decided for him to have this deep underlying love for his mother in which he secretly desired her (inspired by Freud as his theory that young baby boys secretly lust their mothers). This would contain that obscene more shocking element to the film. So as the step father moved in he's anger raged and he began lashing out at his mother. Till the day came where he went too far and killed her. This was done by his own physical strength and a mirror (details not necessary). He managed to escape authority causing him to live in the shadows of life.The main objective of both characters is the search/quest for their own happiness and escapism. The film would deal with many phsycological issue's dealing with addiction, denial, escapism, anger, anxiety and etc. As the boy grows older he becomes and porn addict, he channels all his rage through the violence and obscenity of the under ground porn industry. We this disturbance through the eyes of the women, who appears to be the more vulnerable one, sympathy is given to her as she has to 'look after' her older brother.The women on the other hand would begin to appear Innocent constantly living in the shadows from the start with little attention. As the back flashes reveal more we see how a little girl starved of attention begins to be neglected and emotionally scared from the scenes she's witnessed. As the film goes on, the narration changes, as she takes us the viewer through a window of her life, she finds her happiness. What she finds is not reveled to the end. Her perception completely changes and the film almost becomes distorted as it's through her perception.So the boy in this channels his anger and dives in a world of oblivion. The girl is mentally unwell due to her calm and hugely depressing outlook until she becomes a heroin addict. What's quite common with thrillers is that the begin and end scene repeat each other to emphasis a particular point. This also helps develop a tag line/famous phrase that's easily remembered in the film, that of course must have a high impact on audience's and is very emotional. So maybe it would be nice to begin the film very surreal to show a rather twisted equilibrium, yet as it revels it's actually a resolution of complete devastation.We decided to have an urban location, as living in a city can extremely isolated, with the idea of alleys, cold streets, so many strangers and generally a lonely place in your mind (constantly reinforcing the physcological element).A name that was brought up in discussion was the name Cloud or Clouds. Personally I fell this definently suits the film well as clouds instantly remind you off the sky and how clouds can be perfectly situated to present a perfect picture. By calling the film Clouds it brings an added disturbance to the nature of the film. It also represents how each character lives 'in the clouds' or how addicts have their 'heads in clouds'. It could also signify how clouds just go by without notice and change and mold by factors of their surroundings this can be symbolically applied to the women character.This is the basic treatment, yet i feel more needs to be discussed on the character dynamics between the Brother and Sister.

A Thriller Opening- 'Momento'- Analysis of narrative enigmas

'Memento', (2000)

The character Leonard Shelby, a former insurance fraud investigator hunts for the man he believes raped and murdered his wife during a burglary. He suffers from amnesia because of a head injury inflicted by his wife's rapist/murderer.

The film begins with the event at the end of the story where Leonard discovers who the murderer is and he shoots him in the head.

This is similar to our film because 'Clouds' begins with the present and then has the flashback which shows the event from the past which shows what happened to Anna.

With the colour sequences showing Leonard's investigation are told in reverse chronological order, and the black- and - white sequences told in chronological order show Leonard in his hotel room talking on the phone to someone unknown (which makes the character even more ambiguous. The audience realise that Leonard has just lost his recent memories when a scene begins, and this keeps the audience unaware of the forthcoming events just like Leonard.

This film always has the audience asking questions like: Who is Teddy? Why can't he remember anything? We wanted our film to have this mysterious approach, and our film does contain a flashback memory of Anna's child hood memory where she went from playing in the park to being abused at home.

Editing the Preliminary Task

At the CLC, we sat as a group and worked together to edit our film. We had not quite finished filming, so most of what we had was the coffee scenes, so we decided to call our preliminary task- 'Coffee'' because of the emphasis of the preparing the coffee.

Filming the Preliminary Task

The task was to film a person walking through a door and meeting someone else whwere a few lines of dialogue are exchanged. So, together as a group, we sat down in the classroom and discussed our ideas for the Preliminary Task. None of us were completly certain about what we had in mind as we had not fully developed our ideas, however Zoe had the following ideas:

- Patient, Doctor, Nerves
- Husband, Wife, Abusive
- Student, Friends, Relationships
- Student, Counsellor, Emotional
- Patient, Physciatric, Suspence
- Lovers, Romance, Proposal
- Student, Lovers, Lustual

As a group we decided on the abusive husband and wife pitch idea because we felt that with the people in our group, we would be able to pull the characters off easier than any of the others. QWe also felt that it was the sort of storyline we were in the mood for, and this has huge significance when it comes to being able to work with your task and take on the roll of a character without feeling uncomfortable.
The plot for our task was that a married couple live together, and the wife is a timid quiet character who is obedient and madly in love with her husband despite his abusive behavior. The husband however is somewhat psychologically challenged (we did not make clear why or how, so as to leave suspense and mystery and to keep the audience drawn into the storyline wanting to know more. The husband does not appreciate his wife's help and continually finds faults in her actions and notices the tiniest of mistakes. He repeatedly verbally abuses her and does not answer questions the way a normal husband should. This is our script which we worked together to complete:

*Wife makes coffee without sugar and walks through the door*
WIFE: There you are darling
*hands over coffee*
WIFE: Did George sort out those files for you?
HUSBAND: I'm home now not at work, so shut up.
*Wife is hesitent*
WIFE: Prince rance today, him and Ruby wanted us to go round on Friday for dinner. I told them i'll let them know tomorrow.
HUSBAND: I don't want to see them Friday, I want to go to the pub.
WIFE: We havn't been out in such a long while, i think it will be nice.
HUSBAND: I just want to go pub.
WIFE: Alright hun, i'll tell them we can't make it.
*dramatic pause*
WIFE: Drink your coffee it's fetting cold.
HUSBAND: Women, don't tell me what to do.
*dramatic pause*
**drinks coffee**
HUSBAND: Fucking whore
*spits coffee*
HUSBAND: Silly slut! There's no sugar. Stupid Bitch, you should know this by now.

We filmed our preliminary task in one day, so the process of making up the script and the basic story outline, followed by filming was quite swift and as a group, we worked together really well. As one, we made the set, discussed the character roles and the script and props were provided, as well as working together to make the camera work happen. We decided on the theme of our story together and made sure that we were comfortable with the task so that it would be easy for us to work together as a team. Everyone had their roles, and it would have been significantly harder for everyone if just one member was not present. I was acting throughout and co-operated with Zoe and Matthew and their camera work in order for us to get the filming done in as little time as possible.