Hitchcock Summary

STEP 1: It's the Mind of the Audience
                    This is based on the fact that the atmosphere needs to be set for the audience in order to make sure that they feel the full effect beign portrayed by the characters within the film. 


STEP 2: Frame for Emotion
                     This involves making sure that the right camera shots/angles are used in order to show the emotion of each character within an important scene. By doing this, this means that the audience is able to become emotionally invovled with the piece of film they are being shown.


STEP 3: Camera is Not a Camera 
                This means that making sure the audience can see what is going on through the eyes and the experience of each character within the audio/visual sequence.


STEP 4: Dialogue Means Nothing 
              This step means having the ability to tell a story without the characters actually saying anything. By doing this the audience is able to create the story in their minds and this creates the possibility of being thrown off the story to be shocked later on.


STEP 5: Point of View Editing
              This means putting an idea into the mind of the character without explaining it in dialogue is done by using a point-of-view shot sequence.You take the eyes of the characters and add something for them to look at. 


STEP 6: Montage Gives You Control
              This step means being able to create and build up the suspense of a story by putting together close-ups of different parts within the audio/visual product in order to create a more dramatic effect for the audience.


STEP 7: Keep the Story Simple!
              This basic step means being able to both create a strong story whilst also being able to control the story/idea in making sure that the storyline is both not too confusing but isn't also too boring for the audience.


STEP 8: Characters Must Break Cliché 
                     This means having the ability to make the audience become intreged by the audio/visual product by creating new stereotypical characteristics of the characters within the film. This includes such things as making criminals wealthy upper class citizens whom you’d never suspect etc.


STEP 9: Use Humor to Add Tension
              This step insists that by adding a sense of humor to a thriller means being able to create a different type of unexpected tension within the film. For example, "In Marnie, Tippi Hedren is stealing money from an office safe and is just about to leave when she notices the maid happens to be cleaning in the next room".


STEP 10: Two Things Happening at Once 
                 This involves building tension into a scene by using contrasting situations throughout the video sequence in order to create a more interesting storyline for the viewing audience. 


STEP 11: Suspense is Information 
                This means enabling the characters to create suspense by showing the audience a scene which presents a suspensive story and enabling the audience to create an idea of the ending of the film. Although whilst doing this the characters need to carry on as if they don't know about the suspense scenes that have occured whilst they've been off stage.  “The essential fact is to get real suspense you must let the audience have information." --Alfred Hitchcock


STEP 12: Surprise and Twist 
                This element means being able to create a storyline for the audience to follow but then turn their ideas upside down in order to create a dramatic effect in order to make sure that the audience is surprised by the storyline they're now being shown.

STEP 13: Warning: May Cause MacGuffin
                The purpose of MacGuffin is to serve a pivotal reason for the suspense to occur.This means making sure that the storyline makes sense to the audience in order to create the best possible dramatic effects.

SE7EN Title Opening Sequence Analysis

                         Functions and Elements of a Title

Element	Denotation	Connotation
Information Narrative/Plot Character Location Themes Genre	The clips chosen for this title opening sequence show the narrative/plot based around one particular character that has believes of god and mythological believes. We as an audience are also shown the razor blades and the imagery of surgical practice when we see the stitching on the man’s head. The theme we are shown in these opening clips is based around both belief of God and also a puzzling theme when we see the elements of crosswords towards the ending of the sequence.	These things are used in order to build a story within the viewers head in order to make sure that the audience becomes interacted and wants to find out what is going to happen throughout the film and the possible twist and turns which they could predict or think are unexpected. Also the imagery shown to present the theme of this title opening sequence shows the distinctive difference between this theme (Thriller) and other themes.
Genre	The clips shown within this short sequence suggests that the film is categorised as a Thriller. This is shown constantly by the red wash that could suggest scenes of danger or blood. Also showing the clips of razor blades suggest scenes of violence/danger.	By using these particular scenes the audience is able to immediately recognise what type of film they are watching and also what type of elements within the film to expect. This therefore helps the audience because they will know not to expect romantic scenes and also scenes of horror.
Camerawork	The title opening sequence that I have been shown consists of many extreme close-ups on each part of action that occurs throughout the short sequence. There is also no movement such as panning within this piece because they want to keep their audience fixated on the important parts of information being shown.	This type of camerawork is used in this sequence in order to capture the action and to make sure that the audience becomes captured within the short sequence. This is shown when the character starts to cross out words within the book in order to suggest a link towards a puzzle and how the film itself will unravel.
Mise-en-scene Lighting Movement Figure Props Costume Colour Cinematography Font Title	The title opening sequence for SE7EN has a constant low lighting perspective throughout each scene shown with some momentary colour washes of red displayed across the screen. We as the audience are also shown brief images of props used by the main character within this title opening sequence such as the razor blade and the sewing needle.  Throughout this particular opening sequence the audience is shown brief glimpses of text we shows information about the actors or other important information that the viewer may or may not be interested in knowing. The font used for these brief titles both small but also looks as though someone has either scratched it or somebody has painted it onto the screen.	This limited usage of increase lighting effects is done in order to make sure that the audience both knows and can acknowledge what genre this particular film will fit under. Also by doing this they managed to keep the audience’s attention on the title sequence because this lighting and lack of movement creates more dramatic tension between the viewer and the opening sequence itself.  These title effects and the font they have decided to use for this particular title opening sequence again adds to the dramatic effects of the music and imagery being shown to the audience throughout. Also the props being shown such as the razor blade could symbolise with the text in that this character could be perhaps scraping the font off or trying to remove it.
Sound	Although there is a particular soundtrack being played throughout the title opening sequence the dramatic effects of this music do not take effect until half way through the sequence when the music starts to intensify by both increasing in pace and increasing in volume.	This effect has been implemented into the opening sequence because these few moments will be the first thing the audience sees and therefore the makers of this film will want to build up a dramatic relationship between the viewer and the film. This particular piece of music has been used because the end of the track we managed to hear of a piece of vocals which is linked to the actions shown by the main character (cutting out the word God) and the lyrics we manage to hear are “Brings Me Closer To God”.  Therefore by making sure that the audience hears this piece of the soundtrack could have a significance to the story they are about to see unravel before their eyes.
Editing	This particular title opening sequence has a mixture of video transitions because towards the start of this piece the first image cuts straight onto the next image that we are shown but we are also shown some usage of a dissolving transition between frames.  This change of effect continues throughout the sequence changing each time whilst showing different parts of the action.	These particular video transitions used within this clip allow the audience to see what is occurring and start to possibly link these together to create a story of the film they are about to see. Also these transitions allow the audience to become more interacted with the title opening sequence due to the tension being created by these video transitions because they’re being thrown from one image then slowly shown another and this cycle continues throughout the momentary clips being shown.

DayDream Editing



Editing Screenshot



Editing Screenshot



















These screenshots show some of the editing process I went through in order to create the final preliminary product which was required in order to continue with this course.