Detailed Treatment

As we fade in, we notice a woman who is sitting quietly in the corner of the room, cramped and issolated. She was wearing a straight jacket and was rocking back and forth, to connote madness and loss of sanity. A high angled shot helped to show how belittled she feels as the audience is looking down apon this woman, also the room is dimly lit and a non-diagetic music will be playing to emphasise the tension within the room.

After zooming into the womans face, a transaction takes place; a white flash which leads into the title sequence. The music is still playing at this point as we were still unsure of what is happening within the scene. There is another non-diagetic sound within this transaction, which is a school bell, this indicates the awareness of what has just happened and the surroundings. The title Voices pops up through the white screen. The word 'voices' made an audience think about what happened throughout the movie.

The white then fades into a fog like substance and analeptic jump comes into view when we see the exact same woman as before. Sky, 15 years of age, is walking through park at dusk. Wearing a school uniform and carrying a bag and books, a wide angled and panning shot was watching the young woman walking through the dark,dingy and dismal walk through leading to the park. She fast fowarded a few times, to create that aura of suspition and confussion, yet the audience do not suspect her as a threat or a victim.

Getting closer to the camera, the woman finally stops when the camera was close-up, the camera then zooms into her eyes for the reaction and then some diagetic sound comes into play. The darkness of outside means a little bit of light would be needed so that we can see the eyes to help us capture the image. Until this point the music is still be playing, but queitly, which shows the link between the first section to this section after the title sequence.

Whilst she is walking, and stopping on the odd occasion, a person was amongst the trees is watching the young maiden.

When all of that has been astablished, we then have that flash of white again, which goes into the young girl in a straight jacket and into the corner again. The music comes back on, still queit, and the camera zoomed into her, getting closer, to build up more tension then needed, but the lighting doesn't change from the first time we see this image, as it shows the link between the the analeptic jumps. We added the flash for the end of this section to help know that it is the end of the image.

Coming back to the young woman walking, we used tracking shot as she pace's herself a little faster as she is spooked because of what had just happened. She turns around and there behind her is a friend. The lighting is of the sun setting as we wanted it to be natural light (from outside) because it gives all sorts of atmosphere's. We also hear the girl out of breathe to clarify that she is scared.

As the music gets louder, a close-up of the characters miming a conversation came into play, we then jumped cut into the mantrying to talk her into loving him.
The music softens again as there was a mid-shot of the young girl getting up to running away. A close-up of the mans face was then shown on the screen as he is angry. A diagetic sound came out of the mans mouth.

We track the girl for a while, then the camera turned around to her face as she was holding the camera to give the effect that the audience are running with her. No music was playing anymore, but we heard the sound of her breath and the non-diagetic sound of 'voices'.

Still holding the camera, the girl falls down and is then unconsious, this gives the effect that we are with her at the time of the confusion.

Technique Anaylsis

Louis Lumiere, a frenchman, is often noted for his invention, which is the first motion picture in 1895, even though there were many other similar inventions made around the same time. Lumiere's creation was a portable motion-picture camera, a film processing unit and a projector called the Cinematographe. There are three things which is covered in one invention.

Films then advanced into into the 1900's from moving picture's to black and white silent movie's. The thriller/horror in black and white tended to be comical, as the villan would get a pie in their face, and the usual damsel in destress would eventually be tyed to a rail-road track. Within the early 1900's camera angles were simplistic, as they were not technalogically advanced as us nowadays. The sounds were generally non-diagetic, as all the sound would be was music over the silience. Transactions where used alot as writing would pop up for the sudience to know what was being mimed.

Now we are in 21st century technology has advanced steeply. Films are in colour, they have both diagetic and non-diagetic sounds, e.g. dialogue and music, and we have now special effects, just like in Star Wars. Star Wars has many diegetic sounds which is the dialogue, it has non-diagetic sounds when the lightsabre's and guns are in action. The film Star Wars is a good example as it has been through many stages of technology; With the early years came film 4-6, then they decided to make 1-3. There is a definate difference with the way the later films look to the earlier films as they were film over many many years. But also with the 6 films comes the new animated movie Clone Wars, which is simply most of the movies placed together.

Genre Conventions

Lighting

The lighting within any type of thriller is usaully a colour that connotates something, for example, a dark alley way can connote suspition, death or even violence. Whereas in any typical romantic film you might have a red light to connote lust.

Sounds

For a thriller, as an audience, we gennerally notice alot of non-diagetic sounds, such as; music. This helps to create that certain aura that the director is trying to bring across, leaving the audience in a state of shock or unsure.

Editing

Editing is quite simple throughout a thriller, as you would want to keep the viewers on the edge of their seats, and by doing that, jump cuts would be used, with the occassional transaction like disolving - but only at the end of a section would you use a transaction like disolve otherwise it could get to complex.

Changes in Convention of the Thriller Genre

Over the later years of film making, psychological thrillers have grabbed the attention of an audience better then the average love film, for example, on Rateitall.com the average psychological thriller is rated somewhere between 4 or 5 out of 5.

Going back to the early years of film making, where setting and acting was abysmal, the psychological thrillers, such as Blackmail (1929; Directed by Alfred Hitchcock) didn’t seem to make a good impression on a wide audience as the industry lacked the understanding, knowledge and expertise that makes a better class of psychological thrillers as we know today, for example The Others (2001; Directed by Alejandro Amenabar).

Synoptic Treatment

The Voices

The whole film is based on a psychological thriller, which will most defiantly leave you with the hairs standing up on the back of your neck. Similar to The Secret Window (2004; Directed by David Koepp), I recommend watching The Voices, as both plots are a mystery and keeps your mind ticking throughout.

The structure of this film has such an intriguing atmosphere that The Voices can change your perspective on many things, such as the way you think. It creates an aura of madness, not confusion, throughout the film as the tension builds up with underlying tones of music and voices, along with atmospheric lighting. Another film in which the structure is psychological, is American Psycho (2000; Directed by Mary Harron), as the plot unravels as it gets deeper into the movie.

Zooming straight into the first scene, a young girl, Sky, approximately 16 years of age, is walking through a dark, dingy and dismal park, when she comes across this dim figure. After approaching this ‘dim’ figure, she immediately runs off.

After that excitement, the camera ends up somewhere we all know is not at all cheerful. Using a 360-degree turn around this particular room, we see Sky in the corner, looking pastier then ever. Flashing back, we then notice how she ends up in the place that she is, but when the present time pops up occasionally, we discover that she has only one visitor.

Years pass by and Sky leaves this place, but decides to take her revenge.

Who is this ‘dim’ figure? Where does she end up? Who is this visitor? And why does she wish to take revenge? All these questions can be answered by watching the movie.

There is no particular scene in this movie that is unique, as with out all of it, it would not be understood the way it should be, therefore every single part is as important and unique as the story unfolds scene by scene.

The genre, psychological thriller, has been used very carefully to create the apprehension and anxiety for the audience to be hooked, just like the film The Ring (2002; Directed by Gore Verbinski). After personally watching other psychological thrillers, I wouldn’t put this genre on the top of my list, but due to watching The Voices it has changed my perspective on this type of genre, as I find that it keeps the audience on the edge of their seats until the final moment; whereas in some other genres the audience can tend to get bored after the first forty-five minutes.

Finding many other psychological thrillers dull, such as The Grudge (2004; Directed by Takashi Shimizu), I can certainly say that The Voices does not come into that category, as to previous reasons mentioned. The acting and scenery has captured the eyes of many other film directors, so hopefully we will be seeing something just as fantastic in the future due to the heat of the competition. The Voices has all the right formula for the inquisitive mind, which enjoys solving riddles. Therefore I would give this a top five star rating.

History of Trailors

The films that make film makers open to different choices in my opinion are ‘Flags of our Fathers’, ‘City of God’ and ‘Sleepy Hollow’, which are three completely different styles of films.

Within ‘Flags of our Fathers’ the analeptic opening is of a dream sequence or a memory, which is then interrupted by the awakening of an old man. The dream consists of a one man in battle, with nothing around him apart from smoke and the earth. When the man is running; trying to find his way out (as if he is lost) we hear muffled voices, which connotes that the man cannot get out of were he is – he is lost forever. This film has many choices to use, such as the dream sequence. The opening creates tension, as the audience are unaware of what is happening until we come across the old man, which then makes us think that he’s had something on his mind ever since that day.

Next is ‘City of God’ where we see a merge of cuts between the chicken, the death of other chickens and the dancing and music of the people. This creates that aura of suspension for the chicken, as we think he will be chopped up like the others. But when it comes to the time of his death, there is that sigh of relief because the chicken manages to set himself free, yet as he is running off we again are on the edge of our seats due to the fact that the people run after it. We then come to a boy, who is a main part as he is in the title sequence, and is asked to try and catch the chicken with out scaring it. As the camera circles around him, we go to an immediate analeptic jump, as it reminds the main character of his childhood trauma of letting down his friends, which is ironic due to the fact that he cannot let the people down with this chicken or he might get shot. ‘City of God’ has a weird opening in my eyes as I had know idea what was going to happen next.

‘Sleepy Hollow’, unlike ‘Flags of our Fathers’ and ‘City of God’, creates that sort of horror atmosphere. The title sequence at first helps that, as the names/ titles are surrounded by fog and has mysterious non-diagetic music. To help create that horror and tension, the director has a series of close ups and extreme close ups to make us question what is happening, for example, drops of red liquid make an audience think it is blood, but as we get into the film, we notice it is candle wax for a seal. Then we come to the tense part, as it links to the title sequence as there is fog surrounding a carriage. Throughout ‘Sleepy Hollow’ we never get a moments piece, because of the atmosphere.

All these openings of have different influences on the mind, all being good in their own way, but they also have influences for directors as every good director looks at different openings to take piece’s and ideas and that is what we will do as media students too.