childhood memory story board

Zodiac still

Casting:

• May 
• Michelle 
• Bamm 
• Jenny

Editing: Jenny

Camera work: Saimink

Zodiac watch drawn by Bamm

other shots can be found in this google drive ⇨  link

Zodiac

Serial killer thriller genre

this film is based on the real story of the zodiac killer in the late 1960s. The narrative in this film is differ from what other serial killer genres are.

How other serial killer genre plot develops

usually starts with a calm atmosphere ➡ the first victim appears ➡ investigation takes place 

➡ second victim appears ➡ the two cases are linked together ➡ tracking down the serial killer

➡ KILLS the serial killer ➡ closure

How Zodiac use the serial killer conventions

1. there is no closure ⇾ never caught the serial killer
2. the film starts with killing 
3. the investigators are never in control

Conventions of thriller

please click on this link to go to the presentation

conventional credits structure

by using the orders seen in panic room opening credits

THIS is the film opening credits structure:

identify and analyse 8 shot from the clip

An extreme long shot of a robber’s car that is driving away from the police, continues from the last shot where the robber is driving out of the car park. This position also is the police kind of point of view, to see that the robbers are getting away into a distance, meaning they are losing them.

A bird’s eye panning shot of the whole bank showing the workers who are walking all around and working on a computer. It looks just like busy normal day before something bad happened. This shot also show how many people are in the bank at the time, it makes me think the robbers are quite confident in their plan setting up their robbery in the midday

This is a big close-up of one of the robbery’s eyes while he is walking casually in the bank full of people and some guards. They trying to tell us the robbers are aware of how dangerous it is to do this job, every robbers in the gang are looking at the possible threat to them such as the guards and polices while acing calm and unsuspicious by only use their eyes.

This is the close-up shot of the robber tying up the guard’s hands. Although it’s a close-up, it isn’t focusing on this shot for too long before going back to the long shot of everything being secure for the robbers to start the robbery plan. It’s like a shot for us to see that, yeah, the guards that are supposed to secure the bank safety get captured completely by the robbers in a short amount of time.

This shot is a medium kind of high angle shot of the robber’s back look down to the small people that are looking toward him in fear. The power of his compares to other people in this shot is very high. The camera movement follows his slowly walking pace tells me that the robbers are not worrying and they had all of the people in the bank in the palm of their hands

A medium long tracking shot of the robber with the background of all other normal people. It tells me that the robber is blending in with the other normal people, but he is still the most important person in that shot, so they need to move the camera along with him to tell us he’s still here

This big close-up of one of the police, hiding from the bullets from the robber from the previous scene while trying to attack back. The camera is very shaky and blurred, it explained how chaos the situation is.

An extreme long shot of one of the robber getting shot somewhere around the neck from the perspective of his friend. He’s alone, in pain, helpless, far away from his friend, and looks like he can be dead at any moment, gives the feeling of afraid to lose something important.

Understanding horror genre (in class)

       The three main points written on the board are personal fears, parents’ worries, and society’s fear. We came up with many types of fear we could think of, and many of them we can find the movies in the thriller genre.

All horror films are made based on existing fear.

These are the example of movies that play with the fear of chaos.

        The walking dead involve surviving through zombies and untrusted people. There are less food resource, water, and living creatures. Everything that controls people vanished, which let the aggressive group of people be able to express themselves: stealing, attacking and killing, which drives the world to a sudden chaos.

        The film also includes many other fears in it, such as losing; when the friends and family are dead while surviving from zombies or from bad people. 

Analysing Children of Men OPENING in class

SETTING

• London, 16th November 2027
• old red bus in 2027(?)
• on a busy hour in the morning
• the city is DULL grey, shabby - dust
• police presence and military helicopter indicate that the city is dangerous

• there are these vehicles in London (Asian influence?)

SOUND

• diegetic sound, there is no non-diegetic sound
• sounds of the news reporters speaking at the beginning of the film opening with black screen

FORESHADOWING

the word 'attack' written on the van foreshadows the explosion at the end of the film opening.

MAIN CHARACTER

the main character in the opening is the man wearing dark, shabby clothes that doesn't shave, who walks in the coffee shop through the other people that are standing still watching the TV. He isn't interest in the news. The camera follows his movement out of the coffee shop and take a shot of him mixing his coffee with alcohol (in the morning).

Enigma Questions

• according to the news in the film stating that the world youngest person died, why are there no babies since 2009?
• why doesn't the main character cares about the news like anyone else?
• and why is Diego's death so important?
• why is the main character drinking in the morning?
• who blew up the coffee shop? and why?