Spoiler Review: The Bodyguard

The film The Bodyguard is a love story between two completely contrasting characters who build up their relationship through protection, reassurance and trust. The romance between Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston builds constantly and realistically from the beginning until the end of the film. 

The story begins by a pop-singer Rachel Marron (Houston) receiving damaging and dangerous threats by a mysterious person. Former secret service agent Frank Farmer (Costner) is hired to protect the star at all times. Rachel has a mid-aged 'stalker' from beginning until end, who creepily keeps photos of her in his locker, follows her at all of her shows and tries his best to succeed in getting close in distance to her.

The audience strongly believes that it is Rachel's 'stalker' who is creating harm due to him being obsessed with her, but it is fact a man named Portman who was angry with her for not sleeping with him and rejecting him. He tries to scare her for revenge for not having sex with him.

The plot is revealed at the end when Rachel's bodyguard Frank is provided with information concluding it is not the stalker who is delivering threats. He comes to a realisation that Portman is the one threatening Rachel as he sees him pretending to be a camera man to disguise the gun he is holding; preparing to shoot the pop-star. 

The Bodyguard is successful in being a thriller as it constantly keeps the audience on edge due to the significant amount of tension and spooky atmosphere that flows from beginning to end. Because the film misleads the audience to thinking that Rachel’s 'stalker' was the male obsessed with her, it shows that it is important for the audience to have their own interpretation and scenario of the film. 

I would give this film 5 stars as it is one of my personal favourites and the plot is absolutely incredible because it is such an original romantic thriller, which is an unusual combination of genres.

Conventions of a Thriller

This is a mind map to show conventions of a Thriller. Thriller films are most successful by adding in effective: locations and settings, mood and atmosphere, characters and props. 

This will be helpful for me when I come to make my own thriller film in groups, this is because I can look back on this mind-map and make sure I have tried my best to succeed in adding everything from this mind-map or referencing.

Falling Down

(The sound starts from 00:38 seconds until 01:10)

For this task, we had to work in pairs (myself and Ellis Blunden) and edit a video of 'Falling Down'. We had to add the appropriate foley sounds to at least 30 seconds of the 7 minute clip. We used the programme Garage Band to complete this task. We had to add in at least 4 layers of sound to our 30 second clip. The whole point of the layers was to overlap sounds to add effect. Our sounds included: heaving breathing, children's voices, phone vibrating, radio, car horns and car door slamming.

This task enabled me to have more practice and understand how to add extra sounds and layers onto clips of films. I learnt how to adjust the volume, fade sounds in and out and also add several layers of sound. 

To improve this, I could continue to add more layers of sound and also experient with sounds and make them more unusual than the ones I have already used.

Paranoia

Our task was to create a video called 'Paranoia' within group of four. My group consisted of myself, Kieran Rundle, Jack Street and Tanaka Tiriboyi. The task was to film different clips which were noted on the task brief. This included the angle of which the clip had to be shot and also what happens in the shot; e.g expressions and actions.

• Rule of Thirds
• Head Room
• Leading Room
• Framing Shots
• Manual Controls 
• 180 Degree Rule

This was the first filming task we had been set, and we had our first experience of using the professional cameras. We learnt how to set up the cameras manually and also how to work the cameras so we could record on them. This gave us practice of using the professional cameras and help us for future reference for filming. We had to use a variety of shots involving: Rule of thirds, Head room, Leading room, Framing shots, Manual controls and 180 degree rule.

Location Recce Video Selfie

Our task was to take a trip up to London and find a suitable location to film our own thriller films. This meant finding a location that was: in the city, an urban area, isolated, and enclosed within London. As well as this, most importantly thinking about how Mise-En-Scene can work well with our location. The whole point of this task was to get our chosen location on camera for when we come to deciding on where to film for the actual film later on in date.
I chose to film mine in this location in London, because it was right next to the Shard therefore very central within the city which is where Thriller films are set. This area was very busy with people constantly walking past and traffic not far from the location. A chase scene would be great for this setting as people are near by and also a range of buildings, used as well as abandoned which adds to the tension even more.
This location included being in an alley with scaffolding and security around the outside, which is often found appearing in Thriller films.

Here are the photos I took whilst being at the location:

Iconography of a Thriller

Dexter Remake

For this task, we put ourselves into groups of four where we had our first experience of filming in production teams. I helped shoot this film but completed the evidence by editing it myself. Jack Street, Kieran Rundle and Tanaka Tiriboyi were also included within the filming. This involved going to one persons house and using props to remake the opening sequence of Dexter. The purpose of this was to improve our camera shots as well as our camera skills. My camera work and editing has improved a lot since my Paranoia film. From filming Dexter, I have learned how a camera is used to show power and I also know how to gender a camera. This was put into practice in this film as most of the shots are masculine.

The first shot is a close up which is purposely out of focus on Jack's face so the audience concentrates more on him hitting his arm to get the 'fly' off. The second shot is an extreme close up to focus on Jack's actions as he is using a sharp object against his skin, immediately making the audience question if something bad is going to happen such as cutting himself shaving on his neck. The third shot is also an extreme close up to show the blood dripping down Jack's neck where he has cut himself shaving. The fourth shot is blood dripping onto the sink which is slightly more zoomed out to show it is dropping fro a distance from his neck. The fifth shot is also slightly more zoomed out to show all of the blood soaking into the background. The majority of all of the shots are zoomed in, similar to the actual Dexter opening sequence. In most zoomed in shots, we have blurred out the background to show the actions are the most important part that the audience should be focusing on. The final shot is a long shot as it is very zoomed out to fit Jack's whole body in and also the location he is in - but at the same time still making it visible to recognise his facial expressions.

To improve this film, I would make the sound sync more with the actions taking place and also make the edit to a higher quality by making the film sharper.
(The grey screen at the beginning is the 'Dexter' wording used in the actual opening sequence, it played smoothly with no grey screen on Final Cut Pro but when it was uploaded to Youtube, a grey screen appeared even though it was rendered).