North By Northwest Review

North By Northwest (1959) is an acclaimed thriller from director Alfred Hitchcock written by Ernest Lehman. The film shows the hectic life of Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) when his identity gets mistaken for a stranger. Thus begins the wild cat and mouse chase between Thornhill and his new found nemesis'  Philip Vandamm played by James Mason; . He then bumps into a mysterious women by the name of Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who assists him on his quest to find the man whom he is mistaken for.

North By Northwest is an example of the portrayal of a thriller. As said by Hitchcock " A thriller is a villain driven plot, whereby he presents obstacles the hero must overcome." It's fast pace with frequent action and includes many cliffhangers. Every scene Hitchcok filmed was heavily planned visually in advance. He even learned the script to his film. This movie fits into many of the thriller sub genres. like mystery, drama and action. The combination of romance, violence and a constant speculation on who this mysterious George Kaplan is, who Roger Thornhill is mistaken for. This create a thrill ride for the audience, because all aspects are fused into one film. It also includes frequent thriller devices such as:

Red Herring - In this scene the audience is lead to believe that Eve Kendall had shot Roger Thornhill. However, the whole dramatic act was fake. As Eve pretends to fire a shot at Roger, and he falls down; which misleads the audience causing confusion.
     

Cliffhanger - At the end of the movie, the suspenseful chase between the heroes and the villain concludes as Eve is hanging off Mount Rushmore. The audience is tense as they do not know whether she will fall or not or if Roger will will reach his hand far enough to save her.











Suspense - The crop scene contains the most tension and action. Roger is chased down by a malicious crop duster trying to kill him. He then seeks help from an incoming lorry which looks like is going to run him over. This heightens the viewers anxiety, because of the unknown conclusion.











1).  Equilibrium
Moreover, as other movies this fits into Todorov's Narrative Theory also, as following:
The state of equilibrium being Roger carrying out his daily errands his assistant.

2). Disruption
Then the disruption occurs when Roger Thornhill's schedule doesn't occur as expected. When two men stop him while one of them one s a gun to his chest threatening to kill him unless Roger follows them.

3). Recognition
Roger recognizes that the disruption has occurred, once he realizes that they think he is George Kaplan and Roger knows this is a mistake. He is taken to a mysterious house where the villains force him to get drunk.

4). Reparation

Afterwards, Roger goes on a quest to find George Kaplan. He tries to get the villainous Vandamm captured and arrested by the police.  

5). Return to Equilibrium 

Roger starts a new life with Eve after he beats Vandamm. 

Past Student Thrillers

The following are my reviews and interpretation of the past student thrillers.

4 - Excellent
3 - Good
2 - Basic
1 - Poor

Power Cut 

This short thriller is very poorly and clumsily made, from the setting to the plot. The use of the setting was extremely basic and unsuccessful, when it comes to giving it a feel of a working office it was entirely unbelievable. The unnecessary use of black and white gave no substance to the story, there was no reason for it.  However, they had good use of camera work at the start of the film with the panning and transitions. So overall,  I would give this a score of 2.




Hunter

The short film 'Hunter' shows a good representation of a well constructed thriller. The costumes are well compelled, as they portray the characters perfectly. The casting has been picked appropriately and the setting fits the story. They impressively used the bat successfully by showing it from the front making it more believable. The only issue with this is that the conversation between the detective and the PE teacher went on until it became tedious. I rated this a 3.




The Routine 

The Routine has a wide range of camera techniques, and they are all done triumphantly. Including a rolling shot and also a point of view shot at the end used to create suspense and an original take on what would of being an ordinary shot of someone walking. The shots taking with a mirror is hard to achieve without showing the camera in it to. Especially the shot with the villain in the mirror gave an element of surprise and shock to the audience. The editing was competent; even though the editing was simple it made an impact. The concept of the film and plot was adequately done to the point where it became a psychological thriller, adding great substance and story.  I gave this a 4 because of the great effort put in.

Editing

Editing is the process of going through all of the footage that has been made and placing it in the order desired, joining it all together. There are two areas that are the main focuses: speed and style.

Speed

In a film each scene could last for a few seconds or minutes. The time of the shot may vary according to what the mood of the film is making. If the pace of the film is heightened with quick editing this illustrates suspense and frequent action taking place. The scene shots will change frequently also, this speed of editing occurs mostly with thrillers and action films, for example The Avengers Assemble and The Bourne Ultimatum. 

If a more chilled mood is wanted, the scene will be considerably longer with less cuts and not so frequent scene changes. This speed of editing occurs widely with romantic comedies, for example (500) Days of Summer and Crazy, Stupid Love. 

Style

The transition from one scene to the next can be conducted in different ways.

Straight Cut

Most common when trying to subtly change from one shot to the next. Straight cuts are not acknowledged  by the audience, which helps maintain a sense of reality.  

Dissolve
This is when one shot fades out while the other shot gradually fades in. The audience is able to see both shots in one frame at the mid point of the dissolve. The dissolve effect is used to show how a period of time has passed between these two scene. 

Fade
When a shot is fading it progressively lightens or darkens the image until it become completely black or white, This can signify someone passing out, dying etc. Fade ins occur during the start of the film and fades out are the opposite.






Wipes
One image is replaced by another in the frame
with a vertical/horizontal line or any other shape. The most famous use of this transition was George Lucas' Star Wars franchise.

Jump Cut
This style of editing breaks the continuity method. Jump cuts are not favored by directors this is because of the continuity error it comes across. When a jump cut is used it can be seen profoundly as it looks like a large section of the movie has been removed.


Graphic Match 
This technique is used to transition one scene to the next fluently, using two shapes or objects that look similar to each other. It's designed to be subtle, so the audience can't see the change of scene.
                           












Shot/Reverse Shot
This editing skill is often used to portray conversations or arguments happening between characters. One character is shown looking at another character, then in the next shot the character is looking at the initial character.













Match-on-action
This is when the editor takes two separate shots of an action, that starts in one scene and finishes in the next, and places them together seamlessly.













Eye-line Match
When we see a character looking at something that is off screen. The camera then follows the characters gaze at the thing they are looking at.










Continuity
The initial establishment of this style of editing is to create a realistic coherency. That gives a logical sense of time moving forward, this is achieved with smooth cuts between shots.






The 180 Degree Rule
A guideline that illustrates how a scene should be taken when two characters are in the same scene. It states how the characters should always stay at the same position as they were from shot to shot, whether that be left or right from each other. If the camera should pass over the dotted line shown in the diagram this is called crossing the line.

Sound Exercise

We used a technique that allowed the punch to look more realistic by getting the angle shot from behind the girl. Where we edited in the punch sound effect so it is more believable.

We used the boom mic so the viewer could hear what was being said more clearly and louder. This was used to a great advantage and was used effectively especially for a exercise  that revolves around sound. During the making of the film we deeply considered our used of diegetic and non diegetic sounds. The non diegetic sound was the end credit music, that we added in. The diegetic sounds was the dialogue between the two people and myself. Also the punch sound effect was also a diegetic sound, because it was within the world of the short film. The off screen sound was the knocking on the door. Unfortunately we did not get the opportunity to utilize any contrapuntal sounds or a sound bridge. However we did get to insert a sound clip, which reflected the mood of the story, with the Eastenders theme tune. Overall I think that the positive elements of our film was the many uses of sound techniques we used. I would however improve this by adding a sound bridge or contrapuntal sounds.

Preliminary Exercise

In this task we were assigned to experiment with editing techniques: Match-on-action, Eye-line match, 180 degree and shot reverse shot and an additional graphic match, which was not compulsory. Furthermore, we successfully completed all of these styles of editing in our exercise.

Firstly, we used a graphic match with a watch and a clock, as the are both very similar in shape and uses of time. However because the sizes of the watch was far off from the size of the clock, the clock came out of line with the watch. However, the concept was achieved.

Secondly, we incorporated the eye line match into our work by having a shot of our actress looking at the report card. Then the report card all in one shot, so the audience can see what she's looking at. 

Thirdly, we used match on action twice. Once for when the actor gets out of the chair, and again for when she goes out the door. With the precise editing and camera work, I think we achieved this very 

effectively.  

In this assignment I think we made very little mistakes and we executed each editing technique very well. Some positive elements was the match on action because of how it seamlessly went together, with the editing,. However, I would improve the graphic match because it wasn't constructed as well as I wanted it to be.