Mood Boards

This is an image taken from the film Zodiac (2007). The image follows the conventions of stylistic shots as well as it being at night. The darkness obscures the setting and it gives a slightly mysterious and hostile undertone to the scene. You can see from the developments of the roads and buildings that the setting is in an urban place, which again follows the conventions of a neo-noir crime genre. There tends to be a lot of vehicles in the openings of neo-noir films as they establish the setting by driving around the surrounding area. The rule of thirds has been used to put the cars on the right side of the shot, and much of the surroundings of the shot are obscured in darkness, the lighting from the cars are creating an eerie tense situation, as they are drawing a lot of attention to themselves by being this beacon in the middle of the darkness. The lighting itself also obscures the aspects of the shot, the car behind the first one is still very obscure because of the bright lighting making the characters and the audience unsure of who is in the second car.

This image is from the opening of the movie Seven. The image shows two hands on a piece of paper, it is presented to be in a dark crime setting, this is denoted by how it looks like to be a picture in the form of evidence for a crime. Most of the shot is obscured by darkness, this also makes the text on the screen much easier to read. The hands look very disfigured and creates a feeling of uneasiness, this implies that these hands belong to a criminal or perhaps the antagonist in the film. This one frame can easily show that this film will be in the genre of crime and possibly horror or thriller. There is a green hue on this frame which can connote quite an uneasy feeling, since it is associated with things like disease and poisons. This follows the connotations of a typical film opening as it has opening credits.

This is taken from Sin City, this shows denotations and connotations of a crime drama/thriller. There is a man wearing a suit and holding a gun. This gives off the impression that he is some kind of professional criminal or law enforcer, the suppressor on the gun also shows he is somewhat discreet and therefore clever about the crimes that he commits. There are very limited colours, most of the image is in grey scale and there is a splash of red for the woman's dress. Red can connote danger. blood or passion. The grey scale and dark setting as well as the rain makes them seem isolated, and it can denote that the equilibrium has been disturbed.

This is taken from The Woman in Black, this one frame can easily show the audience that this is a horror genre. There are many dead trees, as well as the gravestone this denotes that there is a strong theme of death. The bland grey-like colours also connote the lack of any happiness and adds to the feeling of death and isolation. The woman is wearing black, which is traditionally worn to funerals again adding to the theme of death and darkness. The area looks hostile, the environment the woman is in makes her look hostile as well, she is fairly obscured by the many trees and bushes making her seem like a mystery. The woods is a very cliche setting for a horror, this is because it is so easily accessible to many people as well as being very effective at the same time. This has inspired us to do our film in a location such as this. The use of colours and location has been done extremely effectively and it is something that we intend to make use of in our own production. The image uses the rule of thirds effectively and it makes it seem much more effective when she is standing just off centre, if we were to use this in our opening sequence we could use the negative space (in this case to the left of the frame) this is where we could put our text.

This was taken from Orphan. The setting in this frame is in the woods, which also appears largely withered. This further reinforces that the cliche of horror tends to be in an isolated woods. The colours used again tend to be mostly on the grey scale (white to black) with no real bright or primary colours. The only real different colours there is, are the ones present on the hammer (brown and red) this draws the audiences attention to what is in her hand and makes her seem more threatening and hostile. The use of colours on to draw the audiences attention to certain objects is something is something we could possibly use in our own production. She is in the foreground of the frame, with the woods obscured in the background because of the depth of field. It allows us to focus on the current situation while also understanding where the setting is as well. She is standing just off centre, creating some negative space this makes the shot look better as it is simple yet effective.