3 Days Developed Idea
A presentation by Tony Buchholtz
3 DAYS Plot: Camera, crime board, a stranger hiding behind the trees. When Manjana discovered she is being watched, time is running out for her. “You have 3 days manjana, enfoy them.�
MACRO ELEMENTS/ SYMBOLIC CODES & CONVENTIONS
NARRATIVE CONVENTIONS -HERODEFINITION: • The PROTAGONIST of the story • Main character in the film • Saves the day
Manjana is something like the HERO in our film. Although she seems to be the victim in the first place and in the end dies, you have to consider that our film is only the beginning of a movie and especially the ending where Manjana wakes up as a ghost indicates that a longer story will follow with her as a main character in it. She may not save the day as the conventional hero would but she will seek her revenge at the people who make the world a worse place than it actually is and seeks revenge for those who have been treated unfair. Something like a revenge angel.
You could compare her with Samara who was suffering under the control of others and when she finally was killed she came back to seek revenge and to tell others her story.
NARRATIVE CONVENTIONS VILLAIN
Elisa is the stalker that follows DEFINITION: • Makes HERO’s life more difficult Manjana. She represents the VILLAIN and stands symbolically for all the • The ANTAGONIST of the film criminals treaty other human beings • Causes imbalance unfairly and even murder them in Manjanas case. Although if you consider the continuation of the film after our entrance sequence you will discover that the jump from villain to victim is not as big as you would think it is considering Manjanas revenge thought. The emotion of fear will be created by a crime board showing all the pictures the stalker took of her victim and a voice over narrated by the villain to create tension as it reports her stalking on the victim and how close the date of her death is.
There are numerous horror films including stalkers. One example being Someone’s Watching Me!, written and directed by John Carpenter in 1978. Although the stalker in this film shows himself to the victim through presents and hints while the on in our film stays unnoticed by the victim until the end, the story line is very similar. Especially when it comes to the final chase.
NARRATIVE CONVENTIONS PSYCHOLOGICAL horror films are identified by certain hints:
characters fear
guilt
emotional instability
sometimes the supernatural
Our film covers the Sub-Genre Psychological Horror as the constant building up of tension through the stalking creates emotional instability in the audience and supports the increasing feeling of being watched them selves while watching the film. The innocence of the victim makes you feel sorry and guilty for her and provokes possible memories of hurting someone yourself in the past. Adding to that the anger towards the stalker rises within the audience throughout the film when the running out of time comes closer and closer. In the end scene the supernatural part of our film comes through when Manjana awakes from the death as a ghostlike figure, having black eyes and the blood still all over her. You could compare it to THE RING -2002- by Gore Verbinski as the same emotions are triggered through the brutal story of the little Samara Morgan.
LOCATION CODES ISOLATED/ SECLUDED PLACES •
Woods
•
Cave
•
Countryside
•
Deserted city
•
Paranoia
In 3 Days the main locations are every day locations like the supermarket or the house. However, we tried to get as less people in the film as possible to create the feeling of isolation in society and to represent the vulnerablility of a single girl when there is no one willing to help her. Furthermore the closed door in the end partly represents the rejection of help from society and partly provokes emotions of paranoia and claustrophobia in the audience. THE RING uses similar lonely locations to support the feeling of paranoia especially in the well in which Samara dies in, the claustrophobia aspect comes through together with the lack of help from society.
PROPS/ SIGNIFIERS CODES & CONVENTIONS
Weapons are used to represent the weakness and vulnerability of the human body and illustrate how many different ways there are to kill someone physically or mentally.
In our final film 3 days the main weapons are the knive with which Manjana is killed in the end, the crime board on which the stalker sticks the photos and the camera which represents the psychological weapon the stalker possesses in order to kill her victim, however the camera it self is never shown, only the pictures that came out afterwards. In THE RING Samara‘s tape is the source of evil that causes the death of Kati, in our final film the camera is something like the silent shadow of the story following and documenting every step of it like the tape follows Samara‘s story
MICRO ELEMENTS/ TECHNICAL CODES & CONVENTIONS
SOUND
Voice over is used to create the feeling of time fading away through diagetic sound
Voice over is recorded in German to make the villain seem further away from the audience
Makes the stalker more dangerous and anonym
Own composition is used to create tension through non-diagetic sound
EDITING
Parallel editing used to build up tension and provoke fear through the crime board and the shots of Manjana at the same time
Followed the 180-degree rule
Overlapped the end scene to represent Manjana as a ghost
Used Jump-cut to represent time going faster to build tension
Filter used to represent video camera in the building
MISE-EN-SCENE
Bright light during the scenes with Manjana
Darker, less well light scenes when it come to the end scenes
Manjana wears light clothing and her hair open to create youth and innocence paired with the weakness and vulnerability which is represented by her style of clothing (e.g. trainers)
The stalker is represented completely in balck and always looks down to keep anonym which is why she also wears a hoodie
CAMERA WORK
Low-angle shots for the stalker to represent the danger
High-angle shots for Manjana to represent her vulnerability and weakness
The video camera shots in the building are positioned like a real video camera in a shop
The track in the chasing scene and the long shots at the parking area support the speed of the chase and represent the fear Manjana is experiencing in those moments
EXAMPLE THE RING In this youtube video clip of THE RING „ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEk9Wfvzf8A“ Noah dies as a result of Samara‘s video tape. Very loud and unnaturally sounding diagetic sound is used to make everything seem a lot louder than it actually would be to trigger an emotion of something bad is going to happen and the audience does not know what and how. This is similar to our voice over because it does tell you something is going to happen in 3 days but you do not know how and what. The shot are getting faster and faster to build up tension while the audience does not get to see Noah‘s face after Samara left until the very end when you realise he is dead. This is similar to the end scene of 3 Days when Manjana opens her eyes and you can see they are balck, dead. The lighning is very agressive and not equally split in the room.