Mainstream Production companies

Paramount

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production/distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Paramount is consistently ranked as one of the largest (top-grossing) movie studios. Paramount Pictures can trace its beginning to the creation in May 1912 of the Famous Players Film Company. Founder Hungarian-born Adolph Zukor who had been an early investor in nickelodeons, saw that movies appealed mainly to working-class immigrant. With partners Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman he planned to offer feature-length films that would appeal to the middle class by featuring the leading theatrical players of the time (leading to the slogan "Famous Players in Famous Plays"). By mid-1913, Famous Players had completed five films, and Zukor was on his way to success.

DreamWorks

DreamWorks Animation is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming. It has produced or distributed more than ten films with box-office grosses totaling more than $100 million each.
Although the studio also made traditionally animated films about serious subjects earlier, such as The Prince of Egypt, Joseph: King of Dreams, The Road to El Dorado, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, most of their computer-generated films and television series have now gained the studio a reputation for being focused on humor and satire although their most successful recent franchises have it balanced with more dramatic narratives. On October 12, 1994, DreamWorks SKG was formed and founded by a trio of entertainment players, director and producer Steven Spielberg, music executive David Geffen, and former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg.

New studio has attracted many artists from Spielberg's animation studio. The first joined in 1995, when the last feature was completed,  and the rest came in 1997, when the studio had shut down.

20^th Century Fox

The company was founded on May 31, 1935, as the result of the merger of Fox Film Corporation, founded by William Fox in 1915, and Twentieth Century Pictures, founded in 1933 by Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck, Raymond Griffith and William Goetz.

20th Century Fox's most popular film franchises include Avatar, Star Wars, Ice Age, Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, X-Men, Die Hard, Alien, Speed, Revenge of the Nerds, Planet of the Apes, Home Alone, Dr. Dolittle, Night at the Museum, Predator, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and The Chronicles of Narnia, plus famous TV shows such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad.

Psycho Notes

Notes i made whilst watching Psycho;

Mise en scene

·         Credits come in  jolty, stabbing movement

·         Blinds closed  - secretive

·         First scene of Marion and Sam, very intimate

·         Location – Phoenix, Arizona

·         Window half open so can’t see clearly, Hitchcock likes to hide as much as he can from the audience

·         When the car salesmen says ‘trouble’ the light is on him and she is in the dark

·         Rain on the front window shows she’s not in control

·         Long shot of house-person walks across the light in the window, gives an horror effect

·         When Norman Bates the owner of the hotel goes to get the key for her room, he goes for 3,2, then 1 – like a count down ?

·         4^th time Hitchcock shows Marion’s in the mirror

·         She’s in the light whilst Norman is in the dark

·         Nude pictures on the wall

·         Norman seems insulted when Marianne speaks about his mother

·         He also compares his mother to a stuffed bird

·         Stuffed crow looks like it’s on her shoulder

·         The name she is using is Marion Crane, Crane is a bird, Norman seem to have a hobby of collecting stuffed birds.

·         The shower is lit up

·         Shower is a personal place, Hitchcock puts us in a place we shouldn’t be

·         Shadow of killer blinded by the shower curtain

·         His facial expressions are blurred out

·         Norman in all black when detective is within

·         Detective in light, Norman in dark

·         Constant battle between men and woman. Power struggle between Norman and the detective

·         Norman is always chewing gum (nervous)

·         Two scene Sam, Bates tapping finger, unrested

·         The dead body of his mother is a skeleton looking at Marion’s sister

·         Norman dressed up as his mother

·         When Norman is arrested we see him in a white room starring into the camera, and talking in his mother’s voice.

Camera Angles

·         Two shot – intimate

·          Over the shoulder shots

·         Aerial shot of wife open town, city scape, sunlight

·         Zooms into hotel window

·         Not there POV on intimate shot, giving the effect some ones watching

·         Long shot of police car – scenery in the back

·         Close up on a policeman with glasses , moves to extreme close up

·         Intimidating shot

·         Close up on the mirror to see police car

·         Series’ of POV shots of the money

·         When she’s speaks about his mother he leans forward. The angle is a low on him with the bird of prey in the background

·         When he spy’s on her it’s a POV, we are on the side of the killer

·         Close up of his eye  ‘voyeurism

·         Close up on her blood running to the drain

·         Close up on her eye

·         Camera follows Norman from a worm view making us feel uncomfortable

·         Bird’s eye view of the detective getting stabbed by what looks like Normans mother

Sound

·         Music is load, screeching like cars in the back ground

·         Music builds suspense

·         Opening non diegetic sound harsh/high pitched

·         Sam opening the blind – sharp dramatic diegetic sound

·         As soon as she starts driving again the music starts

·         Very high pitched screeching when she’s dead – non and diegetic in this scene

·         The music gets slower, like her heartbeat

·         Lake sounds like its swallowing the car

·         Non diegetic sound when detectives dies

·         Music gets high pitched when they find Normans mother

Editing

·         Long pauses between shots, creates tension

·         Shot reverse shot – cutting between characters are shorter –tense

·         Jump cut when Marion’s in the car from day to night

·         Strong cross cut scene from birds to her to him  - tense

·         Dissolves from drain to eye

·         Editing between shots with the detectives asking people

·         Normans faces dissolves into a skull

Psycho essay

Psycho is a thriller/horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Psycho was made in 1960 and set in Phoenix, Arizona. Psycho is a film still talked about today.
   Psycho starts with the credits coming rather jolty, like a stabbing movement this shows it is a thriller/horror film. Whilst they are coming in the music we can hear a load, screeching noise. The film starts with an aerial shot of the town then zooms in on a window. It then has an interment two shot, during this two shot the blinds are closed showing that we should not being watching it or may be a relationship with a lot of secrets. There is diegetic sound and non-diegetic as Sam is talking to Marion there is a soft deep tone in the background. Whilst Sam is talking to marine there is a lot of cross-cutting this creates a bit of tension, again maybe a relationship with secrets. On her way to work Marion actually passes Hitchcock, this could mean she is always being watched. When Marion is shown the money she gets a confused look on her face. During this scene we are always looking in from an over the shoulder view so it’s like the audience are in the room. When Marion puts the money down on her bed the camera then does a close up on the money the connotation is how we know by this shot that the money is going to play a major part in the rest of the film, and is taking control of her,  we also see a packed suitcase. The music in the background makes it like the money and the suitcase isn’t a good idea.
      The next time we see Marion whilst she is in her car. It is all calm until she sees her boss, the music then suddenly jumps in with non-diegetic noise and we are then made to feel this journey is a bad idea. The scene then crosses from a rural area with a lot of people to a quite country side. Marion is then waked up by a policeman whilst she’s sleeping in her car and is integrated by him. There is a close up of the police man and then an extreme close up, Hitchcock has done this to intimidate Marion and us.  The police man shows authority before he has even said anything as he is wearing blacked out glasses with no emotions on his face. Marion acts very suspiciously and seems to be nervous.  The police man just like the audience suspects some things going on and follows Marion. He is led to a car garage. When she is there is an over the shoulder shot where she has the garage and police man either side of her so the connotation of her being trapped. Marion seems very nervous and scared and when speaking to the salesmen she is urgent, when she is talking to the salesmen the lighting is very interesting, she is in the dark for the majority and he is in the light, this shows everything Marion has done since she has had the money has been bad. Marion also decides to exchange her car and counts out the necessary cash from the $40,000 in the ladies’ rest room. Here Hitchcock uses the first of series creative ‘mirror’ shots to emphasise the duplicity of her actions
    Once Marion has bought the car and lost the cop she carries on her journey. We then have a point of view shot of the rain heavily falling on the front window, this makes it seem that she is not in control. She then takes an unwanted stop at a dark, creepy motel.  She asks for a room of a man who runs the motel. He a first seems nice but as he speaks more he seems to get a bit weird.  He asks her to sign in, as she does she hesitates and signs in with a false last name. As she does this the theme of double identity and reflected image is then continued Marion tries to deceive Norman by signing in with a false name, as we can see Marion in the mirror once again. When Norman, the owner of motel gets Marion a key, he starts with his hand hovering over 3 then 2 and finally chooses 1. This makes him seem strange and we as an audience wonder what is behind the room number, or has Hitchcock done this for it to be a countdown of her life.
   Marion then joins Norman for supper and he takes her into his office, in his office are a lot of stuffed birds. This is quite strange and once again we worry about this mysterious motel owner. A good shot down by Hitchcock is a low angle of Norman with a stuffed eagle behind him. An eagle is a predator, relating to Norman.  Norman and Marion start to talk and Normans Mother, Every time she is brought up Norman learns forward, once again Hitchcock making us wonder who and what has happen in Norman’s life. That scene showed the characters are trapped, Marion is trapped in a relationship going nowhere, Norman seems to be trapped by his mother, and Normans stuffed birds trapped as mounted trophies and Marion’s guilt for stealing the money.
  When Marion leaves to go back to her room Norman removes a picture from the wall. He looks through the hole he was cut the wall of Cabin 1, we see a profile of his eyes staring at Marion undressing, then a cut to a direct POV shot, of Marion undressing – we have become Norman, the voyeur. Explaining his choice for choosing room 1.
  We then see Marion get in the shower. The shower is lit up and is a personal place, Hitchcock puts us in a place we shouldn’t be. We see a shadow creep up through the shower curtain, the person has blurred out face which is strange as the bathroom was lit up before we could see the killer. Hitchcock may have done this to keep us guessing. The killer then stabs Marion, we see this but yet no more of the killer. The music starts to slow down, just like her heartbeat. There is then a couple of great camera shots, first of the blood running the drain, then the extreme close up of her eye. These shots show how all of Marion’s of running away to start a new life has ended before it has even started.
   When we next see Norman he is dressed in all black, could this be related to Marion’s murder. He is interviewed by a detective who tries to trick Norman to revealing Marion’s whereabouts. There is construct battle between men and woman, there is a power struggle between Norman and the detective, Every time we see Norman he is chewing gum this is a sign of nervousness. Arbogast the detective who knows Norman is not explaining everything, so goes to check out the suspicious house where Norman’s mother is living. As he walks up the stairs he is stabbed by a figure that seems to be the mother. We see this from a bird’s eye view, if this was the mother it shows the strong minded female as got a hold over Norman.
   We then see Norman carry his mother down the stairs. We are then confused as for every time the mother is from a high angled shot, maybe this is relating  to Normans love for birds as we are seeing a bird’s eye view.   
Marion’s sister and her lover visit the motel to find out what’s going on. When they meet Norman there is another case of false identities as Lila and Sam pretend to be married. When Lila, Marion’s sister is exploring Mr’s Bates room and scares herself in her own reflection.  Hitchcock uses the ‘mirror’ motif to underline our basic narcissistic voyeurism.
   Lila is then rushed into deciding to go into the cellar where she finds Mr’s Bates, the body of Mr’s Bates is a skeleton looking straight at Marion’s sister. The empty eye sockets of Norman’s mother’s stuffed corpse are made to ‘see’ her sons attack on Lila and his eventual capture by the effect of moving shadows  created in them by swinging light bulbs.
 Norman then rushes in to our surprise dressed as his mother with a knife about to kill Lila. This shows how Norman was both him and his mother, like a schizophrenic. The last part of the film is with Norman, who is locked away at the police station. He talks to himself in his head, but in a women’s voice which obviously is his mother. This means although he has been caught there is still a part of his mother inside of him
  Overall I think the reprehensive of gender is very strong throughout psycho, and Hitchcock uses many methods to display this