Two books and one movie were particularly informative and helped me understand certain important techniques that are used to create mysteries.  For example, in “And Then There Were None,” Agatha Christie provides clues to help the reader deduce who the murderer was.  Some of these clues were easier to figure out, while others were more complex and difficult; however, the clues continuously drew the reader in to try to solve the mystery.  It also gave me insight into character development and how character development can be used to present clues or create red herrings for the reader.  These same techniques can be seen in the film Murder on the Orient Express, which is based on Agatha Christie’s novel of the same name.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was expert at candidly presenting clues to the reader of varied complexity.  The difficulty is discerning the clues and interpreting the meaning of those clues.  His Sherlock Holmes short stories are very helpful in developing my skills of deduction which will help me create my own clues and reasoning in my mystery.  

Knowing how much time I spent getting through plot in a number of the books I read, I would have started with some locked room mysteries and the Sherlock Holmes stories, which provide less plot and helps build clue identification and deciphering skills and techniques.  This would have helped me when reading the longer mystery novels in identifying what was truly important to the mystery as compared to the red herrings and macGuffins.  I will also be more selective with the movies I watch to make sure they are true mysteries and not simply suspense thrillers.

I have had the opportunity to watch a number of movies that I believed would be helpful in depicting certain techniques relating to my topic.  Having watched these movies, I have determined that a few did not provide much assistance including North by Northwest, which wasn’t a traditional mystery, but instead was an action thriller.  There were no techniques relating to mysteries or revealing clues to the audience.  The Maltese Falcon, showed the technique called the “MacGuffin,” as coined by Alfred Hitchcock.  This is where the storyline follows a specific object that obscures the main focus and goal of the protagonists, and is unimportant to the overall storyline.  In this case, the Maltese Falcon was the MacGuffin, and the real mystery was the murder of Sam Spade’s partner and the mystery woman’s involvement.  I plan to read shorter mystery stories, including “locked room” mysteries which I will take less time to read and provide better guidance relating to techniques for providing and revealing clues.   

The biggest obstacle so far is the extent of the materials and having to parse through numerous sources to narrow down my selection to the most relevant materials. I have also come up with some additional movies that I plan to watch, including, Fargo, Usual Suspects, Blue's Clues, Nancy Drew, and the new Sherlock Holmes movies. The other obstacle is convincing my parents that watching these movies is actually part of my school work. I already watched Thirty Nine Steps and have learned certain techniques used by filmmakers to create suspense and mystery. The main techniques used by Alfred Hitchcock in the movie was sound, switching screen shots between characters, presenting an important clue early on, but shifting focus off the clue and making ti seem insignificant. Sound is crucial in creating the mood of the scene. It can create suspense when needed, or frenzy during chase scenes. Also important during a chase scene was the constant change in camera focus. One second the camera would be focused on the main character, running for their life, then it would shift to the antagonists' pursuit. This along with the music created a sense of frenzy and excitement.  The movie opens with a show, which presents an important clue to the outcome of the movie.  hitchock creates a diversion by presenting another clue, which shifts the audiences' focus from the important clue.  Then about halfway through the movie, the protagonist starts whistling a tune, which is another important clue.  At eh end of the movie, he realizes where the tune came form and all the clues tie in to the surprise ending.  I would give more detail, but I wouldn't want to ruin the movie (or the show which is now playing on broadway) for any potential viewers.

One month later my topic is progressing nicely.  I have done some additional research and have identified and obtained copies of some select highly regarded mystery novels.  These include Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hounds of the Baskervilles,” and Raymond Chandler’s “The Big Sleep.”  I have begun reading “And Then There Were None,” and have been focusing on the techniques of clue generation, development of theme and character development.  The portions I have read so far also include the beginnings of suspense generation, which I continue to analyze as I read more of the novel.  Additionally, I have read a few “Two Minute Mysteries” to help me build clue development skills, and I plan to read some “Locked Door Mysteries” to help me further develop these skills.  I have also obtained the movies “The 39 Steps” by Alfred Hitchcock, and “Citizen Kane” by Orson Welles.  I plan to watch these movies over the next week or so.  I also plan to obtain the movie “The Usual Suspects,” and a number of other films to learn about suspense techniques using sound, lighting and shadows, and character development techniques.   

So now that the project is under way, I have to decide whether I want to write the long essay, or a shorter essay together with a project/presentation.  I have already begun considering two possible projects to prepare that I believe will not only be more interesting for me to work on, but will also be more appealing to people reading my essay and reviewing my project.  The first possibility is writing a short mystery novel using all the techniques and information I learn through my research.  The second possibility is to produce a mystery film, although that will certainly be more challenging in trying to find talented actors and generating special effects.  I will be doing some additional research over the next few weeks to see what is more reasonable, based on watching some films and reading some mystery novels.  I will also reach out to my cousin who may have worked in special effects in the movie industry to find out what is possible for me to accomplish. 

Now that we’ve had a jump start on our projects, it is time to see how other people have been faring with their topics.  I was reading through Rabbi Rosen’s comments and everyone’s blogs and I noticed that Yoni Cooper was writing about a topic that I too am greatly interested in: conspiracies.  When this project was first assigned, I immediately thought of writing about conspiracies, as that is something I would enjoy researching and writing about.  If you look at my second post, you will even see that the freemasons was a topic I was considering from the beginning.  However, the two main problems I found with the idea, is that it would be difficult to research and find sources for the project, and the answers would lack definitive proofs and conclusions.  One could place to find information on some of these conspiracies is television, especially The History Channel.  They always have shows about UFOs and other conspiracies.  One suggestion I have for Yoni, so that he does not just summarize a few conspiracy theories is to show the origins, development, and growth of these theories over time.  I hope Yoni does not run into the problem of a lack of sources and I wish him luck on the rest of the project. 

In order to get this project going, I am going to need many resources.  These resources include a number of novels by various authors, and some films by famous directors of the thriller and mystery genres.  This includes people such as Agatha Christie, Alfred Hitchcock, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who I have already begun researching.  Although Alfred Hitchcock did not mainly focus on the genre of mystery, he is important to study do to his incredible use and knowledge of suspense, and his use of mystery as a sub plot in some of his movies in order to carry the plot along.  Therefore, watching some of his movies can help me better understand the use of suspense and even some mystery.   Agathie Christie, known as the queen of crime, is one of the most important people to research and learn from.  She is a master of the mystery genre, as she is extremely creative in her plots, causing much deception and suspense throughout her novels.  One novel I am interested in is And Ten There Were None, being her most famous work, and the best-selling mystery novel ever.   Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the famed Sherlock Holmes novels, was another important mystery writer.  He showed the importance of having knowledge of crime and keenness for solving them, and also the importance of being intuitive and analytic.  He personally investigated two closed cases, which successfully led to the exoneration the accused men.  One thing I noticed that was common among all three of these people was that much of their work was influenced by or referenced their interests and things that happened in their own lives. 

 After much thought and deliberation, I have finally decided that my topic will be about creating a mystery.  I know that this is slightly different from my original proposal, but I want to leave open the possibility of creating either a written project or perhaps an audio-visual project.  My driving question is how to create a mystery novel or movie.  Questions I hope to answer include how do you decide on a plot? How do you go about doing the research? How do you build suspense? How do you integrate and present clues? How do you develop interesting characters?  I will read mystery novels and watch mystery movies to learn various styles and techniques.  Some authors I plan to study include, Sue Grafton, P.D. James, Raymond Chandler, and Agatha Christie. And some filmmakers I plan to study are Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Orson Welles, Brian De Palma, David Fincher, David Lynch, and Joel Coen.  I see myself writing an analysis of the steps I will be going through to create my mystery, and the techniques I incorporate into my story. 

I was thinking about some of the topics I through out there last week and I narrowed my topic choices down to three.  The first topic I eliminated was what makes a movie a box office success.  I just didn't think this topic was going to be as enjoyable to learn about and to reasearch as the other choices.  The second idea I decided to reject was freemasonry and its impact on the development of America, because although I greatly enjoy conspiracies, this topic would be very difficult to research and write a term paper on.  Also there is no definitive answer to these mysteries and most of the content and data that is written about this topic is speculation.
I kept the other three topics because I believe that they all very interesting and will be fun to reasearch and learn about, and that there will be a lot information on them that will help my research and studies.

I am thinking of selecting a topic on innovative thinkers in history such as Leonardo DaVinci, Archimedes, Einstein and Jules Verne. What inspired them, how were they so ahead of their times and what are some of their innovations that we are just beginning to implement? I am thinking that they were unconventional in their approach to learning and I may connect this topic with the psychology of learning. This topic may be too difficult and too broad to fit into 25 or 15 pages, so I may need to narrow the scope and focus on one particular person.

Another topic that I am considering is what makes a particular movie popular and achieve box office success versus another movie that may achieve critical acclaim from critics, yet is unsuccessful in the box office.

I want to possibly explore how mystery books are written and create a new form of mystery writing where all the clues are presented in the body of the work early on, and revealed to those who have not discovered them during the progression of the story.

How are puzzles created? explore the techniques for creating mazes and puzzles and create a new type of puzzle or maze based on those techniques.

Freemasonry in the development of America and the mysteries of the Freemasons. Part of my research with be to visit the catacombs under Trinity Church and to explore the caves behind Mount Rushmore.  This will be a difficult topic because sources will be limited and much of the research will be speculative with no definitive proof.  It may also be dangerous and I may end up being written about as part of a real life mystery as the target of the Freemasons or U.S. government.  This, however, will provide materials for my mystery novel (see above).

I am thinking that this will be a very interesting project but will require a lot of work. I am somewhat apprehensive, but at the same time very interested in what I might learn or not learn. Or I could not worry and take the easy way out by writing a family cookbook.

I think this project has potential to be fun and interesting, since we get to write an essay on a topic that interests us.  However, it is senior year, and I would rather not have to worry about a project hanging over me the whole year, when I will be busy thinking about things such as college, or the three other APs I am taking.  Also I'm not so fond of this whole blog thing, as I would rather not have to bother updating it every week, which is an inconvenience, especially on weeks that I am too busy to make any progress on my report and will have nothing to really blog about.