Thriller research

The thriller includes numerous, often overlapping sub-genres. Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, lots of action, and the character of the hero who must thwart the plans of the more-powerful and better-equipped villain character. Suspense and cliffhangers are used often.The thriller genre is a story that is usually a mix of fear and excitement. It has traits from the suspense genre and often from the action, adventure or mystery genres, but the level of terror makes it borderline horror fiction at times as well. It generally has a dark or serious theme, which also makes it similar to a drama.

The opening of a Thriller film usually contains something that draws us in a viewers such as something that we want explained so will continue to watch the film to discover what is happening and why.

Sub genres are identifiable sub-classes of the larger category of Main film genres , with their own distinctive subject matter, style and formulas. Some are them are prominent sub-genres, such as: biopics, 'chick' flicks, detective/mystery films, disaster films, fantasy films, film noir, 'guy' films, melodramas (or 'weepers'), road films, romances, sports films, supernatural films, and thriller/suspense films.

The location of a thriller is usually somewhere that is interesting, as to catch the audiences attention,for example, "The Davinchi code" is set in a famous french art gallery, and you are instantly drawn in to the films location as it is somewhere that you know of and are intrigued as to why the film would be set there.
Set design,costume and props are all also important as they provide part of the story, if a man is in a suit the audience wants to know why. If a man is wearing rags, the audience will again want to know why and how it ties into the film and what they mean. They really set the scene as there colors can have certain connotations and show people and locations in a certain light. For example, if you were to watch a film with a black location you can tell the film is going to be dark and usually serious.

Memento Trailer

Memento Opening Scene

30th September-Second Prelim task

For our second prelim task i worked with Percelle Ascott and Laura Walton.We had to do a short film on a meeting of two people.As a group we discussed what we would like to do and came up with a short and silly meeting to exchange chocolate.We went out with the cameras and found the ideal location , in the music rooms, as they were quiet and had a corridor outside for Laura to walk down to be filmed.It also has its own little rooms that can be used as an office for the character percy played which was a gangster character.The room also had a table in it for the exchange to take place which was really useful but unfortunatly the room also had a piano in it as it is a music room and if we had had the time and had been allowed to i would have loved to have moved the piano out of the room as the room is small enough as it is and having the piano in it made it difficult to film as there was little space.

Also, we unfortunatly were missing a piece from our tripod which meant we could not use the tripod so we used all handheld instead which made the shots quite wobbely in places.To have resolved this problem i would have gone up to the camera room and borrowed another one.At the time though we had spent so much time finding a location and choosing what to do for the prelim task that we didnt have enough time and just had to get straight on with filming.I really enjoyed this task though as i learnt from it.One thing i learnt is that you actually NEED to use a tripod as when editing and putting the final peice together we realised just how wobbely it was! Luckily we had a few taes which werent as bad so we used them instead.

1st Prelim Task-23rd September

I am in a group with Laura Walton and Joseph Cocklin. We were given the cameras and shown how to use them and given the task of filming a short journey. As a group we discussed what we would like to do for our own journey. Joe decided that he would like to do a journey to the bathroom.We as a group unanimously agreed.I suggested that we start our journey outside as we could make some great shots.So we went outside and chose a space on the field. We then thought that it would be a great idea to start with an opening shot being a pan of the field as a it establishes a location for the audience.

Laura and Joe were going to be doing the acting so i did a pan of the field and slowly swiveled round to the two of them sitting talking as a wide shot and then i zoomed in a bit so we get a clear shot of them. This shows who the short film will be concentrating and mainly focuses on.We then shift to an over the shoulder shot of Joe talking and then switch so that its an over the shoulder shot of Laura talking to Joe.We then moved to a long shot of Joe walking towards the camera. I really liked this shot as it established character and location which are both things that the audience would want to know.We then show this really good worms eye of Joe's feet as he jumps the bottom step.This was an amazing shot and i was determined to get it into our prelim task as i love worms eye as it is so interesting.My altogether favourite shot in the entire short film has to be either the over the shoulder shot of Joe walking into the toilets as you get to see basically what Joe is seeing which is always interesting as nothing is in the way as when your are filming your character they are most of the time standing in the way of what they are seeing. And the other shot is a Point of view shot by another character that we never actually meet who interacts with Joe. This makes the short film interesting as the audience must feel as if they personally are interacting with the main character Joe and you also kind of want t know who's point of view you are seeing which draws you in as you Wait and see intently to find out who it is but you never actually find out so it just keeps the audience on the edge of their seat and watching intently until the end of the short film.

I learnt all the new shots that i never knew and how to do them during this task so overall it was a great way to practice and warm up your camera skills.

Introduction to shot types

We learnt the different shot types and also had to find examples. Here they are:

Extreme long shot –ELS

You may use this shot to show a very large expanse of an area such as a city. It is used to show a particular location.

• Long shot-LS:You may use this shot to show another large expanse of an area such as a house and the area it is in to show a location.
• Medium long shot-MLS:This is used to show a person and the area.
• Medium shot –MS
• Medium close up- MCU
• Close up- CU
• Big close up – BCU
• Extreme close up – ECU
• Low angle
• High angle
• Worms eye
• Birds eye
• Canted
• Eye level
• Two shot
• Over the shoulder shot
• Point of view-POV

Pan-In photography panning refers to the horizontal movement or rotation of a still or video camera ,or the scanning of a subject horizontally . Panning a camera results in a motion similar to that of someone shaking their head "no"

Analyzing the opening sequence to "Seven"

Film: Seven (1995)

Lead Actors: Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Gwyneth Paltrow

Director: David Fincher

Titles: Very dramatic. Fast paced. Such a huge comparison to the actual opening scene. The sound of a scratching against a blackboard sort of thing was so dramatic and chilling. They also lead you to not know what to expect. It sounds like a scream as well which is psychotic and scary and like a horror genre. The images are also disturbing, but it draws you in. Merged all together. You want to know what the opening shots are of. They seem obsessive. Like someone collecting evidence but you can see that this is definitely not a police station. We are pulled in like to be the police officers we cant se the man that we assume is the criminal but yet we know what he is doing- kind of. This is how the police officer would feel so this leads you to side with the police officer characters in this film as you feel the frustration to know who is doing this, just as they do. You can see the character of the criminal as he slices at his fingers; it is like obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Shots: Starts with a long shot to establish location and then moved onto a shot of characters face. This introduces you to the main character as you start with him and follow his journey for work. Claustrophobic, very close shot. Then close up of his hand picking up objects. Establishes job. As the two characters walk away from a crime scene we get a worms eyeshot to establish the power of the characters. Very long, continuous shots used, possibly to show lack of panic so no need (at the moment) for fast movements.

Movement: All movements are slow and deliberate. This works as, for example, when Morgan Freeman is doing his tie up this shows his character takes pride in the way he looks.

Generic Themes: We can see that Morgan freeman’s character is more dominant as he is more prepared with a hat for the rain and also, whilst Brad Pitts character gets knocked by someone and stumbles and dodges the rain, Morgan Freeman walks solidly and is sheltered by his hat. Also you can see Morgan freeman’s character is compassionate as he ass if the child saw the incident that he is investigating.No-one respects the corpse. The guy does not even care about the family.

Sound: Rain. Very downbeat. Sound of ambulance, is a very ominous tone. No music at all in the opening scene, very hollow. Goes straight into a scene. You can hear people arguing in the flat next to him. Shows how he is never alone. You can hear his footsteps- Sound is lonely, sad.

Mise-en-scene: Always raining. Shows gloom misery, washing away evidence, makes the job harder, like a barrier. Not a typical thriller opening. No tension or build up. Very dark. No pictures. Shows maybe no family. No personality in bed. Dull. They did not use any lighting when creating film. Naturalistic as they used whatever light that they found. You can see this.

This is a very slow film as well. There are no quick sharp shots.