the final soundtrack

i think its really obvious that our soundtrack was rushed. i made in about the last 30 minutes of one of the lessons so although it sounded ok with our piece it still had alot of issues with it that needed sorting. like we needed to make it quieter so that you could hear the heartbeat and the subtle little effects like footsteps. without them it didnt sound as natural and just sounded to fake. i really hated having the soundtrack and loved our piece when it was really simple. i enjoy having simple projects for our media studies because you can still show your abilities by making a simple piece and evaluating, planning it and drafting it well.

Evaluation Questions

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge conventions of real media products?
What conventions of professional products have you used in your own film? (narrative conventions, character conventions, genre, camerawork, sound, editing, special effects, mise-en-scene?) Use screen grabs of your own sequence to illustrate each example where you have followed conventions or gone against (challenged) conventions. Also use images from the films that have influenced you where relevant.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? (Gender, age, ethnicity etc.
Compare a character in your sequence to a character in a professional film (use images). If you have included a villain/victim character, does your character follow the conventions of characters in professional films. For example, is your villain male? Is your victim female? Therefore how are you representing gender?
3. What kind of media institution would distribute your media product?
Discuss similar professional films and their production companies (use images of the films and logos). Which production company do you think would distribute your film? (If it was professional and you had made the full film).
4. Who would be the audience for your media product? (BBFC and target audience)
Use images from a similar product with a similar target audience. Remember that target audience is not the same as classification.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Refer to significant moments in your sequence where you have tried to generate a response from the spectator (a close up to encourage identification with a character, music that encourages the spectator to feel suspense, tense, visceral reaction etc.) Use screen grabs of your own sequence.
6. What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing your product?
(Blog, camera equipment, editing software- Final Cut Express, istopmotion, Garageband etc.)
Use screen grabs/photos of all these things. Be very specific about tools/effects/techniques learnt, not just "I have learnt a lot about the software"
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your final product?
Discuss your second preliminary task that you did in the week before starting Thriller. Discuss what you have learnt since then about construction or micro elements in order to create meaning, how to use different techniques, practical skills etc. How have you built on your knowledge that you learnt from the preliminary task? Use screen grabs of your preliminary task and your sequence where relevant.

Final Version

This is our final and finished version.

Title

We have now decided on our film title to be "Sender Unknown" I think this works well and is a well thought out title for our piece.
I thought it would be a good idea to use a font which looked like cut up newspaper letters put together as words. It would fit well with the letter idea of our piece however, i thought that this is a very typical kind of font and is very overused so i decided against it. The font i went with in the end was a distorted typewriter font. It goes well with the piece and emphasises the theme of the letter in the film.


This is a screen shot of the title. The font is called "Uncle Typewriter" from the website www.dafont.com

Film Title

We have almost finished our clip now, the only thing left to do it to think of a title for our film and add it in to the credits. We decided it should contain the word "letter" as our film focused on the letter quite a lot. I think it should be quite a simple title. Some suggestions i was thinking of were "Letter Man" or " Dead Letter". I prefer the second one out of these two titles as i think it sounds more myterious and more like a thriller than the first.

last lesson

on the last lesson i added in the final soundtrack to our piece but because it was rushed i still need to work out the kinks with the sound and make parts of it quiter and parts of it louder.

rough cut video

last minute things to fix

the only thing left to do was to add the end credits in because im not to sure what were supposed to put them right now. i dont know wether they would work better in the start of the clip or the end of the clip. today ive finished clearing up the mistakes with the sound effects and added a few more in, ive also added music to the introduction and changed the music in the ident. i also moved around some bits of the video clips because they had changed order.

typical conventions of a thriller our piece includes.

our piece has a few typical conventions of a thriller.
1)the first is our piece doesnt give to much away you only see close ups of our killer's body parts. it keeps you guessing and intices you to watch on to find out whats just happened.
2) our piece is set in an area that is relevant to everyone and that is what helps to make it a psychological thriller because its someone invading your home while your there which even if we dont voice is playing on a fear everyone tends to have.

todays lesson

we completed most of the tasks in the last lesson. i added some credits to the begging and helped beki finish the ident by adding the words and shortening it down because it was really long and dragging. we really just do need to add the credits in because i think our piece works really well with just the common sound effects. in scream you dont get music running in it. its silent and thats what helps build the tension in that film. it has you on the edge of your seat because your not expecting much to happen. thats what i want i think music will really distract the audience but i hope group feedback will really help us work it out. we seemed to be on target really in todays lesson because we only had to add the title to our film which were still struggling to decide upon.

plan for the next two lessons

the rough cut deadline for us is tomorrow and ive decided to plan the next two lessons so that our piece is pratically finished.

todays lesson:
1) add the ident into our piece adding the writing into it and timing
2) add the title of the film into it
3) add some more sound effects to the beggining

tomorrows lesson:
1) add some credits into the end
2)add a music soundtrack to the end shots
3)speed up some of the editing to create tension (right now the editing at the end is to slow and nothing like what i had imagined.)

knife effect edited

ive decided the best way to show what i wanted for our knife effect was to find some images that showed it. i really wanted the blade to glisten and to look menicing and dangerous and i dont think we got that effect using a hand held view. i really wanted it to be a still shot and maybe use an arial shot but my partner beki thought hand held worked best. i still think it looks sort of lame and immature a still shot would of really created the menicing image and would of just been much more effective. the fact we couldnt use a really sharp knife due to safety issues also didnt help to make the point look sharper.

this is my favourite image and is really the sort of image i wanted in our piece. its got some form of elegance to it but is still dangerous. i also think it would of helped to build tension.

Technical Equipment

The first and most important piece of equipment we used was the video camera. We used this to film all of the shots we needed and some sound.

The second piece of equipment we used was a tripod. This enabled us to keep steady shots and we were able to pan around smoothly. However a few of the shots may have been a bit jolty where we did not loosen the grip on the tripod enough.

The rest of the equipment we used were all computer software on the Apple Mac. We used Final Cut Express as the basic program to capture and edit our footage. We cut scenes, outtakes, re-arranged the order, changed the speed of certain clips, inserted video filters and text, insert sound effects, adjust sound levels and insert transitions between shots. I also used final cut to create our ident. I animated the logo and added the sound and text.

The next piece of software we used was GarageBand. Using this program we created a soundtrack to fit our film using the many different sounds that GarageBand has to offer. We then exported it out of GarageBand and into Final Cut to combine with our video. I also created the short sound effect for our ident using GarageBand.

Photoshop was also used to create our ident. After we found a good picture to use as our logo I then opened it with Photoshop and created different layers of the different sections that needed to be animated. Each layer was then imported into Final Cut seperately and I animated it from there.

Sound Effects

As something went wrong with the sound from our original footage, i deleted it all and i have re created the atmospheric sound by layering different sound effects on top of each other and cropping them to make them sound different and suitable for our video.

Analysis Of Shutter Island Film Poster

The film poster for Shutter Island shows it is directed by Martin Scorsese who also directed other hit films such as The Departed, drawing interest to the film. The poster is also promoting Leonardo DiCaprio by displaying his name in a large, bright white font that stands out against the dark background. The first thing that the viewer’s eye is drawn to on the poster is the island with the mysterious white glow around it highlighting it. It is also in sharper focus which makes it stand out stronger. The tower on the island then quickly brings your eye up to the match which, being one of the only sources of colour immediately catches your attention.
The island is made up of a montage of different photos patched together. This is why the sky behind has sharp edges where two different shades make contact, and the broken waves around the island base are not in a continual outline. This gives us a small insight into the synopsis of the film suggesting that it involves an investigation trying to piece things together much like a puzzle.

The smoke from the match outlines the right side of his face saving it from having to take up too much of the poster with his cheek and ear which would distract focus from his facial expression where the left of his face is left to blend into the darkness. His facial expression builds a lot of tension in this poster. He appears to be confused yet frightened and concerned at the same time. The diegetic lighting from the match makes him look more mysterious with half of his face shadowed. It suggests that he may have something to hide or something that has not yet be uncovered.

The title font is quite sketchy and written in a bright red colour. It stands out against the monotone background. It could also symbolise blood emphasising the thriller genre of the film.

Analysis of The Dark Night Movie Poster

This poster shows the film is a thriller with many different components. The colour scheme of the poster mainly consists of different shades of dark blue, because it is a dull and dark colour it shows that it is not a happy film and will have a dark storyline. We are shown a low angle shot of Batman which makes him look important and powerful and because he is the only figure in the poster it is clear straight away that he is the main character in the movie. The suit he is wearing seems to be carved out of metal or some other hard armoured material which suggests indestructability.

The first thing that you notice in this poster is the orange Batman embelum. As it is highly recognisable and well known, the viewer straight away can recognise where it is from and what the film is about. The fire also suggests destruction, fury and revenge.

The poster also contains the names of the actors/actresses in the film. This will boost the film's appeal as it contains some quite big names like Morgan Freeman and Christian Bale. They have also included Heath Ledger's name on the poster which will also create a lot of appeal as it is one of the last movies that he made before is death, thus creating more attention to people who were fans of him and his work. The font of the writing is plain white lettering but this stands out against the dark background so it draws more attention to the names.

The poster also has the phrase "Welcome To A World Without Rules" written at the top. This suggests that the film will be quite dark, involve a lot of terror and a lot of action. The phrase is quite mysterious and appeals to people's curious sides, "...a world without rules" gives the imagination a whole new topic to explore.

The blue and white around the embulum in the title is white hot like an intense explosion, a great impact of some sort which be physically or emotionally/mentally. The debris and ashes falling from the building creates a realistic atmosphere of danger and destruction.

The Warner Bros. logo is also included on the poster in the bottom right corner showing that a big film company has distributed it which could also bring more people in to see it.

the knife effect

i didnt really like the knife effect in our piece when its being dragged up the stairs because it looks really fake and like an obvious student film. i dont think that hand held worked for that shot. we should of probably done a tracking shot to a close up.

sound track

were still having alot of problems with our soundtrack. we dont really have a set idea for what kind of soundtrack we want so its been hard to try and create one that fits with our piece because of the limited sounds avaliable on garage band. i think i want a piano soundtrack that is subtle and grows as the tension builds in our piece. i think it would be easier to make on an actual piano soundtrack with a real keyboard not the computer keyboard.

i like the look of the house just at how isolated it is. i also think the tree adds a lot of character. if we had more money or could of found a better location then i would of loved our house to be something like that. it would of been a convention of a thriller/horror.

i didnt want the house to look really old and ruined because i wanted it to look like a place where someone quite young would actually live. the fact the only house we could use was one on the main street meant it was hard to show isolation without revealing it was an attached house.

i wanted our house in the piece to look this isolated. ive added a few images of isolated houses to try and show what we were trying to show. it was just difficult to find an isolated house in a modern village.

sound ideas

for the beginning scene we wanted to the house to look really isolated and wanted the sound to show that so we wanted eerie silence or the crickets noise when they make that really empty sound when there legs scratch together ive tried to recreate this on the establishing shot in the first few seconds of the piece using sounds of crickets we found in garage band. we turned the sound down low enough so it can still be heard but not obviously loud so you can tell its fake. we think it doesnt blend as well as we liked but it still adds a lonely effect to the video.

more films our thirller opening is similar to.

the main thriller our film is similar to is scream. the opening scene of scream was a big inspiration for us and because its well known it was easy to get ideas from it. the editing in this scene is pretty long and we seem to have made our editing faster towards the end. at the beginning its long as we have the killer exploring the house which is different to scream where the victim is wandering and exploring her house showing us all the exits. we switched this around so its role reversal.

list of shot types needed in our opening

the list of shot types we needed/ should have in our piece are:
-establishing shot of the house
-close up
-match on action
-point of view shot
-tracking shot
-mid shot

i think thats about it for now although i may of missed off a few shots.

checklist of things left to do with our piece

This is a list of things we need to do to complete our piece:
1) add music and sounds into the film
2) add the writing to the ident
3)put the credits into the piece
4) put the ident into the piece
5)think of a title for our piece
6)finish editing
7)double check that we got every shot we needed

issues

although we seem to be going on the right track at the moment with out piece there are still a few things we are behind on. we have all the footage we need and managed to get all the shots that we had on the shot list but we still havent finished creating our ident or figuring out the music for our piece. we also still need to add titles to the project and finish making the editing quicker to help build the tension.

Soundtrack Suggestions

Some names of some sounds in GarageBand i think that are suitable and could possibly use are:
Borealis
Most of the sounds that are under the "Textures" category, especially Mystery Accents 04
Modern Rock Guitar 12 and 13 also stand out
Rock Guitar Riff 01 and 02

I think that during the parts where the girl is picking up the letter and walking upstairs should just be sound effects and have either very quiet and subtle music or no music at all. The music should come in whenever we have any activity with the intruder, building the suspense and making it more suspicious. It would also make it clear which parts are of the intruder and which is of the girl.

In the very end scene the music should slowly build as the intruder is opening the door and perhaps then have a dramatic spike as the girl spins round just before it goes dark, then we hear the gasp as it goes black.

Sound

The sound with our footage is not suitable to use in our soundtrack which means we will have to edit in sound effects as well as music. The music needs to be very deep and suspenseful to give our footage the full effect of a thriller. If the sound does not go well with our footage it will make a huge difference to how the film will be interpreted and could ruin the film completely. I do not think the music should be loud and prominent in the film I think it will be best if it as quite quiet which i think will make it seem a bit more creepy.

filming

We did our filming and all in all it went quite well. we spent 3 hours doing the filming in total and although after watching we realised there were a few issues with the props and continuity it turned out alright and we managed to get most of the shots we needed and extra. this means we have a lot to work with in editing and should be able to produce a good piece.

filming

we are planning on filming most of the parts of our thriller tonight. weve gotten the help of one of beki's friends to help us film and if neccessary act. we have a house to film in and were going to film in the evening to use actual darkness instead of adding it in after.
were hoping there wont be to many difficulties. the shots weve decided on might not work

Casting

We only have 2 characters in our thriller opening. Ej is going to play the girl victim and i will be the killer. The killer is supposed to be male but this will not matter as you never see a clear shot of the killers face. I will also be wearing an all black outfit and i can wear a black hoodie with the hood up so you cannot see my long hair.

Ident Snapshot

This is a snapshot of the mexican man we are using in our ident. We have animated it on final cut so his hands move and shake his maracas.
We will then have the words "Tash Tash Man Productions" appear above and underneath him. I think that it would look effective if the words zoomed in while he shakes his maracas.
This is the font we have chosen to use:


I think this is a good font to use as it gives a positive feeling which goes well with the mexican man. The font is called "Musicals" from the website www.dafont.com

ident

we worked on our ident today for the whole lesson. we made our ident as a a little mexican man with maracas in each hand. our ident shakes the maracas before the words tash tash man productions comes up. we have a noise like beans shaking for the noise of the maracas.

first draft script

We get an establishing shot of a house. its dark and we can tell its night time because the road is empty and the street lights are on. we can see some lighting in the house. a dark figure moves towards the house holding something white in his hand. the dark figure is in complte black. we get a close up as the hand delivers a letter into the door. a match on action shot shows the letter landing inside the house. we see a female charcter walk to the letter and pick it up. the girl moves to the letter box and puts her eye to it looking through it. we have a point of view shot showing the girl character looking out onto the street. we see that the street is empty.

the female character now moves up the steps

issues with filming

because there are only 2 of us in the group there may be some issues with filming our piece. we only have the option of having one person acting while the other is filming. this might not work well because we both can't see if were getting the shots we want. were going to have to get other people to help us film if we want it to be any good.

some of the lessons there is only one of us there from the group so we havent been able to work out some kinks because we havent had time together to deal with it.

we are hoping to film this friday night when we have a free house its just getting all the people to the location to film.

shot types

in our piece we want to include as many different shot types that we can without losing the tension in our thriller. At the moment we are using:

-an establishing shot
at the beggining to show that it is late at night and an odd time for a letter to be delivered. if we filmed it in the day the letter being delivered wouldnt be suspicious because you would just assume it is the post man.
-close up
we have alot of close ups in our piece because its how we are showing the killers actions without giving away who the killer is. we have a close up of the killer opening a door,posting a letter, etc

-match on action
we are having match on action of when the letter is posted from the outside and being delivered on the inside

-point of view shot
we have a few point of view shots like when the girl looks out the letter box to see if any one is there and when the killer looks through a crack in a door watching the girl reading

-tracking shot
we may have a tracking shot when the killer is walking up the stairs

Mise-en-scene

here is a list of the mise-en scene we are planning on using in our thriller opening

Costume:
Female character- innocent clothing casual hair tied back maybe a long top like you would sleep in or just jeans and a long top.

killer character- black glove all black outfit

other props:
-knife
-newspaper article
-letter

Films with similar themes

Jagged Edge
Funny Games
Scream
Strangers
Panic Room

Storyboard

This is the general storyboard of our thriller opening.

Sequence of Events

- We see an establishing shot of the house in the middle of the night.

- We see a close up of a hand in a black glove posting a letter.

- We get a match on action shot of the letter being posted and landing inside the house.

- We then see a girl pick up the letter and move to another room to read it.

- Close up of a newspaper lying on the floor with dramatic headlines about recent killings.

- Close up of a hand opening a back door and entering the house.

- Switch back to a long shot of the girl reading the letter calmly.

- Change to shots of the killer moving through the house. (Possibly including over the shoulder shots so we see from the killers view but we don't see the killers face, only see the back of his head.)

- Switch back to the girl reading the letter starting to get worried.

- We see a view of the killer moving up the stairs while dragging a knife against the wall.

- Switch to a close up of the girl reading the letter again with her hands shaking.

- Low angle shot of the killers feet as he reaches the top step.

- We see a mid shot of the girls worried face.

- Switch to a P.O.V shot from the killer looking through a crack in the door.

- Close up shot of the killers hand reaching through the crack in the door to the light switch.

- The girl turns to look at the door.

- Just as she turns, before she see's the killer, the light goes out and we hear the girl gasp.

- The title of the film comes onto the screen.

Age certifications

There are 7 different age certifications that a film can have. 6 of these are more well known where as 1 of the age certifications is mainly used in pornographic films.

The main age ranges for thriller films is between 12 and 18 depending on how scary or violent the thriller is.

When thinking about our thriller opening i would expect ours to be a 15 because of what it insinuates and the story line that it would follow if it was a full film.

12A

A 12A means it may be suitable for people who under the age of 12. those who are under the age of 12 would be permitted to see the peformance if an adult above the age of 18 was present through out the entire film.

12
A twelve means that the film is only suitable for people who are 12 and over. it isnt suitable for people who are under 12 to see even if accompanied by an adult.

15
This film is only for people of the age of 15 and over to view. any one under that age range is not allowed to see it.

18
Suitable only for adults.
Nobody younger than 18 may see an 18 film in a cinema.No-one younger than 18 can rent or buy an 18 rated VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or game.

Location of our Thriller

Our thriller's location will be in a house in a neighbourhood. this beats some conventions because usually the house that the victim is in is isolated. the main rooms we will see our the bedroom and the hallway areas. The bedroom where the girl will be reading the letter and the hallway which is where the killer is creeping about.

The possible endings for our opening scene

We are not that sure right now just how we should have our thriller opening finish. WE have two main ideas at this point in time.

Idea one:
We have a shot of the girl reading the letter and in the distance we can see the killer slowly coming up behind her we never get a clear image of the killer. we could possibly be seeing it from the reflection in the mirror.

Idea two:
We have the girl stop reading the letter looking scared. she begins to turn around slowly going to face the door. Just as she is about to full on face the killer the lights go off. after a small pause of just silence we hear a gasp. The title of our film would then flash up.

I personally think that idea two is better because its more suspensful and leaves more to the imagination of the viewer. it leaves them more puzzled which is exactly what a thriller is meant to do.

some video that helped inspire our idea

this trailer helped inspire us to have the idea of the killer moving around the house except we are not as openly playing mind games with the female character. she is totally unaware that some one is in her house. we think this will help to build the tension.

possible ideas

Idea 2

This is the second idea that our group had. This seems to be the more favourable idea as both members of the group worked on it. It incorporates both of our ideas so seems to be the idea we are going with.

The idea is we have an establishing shot of a house in the middle of the night. its deserted even though its on a main road. we get a close up of a hand in a black gloving posting a letter through the letter box of the house we just saw. we have a match on action shot of the letter being posted. we then see a girl in a mid shot picking up the letter. we go to a point of view shot of the girl looking out her letterbox to see who has sent a letter at this time. we then watch the girl move upstairs to go and read the letter. The editing at this point will be slow. we switch to a close up view of the same hand in a black glove opening the back door and entering the house. we switch back to the girl who is reading the letter. her facial expression shouldnt be overally shocked or worried at this point. almost a calm expression being show. we switch back and show a little bit of the killer walking around the house. switch again to the girl reading the letter and getting worried. switch back to the killer dragging a knive along the wall as he walks up the stairs. switch back to the girl a close up of her hands shaking to show she is getting worried. switch back to possibly a high angle shot of the killers feet reaching the last step of the door. The editing will have speeded up at the point the killer is walking up the stairs. switch to the girl looking really worried. point of view shot of the killer looking at the girl through a crack in the door...

Thriller Opening Idea

I have a rough idea of a thriller opening we could possibly do. From watching the opening scene of the film 'Taking Lives' in class it gave me an idea of lots of newspapers flashing on the screen and fading in and out over top of each other with dramatic headlines such as "Unidentified Body Found" or "Mystery Killer Strikes Again" e.t.c. then at the end i think it would be good for the title of the film to come up (which will have to have a dramatic name) as the newspaper headline and then drops of blood fall onto the paper and then it suddenly ends there. At the very beginning, before the newspaper part we could use one of Ej's ideas and have a shot of a mysterious person walking down a corridor or possibly a dark alleyway, which would make it creepier, dragging a knife along the wall. It is only a rough idea for now but it could be developed further into something better.

Analysing Previous Student's Work

I don't really like this one because it looks really rushed. Most of it was just someone running through different areas. You don't know why they are running and it isn't explained at all throughout. The music didn't go well because the tracks they used didn't blend well together, the piano didn't work with the techno type rhythm they used. It just sounded strange and tacky. I personally think that they were rushed to make this piece. The flash effect was good but confusing because it just happened randomly. It flashed then the character was in a completely different area. The mise-en-scene didn't look like any effort had gone into it. They just added some fake blood to the character. They should have put more effort into it or planned better so they knew what they were doing. The camera work was yet again basic but included more than the other thriller opening i looked at. This one used a tracking shot, close up and a mid shot. A mid shot is used quite frequently. They were slightly more interesting and didn't make the opening any more confusing. If anything they made the piece more interesting.

Analysing Previous Student's Work

In class we looked at other students work from previous years groups. We were looking at them to get any ideas for our projects and to see what we would do differently by seeing what we liked or what we didn't like from them.

I think this one was done well and was better than some of the others we watched. I like how the credits appear each time the blood is dripping through the water. It looked good and effective but after a while started to get boring, as did the music. It was very repetitive until the end when it changed slightly but was still highly repetitive. The opening had a good story plot and was easy to follow and you could clearly tell it was opening credits because they led to something and they weren't just random. They opened up to the story well which is what they should do.
I think the part where the male character is strangling the female character looked a little bit too fake because during it the female character gives a laughing smile which ruined the whole effect. They built up to the climax of the opening really well. I think having the scene go black and white each time it was in the past was really good and helped to build the tension. As for the camera angles used they are really basic with simple mid shots for most of the scenes. Not much really happened with the angles. I think they could of experimented more.

Conventions of a thriller

• Conventions of a psychological thriller:

-Normally has an internal conflict occuring. An external mind game
-Has issues with identity, reality and paranoia
-The characters have to resolve the internal struggle before plot resolution can occur

Conventions of a political thriller:

-A character VS the government
-conspiracy
- the secret service involved
- secret information known or uncovered

Conventions of a Crime thriller:

- police investigations being carried out
- some one trying to perform a crime
- Has a variety of questions that have to be answered in the film which are:

• How is the criminal going to perform the crime?
• Why are they doing the crime?
• How are the police going to catch the criminal/criminals?

Conventions of an action thriller

-In an action thriller the hero runs away from the action instead of going towards the action
-The way the hero responds to the problem makes it different to an action film in a thriller the hero is forced to use action unlike in an action film where the hero's instinct is to use action.

Sub Genres of Thriller Movies

-Just like every Genre of movie there is a range of sub genres for each one.
Some thriller sub genres include

• Psychological thrillers

These are thrillers where the main character is mental and emotional and not just physical . these types of Thrillers tend to play with your mind more and effect you mentaly. some good examples of this type of thriller include Alfred hitchcocks films suspicion, shadow of a doubt and strangers on a train. some other examples include the good son blue velvet and the talented mr ripley.

• political thrillers

In a plotical thriller the hero or heroine has to ensure the stability of the goverment who employs the hero. examples of this type of thriller includes The seven days in may the day of the jackal and the manchurian candidate. crime thrillers

• action thrillers

In an action thriller the film ofton has a race against the clock element running with it. they have alot of violence in them and have an obvious antagonist. they tend to have large amounts of guns explosions and big set pieces where the action takes place. the film has some form of mysetery and crime films in them but they are overshadowed by the obvious action that occurs. Notable examples are the James Bond films, The Transporter, and the Jason Bourne films.

• religious thrillers

generally the plot in these types of thriller has to involve or be connected with a religious object institution or a question. a well known example of a religious thriller is the da vinci code.medical thrillers

• legal thriller

usually has the lawyer hero confronting enemies not only on the inside the courtroom but outside and ends up with them having the danger of losing the case and the risk of losing there lives with it. a well known example is the innocent man.

• erotic thriller

erotic thrillers combine erotica with thriller. films in this genre include basic instinct, dressed to kill, colour of the night, eyes wide shut, fatal attraction, obsessed and in the cut

• disaster thriller

the main conflict in this type of thriller is caused by a natural or artificial disaster like floods earthquakes hurricanes volcanoes that sort of thing. an artificial disaster could be caused by nuclear disasters. some examplers are Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen, Tremor by Winston Graham, and the 1974 film Earthquake.

Definition of a thriller

- A thriller is a film which tries to scare the audience but not in the same way as a horror.

A thriller tries to scare you with realistic things such as things that could actually happen. It doesn't focus on trying to make you scared by showing blood and gore like Horror films. A thriller works more on a level of creating suspense for the audience so they don't know what is happening. Sometimes a thriller sets out to confuse you.
In general a thriller is something that plays with your mind more than showing horrific things that are meant to shock and horrify you. It can do that with a more Psychological element to it (like in Psychological Thrillers) rather than having to show you everything. They tend to leave more to the imagination and leave the audience to work out things for themselves, usually revealing all the information at the end. They have a tendency to leave some information out which results in the viewer asking questions and thinking about what they have seen.

Analysis of a Thriller

The thriller clip that we looked at was SE7EN. We looked at the film from 7 minutes to about 10 minutes. The film SE7EN has both elements of a psychological thriller and a crime thriller.

Psychological because the towards the end the cop played by Brad Pitt is having an internal conflict about what he should do after the killer has taken them to the spot. Through out the film the cop is struggling internally with excitement but also with identity, he seems lost. At the end he resolves the struggle by completing the 7th sin of revenge and kills the killer in return for the killer cutting his wife's head off.

It also has part of a crime thriller because the homicide detectives are trying to catch a criminal but he keeps escaping and managing to kill. The killer is trying to do a killing for each of the seven deadly sins, hence why the film is called seven.

Mise-en-scene:
The clothing style is generally dark and natural tones with the Cops wearing dark colours such as beige, black and brown. The characters outfits often blend in with the scenery adding to the mystery. Inside the house they are investigating, it is dark and very little lighting. The viewer struggles to see whats inside the room and whats going on much like the characters in the film. It's like we are exploring along side the characters, it seems to involve you more. Most of the area we see is dirty and cluttered. We see stacks of soup on the sides which was used to kill the victim.

Editing:
In this scene the editing is generally slow paced because to build up tension because we are expecting something to happen but its being built up simply by the pace of the scene. If the scene had faster editing it would be harder to follow what's going on and get yourself with the moment. Having faster editing at the end, when the killer is finally killed and the internal conflict is being resolved, helps you stay with the movie because the slow editing has helped you get into the film more and feel more involved.

Camera:
As well as the editing being slow the camera is equally restricted. We don't have many complicated shots they're pretty basic and simple such as a medium two shot of the two detectives having a conversation inside the crime scene. If they had too many shots such as canted shots then the viewer wouldn't be able to get whats going on and focus so by using simple shots it helps to build up the tension and helps keep it thrilling. the camera when they follow the cops around is a tracking shot which probably had long editing.