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.