Thriller Sub genres

A thriller film is never just classed as a thriller. It will most probably be one, or several Sub genres of thriller. Here are some examples:

• Action Thriller - Majority of the focus is on action
• Conspiracy Thriller - A protagonist, usually by themselves (as they only realise the threat), must confront a powerful organisation
• Crime Thriller - Tends to be of the point of view of the criminal, as they try to allude the police, and only at the end of the film do all the pieces fit together, usually
• Disaster Thriller - A natural disaster takes place, and the protagonist(s) trys to stop it, or just save themselves from it
• Legal Thriller - Takes place in and around a courtroom, centring usually around a lawyer and a case that may end in death for the lawyer or client
• Political Thriller - Focus on a hero/heroine ensuring the stability of a government, usually previously low down
• Psychological Thriller - A mental conflict, rather than physical conflict for the protagonist
• Supernatural Thriller - The supernatural tends to be the antagonist, or the protagonists may have supernatural abilities
• Techno Thriller - Technology an important role, works either with or against the protagonist

For our own film, some genres would be easier to achieve than others. A sub genre I would like to do is a Psychological Thriller. A Psychological Thriller would be interesting to do because of the enigmas and red herrings, letting you play with the audience, and it seems to feed into other sub genres.

Looking at a scene from the Psychological Thriller film Se7en, you can see some Psychological themes.

This scene starts with a kinetic camera, making the viewer disorientated, and adding realism. Tilting up to the masses of air fresheners, this starts to raise some questions, as it isn't a normal thing to do. The dramatic drone score really makes the viewer tense, especially where it crescendos when the camera dollys backwards from the torches, into the room. The slow reveal of what's in the room increases the suspense, with long cuts. The low key lighting of the room makes the scene feel realistic and dull. Several enigmas are set up in the next few shots, like the dolly into the word SLOTH written on the wall, the photographs of the victim, the jars of their waste. Close ups of several props and the victim makes the audience fell like detectives, trying to analyse every detail to try and figure things out. When the body moves, it is followed by fast cuts and more dramatic score, making the audience terrified. 

Thriller analysis of different sub genre

This opening sequence is in a different sub genre compared to the two that i have already analyzed, this movie is more of a social-realism/ crime sub genre of thriller and it is titled London to Brighton.

Conventions and analysis of opening sequence and thriller + enigma's.

We start of with an ident of vertigo films over black followed by the fundee's  'UK film Council' and 'The National Lottery', the next section is also about the above with a difference of the presence of a presents which begins the focus and attention on the film, following this is a "Steel Mill Pictures & Wellington films Production. The typography is simple and readable with basic font, iconography likewise, in a way this builds tension, the vagueness creates a feeling of suspense and mystery as to what is about to happen, which further exploited by no use of score, this is making the audience settle down and turn their minds towards the film. Of course during those titles only important information and main credits are displayed, unlike some older movies that have credits appearing at the start. We see a tableau: "London 3:07 am" which begins laying down narrative, creating story and clarifying location plus time, suspense is low, already at this some of the audience may begin to wonder why its set so early because 3:07 is not a usual time for things to be happening.


Right at the beginning of the scene we can established that something bad has just happened and that the girls are at risk of someone or something, we can see that the young protagonist girl is in pain and scared. We also begin to see the two girls relationship, the older is looking after and providing for the younger, which is demonstrated by the older woman getting the food and the money for the train. Very early on the audience will be asking questions like why is there a young girl with an old woman? Why is she wearing makeup? Why does the older one have a bruise? why are they both so dirty? What are they doing so early in the morning? These are enigmas which are creating mystery and a drive to want to find out whats happening felt by the audience. The narrative seems to be just dropped in the middle of the story with out a propper introduction and scene setting, this is used in thriller plots sometimes so that the audience find out pieces of the puzzle bit by bit later on and fit them all together at the end, this is done through flashbacks and discovering.


A non linear narrative is present- it begins to abruptly; we slowly learn about the characters and the possible antagonist with references to him like "what about that man Derrick?" or "what will that man do?" We realise the older woman is caring and helpful but also that she sells herself which might be and oxymoron because we would expect her character to be low in terms of moral standards and selfishness, which is a connotation of her character, however she is not. We can pick out numerous details from the diallogue, like the girl is expecting money for something she must have done "what about my money?" the audience judge the characters and because the young girl wants money and is with effectively a prostitute, then certain thoughts may be going through peoples minds. At this point in the narrative, we have the opposite of dramatic irony and narrative withholding because the characters know more than us. Another example of judgement is towards the girl, she is so young and up to no good, people may be thinking where are her parents? She is also frightened of something most likely the man Derrick for reasons which we don't know yet. The camera shots are kinetic and moving all the time which suggests panic and rush, further augmented by the elliptical edits which condense time down time very quickly and also add a feeling of hurry, a lot happens in the 3 minutes those feelings are absorbed in the narrative which then reflects out as tension. Finally we get the film title right at the end of the introduction with some asynchronous screaming in the back ground setting a sort of depressing tone. 


This analysis has also given me good idea's especially in the use of enigma's, me and my partner have decided to layer our opening sequence with enigma's so that the audience will try and figure out what and why some things happen, for example in our opening sequence we will have one of the main characters underground with a candle, this will lead the audience to possibly think why is he there? We will then reveal this enigma by the character recording and studying signs and symbols to figure out his own enigma, which will also lead to another enigma and another and so on, so that the audience will always be tense trying to crack the code of what is actually happening.

Thriller Conventions and key concepts.

Conventions


Thriller as a genre Thrillers are usually regarded as being full of suspense, tension and excitement, they are the main emotional elements that play a role on the audiences mood. Thrillers often use a high level of anticipation and a lot of expectation, uncertainty, surprise and anxiety. Another very common element in the thriller genre are the buildups, peaks and lulls of suspense, at some points the score, diagetic sounds, mise en scene, cinematography and editing are very slow, the build up in suspense gradually, until there is a sudden shocking moment with heightened everything and more adrenaline building which gradually calms; thrillers have multiple peaks and lulls sometimes in very short spaces of each other.

There are several techniques in thrillers that make them what they are
-Prolonged cross cutting
-Quick cutting montages
-Quick cutting
-Very long shots
-Close ups/ extreme close ups
-Extreme zoom shots
-Use of profile or silhouette
-Dramatic tense or foreboding scores
-Use of enigma codes -Use of action codes
-Use of dramatic irony
-Red herrings

The codes and conventions signify what we expect in a genre, thrillers have very particular conventions which if broken could easily be presumed as a different genre, as Theresa Perkins said, ’’It can be difficult to see where one genre ends and another begins’’ due to the very fine lines between each genres the conventions help us identify a thriller, ofcourse its still very complex. A common theme however is of characters being placed in menacing situations from which escape seems impossible, with the menace often being abstract, uncertain or shadowy.
Common character types are:
-Criminals
-Fugitives
-Stalkers
-Assasins
-Innocent victims caught up in events.
-Police
-Femme Fatale

Common themes include:
-Terrorism
-Political conspiracy
-Espionage
-Pursuits
-Dangerous obsessions
-Psychological crime
-Oppressive but unseen supernatural occurances.

History of thrillers

History of thrillers:

The most prominent figure involved in the thriller genre was Alfred Hitchcock, he didn’t start of making thriller films and in those days the term thriller hadn’t been used, however the first of his films we consider a thriller is “The lodger” a jack the ripper type story with suspense, this film was released in 1926. The next one he did in 1929 was a film called “Blackmail” this was notable for being his and Britains first sound film. From then on Hitchock focused mainly on producing thrillers and had several hits including “Psycho

 

In the 1950’s Hitchcock still continued to produce adding “Technicolour” to his collection. He produced more 

classic films like “Strangers on a Train” in 1951 which was about two train passangers who both staged a battle of wits and traded murders with each other. Slowly there came about non-Hitchcock thrillers such as “Niagara” in 1953 by Henry Hathaway, this movie starred the famous Marilyn Monroe who played a wife trying to kill her husband.

In the 1960 more and more thrillers where being created, one by Roman Polanski released in 1965 called “Repulsion” was about a young woman who was getting progressively crazy. A violent wave of thrillers came during the 1970-1980 era, notably Hitchcocks “Frenzy”, “Dressed to Kill” and “Blow Out”   

Over the course of film history more creative techniques (e.g vertigo shot by Alfred Hitchcock), cinematography and editing has created the movies of our day, which unlike the movies from 70 years ago spend colossal amounts of money to set up, direct and produce some now a day blockbusters. Thriller films are ever more planned and prepared to give the most thrilling experience possible, as hacking into the psychology of emotions while viewing films, has enabled now a day movies to be more enthralling.

Recently more animation films have been created due to advances in graphic technology, along with insane special effects that we now have the technology for. This has added greatly to the possibilities that thriller films can have now in the present.

David Ziolkowski

thriller analysis old

Analysis of an old thriller opening sequence.

The opening sequence that i have analysed is from an early silent movie called ‘The Bat’ which is a very early silent film based on a broadway play, produced by Roland west in 1926.

The opening sequence at first starts of with a black and white screen with the film title and producers name displayed over a grey background, the typography is rather standard but a little bit spooky. There are no idents, funding titles or tableaus, this conveys what films where like in the 1920s era. Next there is a large list of important figures in the production of the film with some common titles like ‘photographer’ and ‘score director’ but also some uncommon ones that i'm not familiar with like ‘continuity’ and ‘settings.’ There is score however, which I suspect would be played live when the footage was rolling-it is tense and vibrant, starting of calm and progressing to violins and church organs which give it a very distinct feel of early horror. The next screen we see is of the ‘players'-actors I assume, which shows a lengthy list of about 15 different names and their characters. There is then something I have never seen before in a film, a slide which say's “Can you keep a secret? Don't reveal the identity of “The Bat”. Future audiences will fully enjoy this mystery play if left to find out for themselves.” Thats effectively saying don't spoil the film for anyone who hasn't seen it, which is very unique and useful.

The first image we get is of two shining lights and a black background, which creates suspense already, as the screen brightens the two lights form a bats eyes and the rest of its body, the bat is rather scary, this fades to a scenic view of possibly New York which has connotations of a large, policed, economic city, with a full moon out which also adds to the suspense in making it scary as it has connotations of darkness, uncertainty and fright. The next shot is another written slide, which sets the story and possible enigma’s. The man sitting down is very bland, and creepy as seen by his acting of his eyes rolling around, the audience would be looking trying to understand what is about to happen and what to expect, so a level of anticipation is produced. All the actors are dressed in the clothes of that time, the police uniform seems very militaristic. The camera shots and angles are very basic, there are many medium shots and little edits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc8JsaCwn4I

I have also analysed (Collateral 2004) with Tom cruise.

There are two shots happening at the same time showing where the two characters are and them on their way to meet each other, this is very effective for the story. There are simple swipe transitions to show the lapse of time which stops the shots from getting dull. Typography is also very different and unique with a gold colour and thin font. The score isn't to fast paced, but not to relaxed, its relatively upbeat and pleasant, could definately entrance the viewer ready for the main events of the film. Simple but effective and to the point,


How this might influence my movie?
I most of all have learnt the importance of score during the title sequence, i am considering wether to make the whole project just a stand alone title sequence, with both titles and action sequences that don't reveal to much but are also tense.

Opening Sequence conventions

Right at the beginning of a title sequence you will usually get the idents, funding titles, production companies and then a list of the most important roles in creating the film usually including the director, producer, executive producer, top billing actors. Sometimes in some films as seen in one of the early James Bond's the whole list of people involved in the production is displayed including not so prioritised camera men, lighting, make up, and other less profound roles. Sometimes the title sequence will also tell a story and set the mood.

The purpose of an opening sequence is to put people in the zone of the movie, play with their emotions and introduce them to the characters, its also a good place for red herrings to be popped up. Essentially, the intro is designed to draw all attention onto the screen in an immersion of the films world; titles have the exact same effect, however there is a limit on what exactly you should do for a title sequence, however they do also serve the role to generate focus of the audience onto the screen, done through careful selection of score, typography and iconography. Mise en scene, cinematography are less common but are still used in mini stand alone sequences. The score in particular is important as it is the most influential in setting the mood, it can be played through out idents, funding titles and tableau's which means that the audiences mood can be altered with out any actual visual material.
Each opening sequence is significantly different and can create a different type of mood depending on how it is structured and how the score is used.

David Ziolkowski

Preliminary Task

The brief of out Preliminary Task was 'A continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. The task should demonstrate match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.'

Planning: Before we storyboarded we had a short discussion on what the dialogue would be about. We settled quickly on someone not doing their homework. Doing the storyboard was simple enough as we already knew they had to walk in a door and sit down. We decided what shots to take, then the dialogue we came up with was simple enough. The entire planning stage was relatively easy, and it seems like you have to agree on things quickly with your team to not use up time and decide on a shot that appeases all members.

Production: We found our location. The door and table were already set up like we imagined in our storyboard, so we got straight into it. We assigned the roles of directors/cameramen and actors, however we all had ideas for directing. We filmed shots for a while so we had enough content to edit with. We would film the same scene from different angles to achieve match on action. After doing the dialogue scene, we realised it would be better if everyone was happy with the dialogue written, and the actors knew well what they were going to say. Also, when setting up the camera we debated what looks best and what would work. Next time every member of the group should know the storyboard

Post Production: One member of our group took charge of the editing, and he was good and quick at it. The rest of us suggested what shots to put where or what to use and not to use. We seemed to get through the editing with speed, without compromising the quality of the clip. Finishing the editing of shots early left us some time to add in score and sound effects, and titles. This helped us to see how to find these things and how to fit it to a shot best. Seeing our group member edit helped me to learn things I didn't already know you could, and tips and tricks to becoming a quicker editor.

Preliminary Task

Prelim Task

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4V6AlabvG0


The preliminary task was a very useful bit of experience in filming and editing as it was the first instance where i was put in a situation where we had to film something according to a script and also arrange all the actors and experience for myself how the whole process of filming and editing works. I was also fortunate because one of the members of my group Steven had previous experience so he eased us into how were supposed to execute our preliminary task, i feel that because we had the experience of doing it ourselves we learnt a lot more than if we would have just done theory on it. Our task required us to film, using several shots, a sequence of someone coming into a room and having a shot reverse shot conversation with someone else. In this regard we demonstrate completion of the task. However there were certain problems with the filming process and also somethings that went well, in the pre production, production and post production.

Pre production.
When we started planning our idea for our preliminary task we instantly met several issues for example two members of our group wanted to do the plan their own way and it just fell apart and the cooperation was relatively low at first, however this shifted slowly, but we did end up writing two separate storyboards. There wasn't any trouble picking in between the two so when we finished our storyboards we were all relatively happy about the content. We all had input into what to include and what not to, however some more than others. The storyboard was relatively easy but at points time consuming having to describe every little detail. We encountered one problem about the quality of drawings, our group didnt want to spend to long making each figuire anatomically correct and virtually identical so we drew quick sketches which weren't enough to convey our message, also on our shot reverse shot we had difficulties understanding ourselves how it was supposed to look like on the story board.

Production.
One down side of when we started the production process was that it was the lesson after we had planned it so we had to spend some time refreshing our minds on what had happened earlier, which wasnt really a significant downside however did slow us down. The biggest problem that we actually encountered was the fact that some things where just really funny and awkward for the actors at first so we ended up bursting into laughter for long periods of time instead of working on our project. Next we had the problem of our diallogue between the two characters we wanted to change it from we had on the story board because in real life it sounded wrong and incoherent. The rest was a rather educational process that we all benefited from, including filming many shots over and over to get the perfect clip, changing our camera angle to see the character(s) from a different perspective and the directing of the character(s).

Post Production.
Most of the post production was done by Steven as he said he knew what to do, but we all had feedback on what kind of edits to include or what kind of sound effects/ score to play on top. We all learned how to edit things quickly and effectively to make it appear as if the edits are smooth and coherent, because if you can see the edits thens its bad editing. We saw all the different kinds of effects that are possible for example split clip, slow motion, adding a freeze frame, changing the colours, adding title screens, these and many more. There were some points where we got a bit to ahead of ourselves and edited the clips to roughly and so they seemed jagged and in-continuous but to resolve this we just spent extra time on those clips altering them and adjusting them until they flew more coherently. There was a section with the door creaking shut in 3 different shots that made it seem like the door kept almost closing but not quite, we solved this by cutting out large sections of some of our clips and also slowing some down.
We ended up adding a whole section at the end where funny things in general happened, our bloopers lasted for about 1 minute as we had so much footage that we wanted to include on there, we added extra sound effects and score to enhance the impact of our video.
Over all the post production was good because we learnt how to use it, but not as much as we could have if we all had a go individually at editing it.

Final product.
I would say that for the amount of effort that we put in the result was rather high, however it is no west end Oscar winning piece of work, but it reflects our individual efforts as a group instead of individually to create something smooth enough to be watched. There are some delays at some points but not that visible, more noticable is the random music and sound effects that we put in, the majority are effective and work well but there are 2 or 3 that are a bit random and dont quite fit in with the rest. One part mistake of the editing is that we got to many shots of Andy saying thanks. Over all though im happy about the final product, for the amount of work we put in its exceptional.