What is a thriller?

As our final piece will be based on a thriller genre, I wondered, what makes a thriller and how could I use this evidence for my final coursework piece?

To me, a thriller is composed of low lighting, deep and low bass music, a creepy lurking antagonist looking to plot against the protagonist whilst they are trying to resolving the issue at hand. The antagonist is usually always represented as a dark, sinister character with a dark edgy look; whereas usually the protagonist is perceived as innocent, generally the complete opposite. There is multiple types of sub genres involved with the main genre 'thriller' -

• Horror - Silence of the Lambs
• Psychological - Seven
• Spy - James Bond
• Military - Saving Private Ryan
• Forensic - The Bone Collector

I take a deep interest in films in the thriller genres,t his is because as an audience, I believe that after watching a good thriller film that the same situation could happen to myself. Therefore, I know that my final piece will have to be realistic, to the point of knowing that the scenario could happen to the film's audience.

Storyboard for the main!

Even though it doesn't look like much of a plot, to me and the group this is key to our ideas. we have planned the whole of the beginning of the film, with camera details and even what the characters are wearing. After our preliminary, we know ideas change, and we are fine with that; so this is just a loose guideline. This movie is going to be the best of our ability. We all cant wait to start.

Pitch

 

In our class, we had to do a pitch to our teachers whom represented a organistation that wanted to know why they should invest money into our film.

Our film will be a psychological thriller that plays on the mind of our target audience. The length will be roughly 120 minutes and will run with the tagline of ' don't play her game; you'll lose'. The name will be 'hello', this will be seen multiple times on the location sites as it is the key to why our protagonist is getting stalked. The target audience is rated 15 as our mass audience will be around this age up to 18. We are using young actors; therefore it will relate more with the age range that we have selected. Even though our film will contain death and strong language, we believe it will be nothing 'jumpy' or too extreme as no gore/death will be shown, we are just using the idea of it. The theme of the film is similar to the popular thriller ' the roommate'. It is focused on a young teenage girl who is living a everyday life; however she starts noticing differences in her everyday life. She soon finds a 'burn book' with a type of hit list attached to it, she then notices the word 'hello' in her everyday life and her world changes, for the worst as she notices she is being sinisterly stalked.

A case study: Alfred Hitchcock

A legend in the industry - Sir Alfred Hitchcock.

Sir Alfred Hitchcock was an English film director and producer, often known as 'The Master Of Suspense'. A legend in the thriller/psychological genres, he directed more than fifty feature films in a career that lasted over 6 decades. A few famous films of Hitchcock include Psycho in 1960, The Birds 1963 and The Lady Vanishes in 1938. These became successes over night.

'The Master Of Suspense' explored the darker sides of human nature through situations; he created a unbearable suspense that the viewers couldn't simply shake off. He manipulates the audiences fears and desire, making them feel on a whole new level.

Lightning Practices

We did lightning practices to gain understanding how different lightning can produce different effects for the audience. This is what we did;

This is used from lights from above. This creates a dark figure which would be perfect for our thriller film. 

This photograph was a taken with the light source beneath the character. Little can be seen from this photo, making a sinister appeal, perhaps best used for the antagonist. 

This shot was taken using more natural lights from the room outside. The context stills comes across as sinister and creates the perfect thriller effect. 

We used a torch in our phone to take the this photo. As shown, you can see the left side of the face much more clearly whereas the right side is casted aside into the dark, creating a thriller feeling. This shot would be good in a alley way when trying to hide a antagonists full face. 

This task has helped me understand the importance of placement of light and how it can be used to conduct various settings. 

Textual Analysis Of The Roommate

Time Slots

As me and my team all have very different time schedules, such with work, hobbies and fitting time in for other subjects, it is hard to keep track of when we are available to meet. In order to help out when we can film and edit, we have stuck down sticky notes when we are available and the times and when we aren't in order to save messing each other around. This is our December timetable; we have also done one for January and February.

 

Six Stages Of Media Production

Textual Analysis of Psycho

Psycho 

1960 - September 15th

Duration - 106 minutes

Genre - thriller, psychological

Plot - A Phoenix secretary steals $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.

Mise En Scene -

The action takes place in a out of the way setting, very far away from a city. A stereotypical quiet area where its perfect for a murder. The murders take place when its raining and dark, this is showing that the weather isn't calm, much like the film. The blonde is dressed in white, therefore showing a innocence and automatically making the audience get the impression that she is a victim in this scenario. 

Sound -

In the beginning of the film, a string instrument is being played. this is extremely dramatic, dark and filled with suspense. It gives the idea that you are being chased or attacked, adding perfectly to the genre of the film. 

Camera shots -

The beginning is a panning of a establishing shot with a sudden unexpected jerking. It makes the audience feel uncomfortable and like the film is unpredictable as the camera movement was highly unpredictable.

 

Audience Theories

Uses and gratifications 

In 1974, two theorists Bulmer and Katz developed a new theory in the use of media; uses and gratifications. This theory that they created suggests that audiences uses media for various reasons. 

- Diversion; the use of media to escape from their everyday life. 

- Personal identity; the use of media to create their own identity from characters in media texts. They often copy their values and learn about their behaviour and try and form some type of resemblance from this. 

- Personal relationships; the use of media to create a interaction perhaps with others with similiar interests. 

- Survelliance; To gain information and knowledge, these are usually documentaries. 

- Entertainment; The use of media just for the simplicity of relaxing and enjoying media.

Hypodermic needle theory

This theory suggests that media is like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs to the audience; because is it usually aimed at a mass audience, they can do little but be influenced. 

The two step flow

This theory is a improvement on the previous theory. The two step flow suggests that information doesn't directly get transmitted to the audience but it is interpreted. 

Active vs Passive

This theory suggests that their is two types of media. Active is the type of media that makes you think afterwards, it intends to make you think. Whereas passive doesn't particularly effect the audience, it doesn't do anything to stimulate the mind and make a lasting impression. 

For our thriller, we have talked about the age that we want to appeal towards for our film. We was thinking about around the age of 15. After looking at certificates, this makes sense as our film wont be gory yet it will be suspenseful and have strong language. The characters in it will be able to relate easier to the audience.

Thriller ideas

After such success with the preliminary task, me and the same group decided to all work together again. Our team in the preliminary task all worked together so well, it only made sense to. We will be splitting the tasks between us all.

After discussion on what to do for our final piece, we all agreed the best type of thrillers were ones with a stalker and a typical victim, as it relates most to real life.

These are a few ideas that we rounded up quickly;

Seven analysis

The beginning of research & planning

Recently, our group has begun researching and planning for our main task.

We've been brainstorming some ideas and made a mind map of ideas;

 

We decided to go for a psychological thriller based around a stalkers journey. We discussed possible locations, including the stairs to my attic to Hasland Hall. Roles were talked about and compromised over.

 

We watched several movie trailers to get some ideas for a thriller of a similar choice. For example, the thriller 'The Roommate' was watched and we decided to do the same scene where the stalker looks behind to the victim in the dark then turns away before the victim looks back.

 

So far, research and planning has gone good. We also looked at IMBD best thriller/horror films and then watched the trailers of some of these to gain inspiration.

Titling

To prepare ourselves for our main task, we had a practice in a editing process called 'After Effects'.  I found this extremely hard to navigate around the programme and will definitely need more time spent using the programme. I used video footage that I had found on the computer and tried to make something out of it.

This was what I came up with; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B5W_wBjUbs

Barthes' 'Narrative Codes'

Barthes Narrative Codes
In our preliminary task we used 4 of Barthes Narrative codes without realising.

Action Code

An action code is used for the audience to indicate what is the next logical step. It advances the narratives story. In our preliminary task we used the action code when I was proceeding through the door. This shows the audience the next scene will be the character going somewhere, perhaps going to find the victim!

Mystery Code or Enigma code

This code is used to explain the narrative by controlling what and how much information is given to the audience. This was used when the antagonist kidnaps the victim, as the audience is given no clue to why this is happening. We also used the enigma code in our preliminary piece when the antagonist walks through the door after the protagonist ran away with the victim.

The Semic Code

This code wasn't used in our preliminary task. The semic code is all about signs and meanings in a text that tell us about its narrative characters. For a example of this, the anarchy sign represents danger or problems arriving soon.

The Cultural Code

This code is used so the narrative makes sense to a culturally and socially aware audience. It helps sets the setting. This is used in our preliminary piece it was set in a school so it is probably based in a western society, also all the cast are white so it will probably be based in England.


Code of Oppositions

This is the use of binary opposites. We used this in the preliminary task by what our characters outfits was wearing.