Conventions of a Thriller:
Suspense
A state of uncertainty or excitement, keeps the audience awaiting to see what is to come.
Enigma
Elements of the story are not presented in the narrative, therefore this intrigues the audience.
Restricted Narrative
Where the audience know less or the same as the character.
Unrestricted Narrative
When the narrative shows the audience more than the character.
Protagonist
The defenseless and innocent character, often seen as female.
Antagonist
The adversary of the protagonist, appears the most dominant, however they are seen as the bad person.
Confrontation/disruption
The arrival of a force or character which opposes normality, creating a problem.
Video of Steven Spielberg on what makes a good thriller:
- In this clip, Steven Spielberg proposes that the story is the key success to a good film, no matter which genre it falls into. He also makes it clear that there is no point in making a film unless there is a story worth telling, which results in the thrills following from this. The thrills of a thriller need to make the audience want to bite their fingers, meaning that they need to feel anxious and intrigued as to what it going to happen next.
Editing
- Our thriller uses the aspect of suspense by using the use of cross-cutting editing, to create a build up of tension and uncertainty as the film goes on. At the start of our opening, we cut between two different locations:
- Girl (Protagonist) leaving college
Example of cross-cutting in our thriller:
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| Setting 1 |
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| Setting 2 |
Example of cross-cutting in Thriller films:
Structure of a thriller narrative (Todorov's Theory)
1) Normality (Equilibrium)
2) Disruption (Dis-equilibrium)
3) Resolution/closure
- In our thriller opening, we first start off in a state of normality as we see a normal everyday girl leaving college. This marks the beginning of our film, and requires a short set-up, meaning it doesn't last for too long.
- As we get to the middle of our thriller opening, we are faced with the disruption where the two characters meet and the tension increases.
- However, due to the fact that our media product only displays a thriller opening, we didn't have to show a resolution or closure, which creates intrigue for the audience, as they will want to continue to watch the film to find out more.
Camerawork
- In our thriller opening, we altered the camera angles and shot distances, in order to hide the antagonists identity. This increased tension and suspense raising questions within the audience; who is this person? what are they up to? what are they doing? The fact that the male character's (Antagonist) identity is never seen, creates an enigma as we don't know who he is and what he intends to achieve from his abnormal actions. However, we decided that his character is disturbed and lost, as if he has experienced something dark in life. This is one of the main restricted narratives of our thriller and i feel that it keeps the audience intrigued and interested to find out more.
- Furthermore, the majority of our camera angles were from a very low angle, especially during the scenes where the two characters meet. This suggest a difference in power and status, in particularly making the male character the more dominant and the female character weaker and more vulnerable. In many thriller films, such as The Usual Suspects, low angles and close up's are used to suggest a difference between power and status.
Mise en Scene
- Lighting - Our lighting was very low key during our thriller opening, in order to cast a more dark and mysterious mood.
- Costume, hair and make-up - We made the female character appear as casual but not a normal stereotypical female, in order to create a confusion about her character and to make her appear as a less obvious victim, compared to what we see in most thriller films (e.g. The Disappearance of Alice creed). This was done by dressing her in everyday twenty-first century clothing, such as jeans and a hoodie, so she didn't look like a glamorous or girly stereotype (e.g. High heels and lots of make-up).
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On the other hand, we made the male character appear very dark and bleak, by dressing him in black and concealable clothing in order to hide his identity.
- Setting and props- The knives used in our thriller, were put in place in order to build up the suspense and to thrill the audience. The sharp and fatal sound that they created, increased the tense atmosphere., making the audience aware of the characters disturbed ego. Furthermore, our setting was based around a cellar, creating a more dark and bleak mood. adding to the suspense of the film.
- Our thriller opening consists of only two characters, one male and one female, however, they both represent different social groups, such as gender, sexuality, age and social class. Our two characters fall under these particular social groups:
Male character (antagonist) - Young adult, perhaps middle-class, British-white male.
Female character (protagonist) - Teenager, upper-middle class, British-white female.
- Age:
In our thriller opening, we can see that the female character is a young girl, from the setting, body language and her clothes, hair and make-up. At the beginning of the film, we see her leaving college, suggesting that she may be on her way home from a normal day of college. Furthermore, her clothes also suggest her age group, where we see her in casual jeans and a hoodie, the typical twenty-first century female outfit. Her body language appears casual and innocent, making her appear harmless and original within her environment.
- Gender:
Both representations of gender in our characters, show negative impressions, where the characters are displayed in stereotypical ways. The male character is bold, superior and disturbed, therefore the audience view him as a threatening male. We see this through his costume, body language and the way he is positioned in the frame. His costume is very dark and concealing, hiding his identity. Furthermore, the way in which his body language is used, for example when he is sharpening the knives very slowly, this suggests he is a very fierce character. The composition of his character within the frame, implies that he doesn't want to be seen and intends to stay discrete and secretive to contain his independence.
On the other hand, our female character is not seen as a stereotypical female, however she is a helpless victim, with no strength to fight against the male. She is weak and vulnerable, with little knowledge of what is going to happen to her. We see this through certain areas of mise en scene, such as her body language, facial expression, hair and make-up. Her body language is very timid and weak, when we see her trying to tug and pull her way out of captivity, with her facial expression showing fear. Furthermore, her hair and make-up suggests a typical everyday girl. She appears casual and beautiful, but not too posh or glamorous, with no intimidation about her.
- Social class: Our thriller opening shows our female character as an upper-middle class female. We can see this through aspects of mise en scene; the setting, props, hair, costume and make-up. We see her enter her house through a big open kitchen, suggesting that she has a fair amount of money. The audience also see her as quite a wealthy character due to the way in which she is fully and appropriately dressed, and the college setting in which she regularly attends. On the other hand our male character's social class is never quite made clear, due to the regular aspect of his identity remaining concealed. However we assume that he must have some money due to the use of props that he has obtained, such as the long sharp knives and chloroform.
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3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Who would distribute our product?
- As our target audience for our thriller film is teenagers and young adults, i felt that our product would be best distributed through online sites, such as You-Tube or iTunes.They are smaller companies, and therefore have lower budgets.
Why?
- With the expense of the cinema and media retailers such as HMV in administration, the majority of the population tend to purchase their chosen cinema films online. It is now easily accessible for people of any age, gender or social class, on top worldwide sites like iTunes, You-Tube, Love-Film and Netflix.
- This later brought me to the decision that distributing our product through online institutions, would make it more successful in being presented to our target audience.
How?
- Pop-up advertisements in apps purchased on websites like iTunes and Google Play Store.
- Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, companies can share the film link through their fan pages. This will help our film to become more global, for those interested and increase the viewer ratings.
- On-screen advertisements at the margin of the web-pages.
- Recommendations - Viewers watching similar films on these websites, can see recommendations for our thriller.
- Adverts/ trailers in other movies.
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
- I felt that young adult and teenage males would be the target audience of our Thriller film. I did some researching on the internet and asking people on social networking sites, like Facebook, including family and friends, and found that the most popular film genres were Mystery-Thriller.The majority of people who i surveyed that stated this genre were older teenage boys or young adult males. On the other hand comedy was more popular with young adult females and teens.
- Following my own survey, i also did some research into the worldwide film genre. This graph below shows the most popular movie genres in North America 1999-2012, from the total box office revenue.
- I found that the Thriller genre seemed to be fairly low in the scale, when compared to other popular movie genres. However this graph of statistic does not identify certain genders or age groups.
Graph from Statista.com
Top 5 Thriller films from www.screenrush.co.uk (as of 6/4/13)
1. Inception
2. Pulp Fiction
3. Black swan
4. Fight Club
5. The Departed
- These films were reviewed by users of the site, and most of the reviews were stated by males. This therefore made it clearer for us to categorize the thriller film genre under the male popularity.
Inception Trailer:
BBFC Guidelines
- From researching and reading guidelines from the BBFC, i would class our film as a 12A/12. This is due to the fact that it contains sharp weapons and moderate violence. However, it doesn't contain strong language or discrimination that may be unsuitable for young teenagers.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
- After we decided that our audience would be for young men or teenagers, i felt that the narrative of the story, a girl getting kidnapped, would be a more intriguing topic for this age group and gender.
- After doing my own survey of people's preferred film genres, i found that hardly any girls stated that they liked thriller films, therefore the plot of a girl coming home from college and getting abducted into a cellar, wouldn't appeal to many females.
- The pace of our thriller opening, was fairly rapid from the cross-cutting that we created into the sequence. This therefore produces suspense and enigma .
- I asked friends and family who are of our target audience, and found that they often feel sympathetic and compassionate towards a female victim in a film, however their view would change if the victim was a male character. Therefore, the female victim in our story, would help interest the male audience and create a appealing impression between them and the character.
- After showing our film to a few people i know, i got some feedback on their thoughts and impressions of the film. The majority of them were positive, however many stated that the sound irritated them a little, therefore it could be improved.
" Very interesting, great casting. Soundtrack got on my nerves a bit, therefore it may put other people off watching it"
"The sound effect of the blokes footsteps at the end was very effective and creepy. Maybe a bit too fast paced, however it made sense"
"The fact that the male remained anonymous, helped sustain the conventions of a real thriller, and i really wanted to find out who he was. The sound was very long and continuous"
- After receiving this feedback from family and friends, i found that the males preferred it more than the female audience that i asked, however they did mention that the soundtrack didn't reflect the mood and what was going on, compared to actual thriller films.
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Camerawork:
- During our first episode of filming, we were so busy concentrating on our film and camerawork, that we forgot to consider and broke the 180 degree rule. Therefore, this meant re-shooting a big chunk of our footage, however the second time round, things were more more successful.
- In terms of the technical aspects, i learnt how to set the white balance on the cameras, in order to avoid unrealistic colour casts. I also learnt about sandwich, which is when you have to leave a gap at the beginning and end of filming, to avoid any cutting of your footage. This can easily be removed when it comes to using final cut pro.
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| Screen shot of Garageband |
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| Screen shot of Final Cut Pro |
Sound:
- At the beginning of making our Thriller film, we had very little knowledge of how sound is used in film and sound editing. We learnt the basics and terminology of sound language:
Diegetic Sound
Sounds that originate in the story world, that the character can hear
Non-diegetic Sound
Sounds that do not originate in the story world, therefore the character cannot hear it
On Screen Diegetic Sound
Source of sound appears within the frame
Off Screen Diegetic Sound
Source of sound is not see in the frame
Foley Sound
Sound added after filming
Synchronous Sound
Sound added during filming
- I think if i had the chance to do it again, i would improve the soundtrack, as i feel it doesn't flow very well with our film.
Editing:
- From the whole process, i feel that i learnt the most through the editing technologies. I learnt how to add sound and create different effects using final cut pro, such as our titling and adjusting the format.
What i learnt about editing in final cut pro:
Cross-cutting
Parallel Editing
Time
Pace
180 degree rule
Shot reverse shot
Match on action
Eye-line match
Space
Sound Bridge
- I have also learnt about Blogger and it's format, gradually becoming more creative and experimenting with the use of visual techniques as well as the writing aspects. These include embedded video, screen shots, links and imagery.
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| Screen shot of Blogger |
Lighting:
- During the process of making our thriller, i learnt about low key lighting and lighting theory's and how they can create mood and atmosphere in a thriller film.
- I learnt that low key lighting is crucial when making a thriller film, as it expresses emotion and mood and symbolic character traits.
- To create this effect, i learnt that it is best to have the key light on, the fill light very low and the back light very low or even off.
- Since producing our preliminary piece of work, i feel i have progressed hugely in my technology skills, particularly with editing. This had made me more knowledgeable of the construction of film and expanded my ability and understanding of character construction and narrative.
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| Setting from the prelim, where we were only allowed to film on the college campus. |
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| Setting from our thriller, where we had the freedom to choose our setting that we wanted. |
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| We also had more freedom in our thriller, to select our cast, and use Mise en Scene aspects to represent their character. In the preliminary task, we had to dress a girl up as a boy. |
Editing:
- I feel i have improved in continuity and vision editing, however i wish i could have improved my sound editing skills to the best of my ability. Nevertheless, i am confident at using final cut pro, as during the preliminary task, i was unsure about many things. I had very little knowledge of the software and how to edit effectively.
- Looking back on our product, i feel i worked harder and were more involved in the production, helping with my knowledge and understanding of making a media product.
- During the editing process, i have learnt more about time, space and pace, which is vital in a thriller film, something which i didn't consider much during the preliminary task.
Construction of character and story:
- This task needed more time, effort, dedication and thought, unlike our preliminary. I learnt about how you can use camera angles and shot distances to represent certain characters, through their age, gender and social status. Furthermore, i particularly learnt about how a fast pace makes a successful thriller, in order to grip and intrigue the target audience.
- Compared to the preliminary task, i now understand the conventions of a thriller and how to use aspects of camerawork, sound, mise en scene and editing to express a character.
Continuity editing:
- During the preliminary task, we learnt about the 180 degree rule, shot reverse shot and match on action. These techniques were demonstrated clearly in our preliminary film, however during the construction of our thriller opening, we forgot about these important aspects of film making.
- A clear example of this is when we broke the 180 degree rule during our first day of filming, something in which we later had to re-shoot to correct it. However by re-filming this, we were more successful with our framing and were able to add effective camera movement, such as the scene where we follow the female from behind.
Camera:
- I felt that we were more risky in our thriller film, compared with the preliminary task, as we decided to experiment more with the camera. We wanted to make it less simple than the prelim, when we used a basic camera on a tripod, with little movement. During the process of our thriller, we used the pan, tilt and dolly to add more film techniques to our film.
- All of these techniques, helped us to convey the characters in the way we wanted them to appear to the audience.
- I was able to have more time using the equipment compared to the preliminary task, as there were less people in our group this time. I felt this helped me in developing my skills and understanding of film equipment.
Overall, i am generally pleased with our product and feel that i have come a long way since the beginning of the preliminary task.
