What makes a thriller?

A thriller is a film which should use conventions in an effective and imaginative way to create suspense through the first few minutes of an opening. This will make it more exciting to watch and wanting the audience to watch more. In my opinion, I believe that an opening should be easy to understand with little given away as possible as there it little reason to watch the rest of the film. The opening must have a variety of shots shown to give more effect and add more entertainment on the audience, if one shot it shown throughout the film it will become very boring and not as effective that a thriller opening should be. Also, the editing is very important as I believe the film should be edited in a way so that every aspect is perfect to the thriller genre.

An example of a thriller film is 'Phycho'. This film breaks conventions in the way that a murder takes places inside whereas, a generally typical murder scene would take place outide, in darkness in the middle of nowhere. The gender of the murderer is also hidden in an effective way due to the camera angles. For example, the picture on the left shows an unknown character's shadow due to the fact they're behind a shower certain, this shows the audience that you can't tell if it's a man or a women. Once again, a typical sterotype of a thrillers murderer would be a man as they are the dominant gender out of the two and are considered the strongest. In that way, the women in then considered the victim as they're more vunrable and weaker.

A typical object is used for the muder weapon (a knife) which shows the conventions for a thriller genre.

The rationale behind our thriller

After pitching our presentation to the rest of the class we had some possitive feedback on what idea would be suitable for our thriller opening. We decided to mix idea one and idea three. Mixing these two ideas gave us more chance to develop the thriller conventions as we have two ideas in one and it would create a dramatic storyline. Idea one consisted of someone being chased and stalked by an unknown character, while idea three consisted of detectives solving a murder that's took place. We decided as add flash backs which flowed both idea's together more and is a convention. Through the process of connecting both ideas we were able to add some more scenes and think about different shots we could use. Our final idea still kept with the unknown character which turned into a masked man inspired from 'The Strangers'. The masked man stalked and killed a girl while detectives try to solve the murder.

Audience Research..

Camera

In any film there is a number of shots that can be used, however some are more effective than others. A close up of a person normally means a close up of their face, it shows the emotion of someone and the viewer is drawn into the subject. A point of view shot shows a view from a subjects perspective and is mostly edited in a way so it is obvious whose POV it is. A high angle shot is taken above the subject looking down at it, it gives the subject lack of power. Whereas, a low angle shot it taken below the subject looking up at it, it gives the subject a sense of size and power.

The 180' rule is a way in which it doesn't cause confusion on the audience, it states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes the imaginary axis is called crossing the line.
In our thriller we have used a variety of shots such as, long shot, POV shot, mid shot, pan shot.

Editing

There are so many different types of editing techniques you can use in a film, and some are more effective depending on the type of film. For example, a thriller. One effect that can be used in a thriller film is dissolve. This is when one shot fades into another which can help show a move from one location to the next or from one person to the next. Another effect that can be used is fade to black/white, one shot fades in or out to, or from black or white. If done quickly enough it can create a sense of flashbacks and can create a sense of time passing. One more effect is a jump cut which is an abrupt cut between shots. It's effective as it's dramatic and can begin/end action. Using different editing techniques increases the tension of the film and can become really dramatic.
In our thriller we have used the dissolve effect to show flashbacks.

Narrative

Narrative can happen any time in a thriller opening, either on top of dramatic music or the music stops to create more tension. It can be used in someone telling the story from their point of view or the audience hearing someone's thoughts and feelings. The narrative is normally being played over pictures/filming so you don't see the actually character talking. This creates a sense of mystery to the audience.
In our thriller we had a script which was used for the detectives, we all came up with the script.

Mise-en-scene

Mise-en-scene basically means anything in the shot. It can consist of location, costume, props and lighting. The mise-en-scene location is where the film/TV programme is set. The mise-en-scene costume can suggest a characters role, age, status and the time period in which the film is set. The mise-en-scene props are important objects that relate to the story, action, time or setting of a film. They may give the audience extra information about a character or time period. The mise-en-scene lighting can create atmosphere and highlight important actors/objects.

Sound

The two sounds that can be used in a thriller film/opening are diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic sound is heard on and recorded from the location of the film. For example, speech. Non-diegetic sound is added when the film is edited to add to the atmosphere. For example, sound effects and music.
We used voice overs in our thriller as the sounding didn't sound right due to the wind. We also used a backing track which worked well with our fit of the opening.

the day of the shoot...

On the day of shooting our thriller we all agreed to meet at a reasonable time of 11.00am at an easy place so we could get some practice shots in before filming the actual thing. It also gave us time to walk to our location. As we all live pretty near each other no one had any trouble in getting to the location in time. Before we left we made sure we had all the camera equipment, props and costumes that we needed as we wouldn't have time to walk back. When we arrived at the location we had a look around and started discussing where the camera would be best placed and how much space was needed for our acting. We also had to make sure we didn't break the 180' rule in filming. As we wanted our thriller to be filmed in dark we had plenty of time to run through the position of the camera, the acting roles making sure we got everything perfect, ready for the real thing. This also gave us a rough idea in how long it would take the film, making sure we had extra footage for backup. As we had our story board with us, we had the clear shots in which we needed to use and how they would look on camera. We also used our shooting script which gave us guidance through filming. With extra time we had it gave us the chance to change shots, or add shots as we could see how effective they would look. We took some pictures to show the location and how the actors looked through filming.

 These pictures are our practice shots just to show where the killer could stand. It also gave us a chance to show how he could stand and how he appears to the audience.

These shots were took while filming, just to show how the darkness makes the film more scary and a thriller genre. The white mask really shows up in the dark when close up. The only problem  is in the first picture, the mask could be easily missed as he only pops out for a second. We tried to resolve this problem by zooming in and editing the picture but it didn't really make much difference. 

Credits and title for our thriller opening.

We had quite a few idea's of how our credits could be set out and if they would look right when editing. As we have files opening in our thriller we were happy to stick with having the credits revealed when opened. We would edit the credits in using the macs. On the other hand, we had a back up in case it didn't work. We got chalk and coloured card and wrote our credits out and then we could overlap the image onto the files. When editing we have to make sure we get the right angle in which the files are, otherwise it won't look right.


 Here is the style of credits we were going for. We made sure they were the same colour as the files so it was easy to fit place on top of the picture. Using white chalk makes the credits stand out.


We were also thinking of using black card but we'll have to see how which one looks better when editing.


We had to find a unique way of viewing our title for our thriller. As we already had a name it was just a matter of linking the way of having the title to our opening.





We came up with a simple of having the title to start with..
Using the red writing would connote to blood as the girl has been killed.
We brainstormed in what other signs/symbols would make it look more realistic and came up with having a hand print smudged, which would look like blood from the victims hand.

After a bit of development we came up with a new design that the whole group agreed on.


We thought having the title slightly dark would give out thriller a scarier look to it. As we used red paint it stood out on the black background so the audiences eyes suddenly draw to it. Having the hand smudged would show that the victim is slowly dying or getting dragged away by the killer. 

Props for our thriller opening.

Our thriller opening consisted of only a few props. For example, the police files, phone and bag it was placed in. We also made a dead body out of rope and a scarf, the rope was used to give more shape towards it.

This were the files I created for the detective seen. I researched police files on the internet and came up with a design which I thought looked relevant. I added 'confidential' in big red letters to make the files look important and added 'CASE: 00-172' which would show the case number their working with. Inside the files are pictures of the characters in out thriller and blank lines in so it looks like a file. We thought, as a group we could add the credits on the blank lines as the files are opening. We would used the 
macs for the credits.

This is the mask we used in our thriller. Jack's mum made this out of an old sheet, remembering to cut out eye and month holes. As we inspired our idea from 'The Strangers' we had to make sure ours was different in the way the make appeared. We added a point at the top and added a straight face rather than a smile. As a group we thought when the masked man would appear he could tilt his head to add a creepy feel to the audience. Also, we hoped that the mask would make the audience ask questions such as, 'why's he hiding his identity from the audience and the girl?' Overall, I think the mask will work well as we're filming at night so hopefully it will stand out for when he appears.


We also used a phone and a bag to place it in for the effect of finding evidence. I thought the bag worked well we were able to write the date and what case the murder was which made it more effective. We thought this was a good prop to use as when evidence is found at a murder scene they placed in a bag for safe keeping. I think we would be able to work with this prop as one line is 'what are we working with then?' and that's when we were thinking of holding up the bag.

Shooting script for our thriller opening.

1. Black screen - phone call taking place
2. Mid shot of the detectives looking over the dead girls body
3 Close up of a file opening - also over the shoulder shot
(at the this point the credits will be shown with pictures of the character)
4. Extreme close up of the girls phone - receiving a text message  'You're dumped'
5. Pan shot of the girl walking round the corner
6. Mid shot of the girl walking passed the building
7. Close up of the girls phone in a bag 
(detectives speech 'what are we working with here?'
8. Mid shot of the girl walking down the path
(the camera zooms into the girl so she's centre of the screen)
9. Mid shot of the masked man grabbing the girl
(girl screams and gets pulled to the ground)
10. Close up of more files as Detective Freebury hands Detective Coley the file
(shows their pictures for then more credits to fit in) - another over the shoulder shot
11. Close up of the girls reaction
(the masked mans POV shot)
12. Close up of the masked man coming towards the girl
(the girls POV shot)
13. Ends as a black screen.


For our thriller opening we decided to have flash backs of a murder, so this is why our shooting script jumps from the detectives finding a body to how the murder took place. We thought this would be an effective way of showing this rather than just the murder being taken place and then the detectives. We decided to have the phone call being placed over a black screen so the audience don't see who/what that character is. We also added a variety of shots including POV shots from two characters which we thought would be quite effective.