3rd December: We discussed amongst each other aspects regarding what we associate with thriller films/clips. This task helped me understand what I notice in thrillers when watching them and important traits which make a thriller a thriller.
4th December: I completed this mind map which includes what I personally think a thriller is/ involves:
7th December: Today I decided to investigate the definition of a thriller to help me understand what a thriller is.
The most common definition of a thriller I found was: “a suspenseful adventure story or play or movie”
Other important information I found that helps me define and understand the genre of thriller;
*A thriller is a book or film which is designed to keep the reader or viewer on edge with suspenseful and sensational action
* This genre is incredibly large, and thrillers often overlap with pieces of work produced in other genres; mysteries, for example, are often thrillers
* Thrillers typically involve sudden plot twists and lots of red herrings, for example, keeping people unsure about what is going to happen
* Thrillers also have a lot of action, which is often chaotic
* An example of a long-established thriller genre is the spy thriller, featuring an often heroic and dashing spy who must confront whichever enemy happens to be popular at the moment.
8th December: I decided that making a questionnaire and asking people around school about the different questions regarding thrillers will help me understand what other people associate and expect from thrillers. I asked a group of 10 ten people when making my questionnaire.
QUESTIONNAIRE:
1. USING ONE WORD DESCRIBE A THRILLER
RESPONSES: EXCITING(4), SUSPENSE(2), TENSION(2), DARKNESS(1), BLOOD(1)
2. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THRILLER?
RESPONSES: GOD FATHER(5), BATMAN-THE DARK NIGHT(2), JAMES BONDS(2), JAWS(1)
3. WHAT WAS THE MOST RECENT THRILLER YOU WATCHED?
RESPONSES: TWILIGHT THE NEW MOON(7), 2012(2), HARRY BROWN(1)
4. WHEN WATCHING A THRILLER WHAT LOCATION WOULD YOU SAY MAKES IT EVEN MORE TENSE?
RESPONSES: FOREST(4), WATER(3), PUBLIC(1), OPEN FIELD(2)
This questionnaire has helped me identify what other people like or look for when watching thrillers. This questionnaire will hopefully help me include stuff what people want.
9th December: From my questionnaire it is clear to me that the most popular thriller film from my sample is The God father. Here is a short clip which I am going to analyse to see why people love it so much and can possibly inspire me when brainstorming when making my own thriller film.
After watching the clip I believe people enjoy watching The God Father because it is shocking and everything that happens is unexpected, this add mystry and I feel that people get more involved and fixed on a film when what happens next is unforeseen. Also I believe that people love it so much because they can almost relate it to real life situations as criminal activity is thriving in Western Society in the 20th/21st century.
10th December: A thriller I have always enjoyed is the Film Psycho. It is an iconic thriller and was made many years ago.
Here is a clip of the film Psycho
The reason why I feel this film was so successful is the way in which it uses the back round music to enhance the thrill and drama of the film. Even though this film was made many years ago, I feel this is still one of the best examples I have seen of how big a part the back round noise and music can play in a thriller film.
This clip of Psycho and The other clip of The God Father have helped me recognise what makes these films so unique, popular and will hop fully inspire me to make a film with the same impact.
11th December: To expand and build on my knowledge about films of the thrillers genre I had decided to do some research on the film Taken. I will focus on the role played by the actors and how the directors have set up the trailer to increase tension to draw the public into watching it.
After watching this trailer I was immediately drawn into the experience and wanted to watch the full film. The director has manipulated the content really well by showing extremally strong emotive parts of the film with out giving the rest away. He also uses some affective techniques such as "picture in picture shots",some powerful dialogue and a change of setting lighting which are all extremely affective ways of which he used to promote the film.
15th Decemeber: Our project is to produce the begining two minutes to a thriller film, and I feel that it would help me significantly to familiarise myself with the first two minutes of other thrillers to inspire me and help me come up with a good plot line for our short clip.
I have decided to look at the opening of the film "city of god".
The First minute of this film has a black screen with no sound and has the credits running. Personally I feel this is a slow and unaffective way to open a film and I genrally prefer action or tension to start a film off and play the credits at the end. However after the first minute you see the introduction of a strange location which is accompanied with music and backround noise. I feel that this would have been much more affective if this was the opening of the film opossed to the credits. From the end of the first minute to the end of the secound minute, tension slowly increases with the music getting louder and the cuts getting quicker, this is a common technique used to increase tension.
6th January : Today we decided to produce a brainstorm to help us gather ideas regarding locations.
Locations that we assiociate with a thriller film :
Dark house
Forest
Lake
Desert
Country side
Car
Ally way
Factory Buildings
Empty villages
Island
Out of all these locations we came up with, we decided to filter out realistic targets of which we can elaborate on and use in our film. The ones we consider realistic are the forest, country side, car and alley way. Hopfully this brainstorm will help us make our plot line and story boards and we can set our film around a location instead of setting the location around our film.
Images of Locations that we feel are appropriate:
