Thriller films usually use suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. This gives the viewer a high level of anticipation and uncertainty.  Camera movement Tracking and Pan shots is what’s commonly used in the beginning of thriller films, particularly a certain group of people who we should be interested in as the audience. There is also usually non diegetic sound playing in the background which adds to the tension and also could create a sound bridge when jumping from one scene to the other.

During a thriller film the protagonist faces death, his and/or her or somebody else's for example in ‘Skyfall’ James Bond is faced with death when he is shot during a fight on top of a train. Another common convention is that the force of the antagonistic must initially be cleverer or stronger than the protagonist therefore building suspense and uncertainty about whether or not the protagonist will succeed in the end.

Mise en scene is a French phrase meaning the arrangement of scenery and properties to represent the place where a play or movie is enacted. A good example of this would be in ‘Sky fall’ in the intro scene where Bond is chasing the men who stole a hard drive from the laptop Bond was looking for. In this scene they are driving through an Arabic market. The Arabic market is made more realistic by the use of well-placed extras, food on stalls and old buildings. All of these add to the realism being created along with the police and crashes.

The Editing for Thrillers conventionally use a lot of jump cuts. This is used a lot because the film is very fast moving so there are multiple things all happening at once. The jump cuts allow the audience to see all the different events that are happening and let them make assumptions as to what is going to happen next with the events and the characters. The cutting rate always seems to speed up as a climax in the story is reached and then slows down towards the end or when the story becomes more settled.

In Thrillers they typically use a lot of non-diegetic sound which helps create a certain atmosphere. For example in Sky Fall when Bond is chasing the villain non-diegetic is added to convince the audience that Bond is in Arabia and not on a film set.

Thriller conventions         Notes:

 

Camera work

Typical shots     

Mid shots - reactions   emotions

Close ups - involvement, concealment, claustrophobic

 

Compositions 

Exclusion of objects to create tension

Camera movement and angles - low and high angle shots, power, authority, empathy and 1^st person.

 

Editing

Typical transitions    dissolves, link events     fades to black or white to show flash backs  

Quick cuts create tension.

 

How editing is used to show structure and narrative:

Use of flash backs and duel narrative.

Non chronological builds tension.

 

Thriller convention, people’s roles in the making of the movie

I dent, lion roaring, the film company.

Introduce key characters and tension should build and create an atmosphere.

A snippet of the plot

 
Create an unsettling feeling

 

Sound

Non diegetic sound is used to create tension and atmosphere.   

Music, radio, not often complete songs, ambient style.

Better to avoid dialogue so use a voice over.

 

Mise en scene.

Props hint the plot, knives and guns connote danger.

Setting, realism often isolated places

Male is usually in charge and the killer is usually male.

Woman are usually distressed and need saving from the male.

Lighting, use of light and dark builds atmosphere, either really dark or really bright lights.

 

Typical storyline.

Ideas about revenge, justice and crime, (start with a criminal act and the film will be about figuring it out.

Flash back or flash forward.

Things don’t follow in a logical sequence, connotes something disturbing.

 

Sub genres.

Techno , crime, super natural, film noir, psychological, medical, religious, action, spy, mystery, political, Si-fi, disaster, romance, eco.

 

Evaluation of Prelim.

The preliminary task was to film and edit the sequence to show a person or two people entering a room and speaking to someone else. The sequence should not break the 180 rule and should also include match on action, varied amount of shot types, reverse shot and continuity.

The camera work in this video I feel is very effective in portraying the paths of two people and showing how they eventually meet. A good example of this would be when the camera is facing the lift the male character, Andy, who is dressed in a shirt and tie proceeds to walk through the doors of the lift. It then cuts to a CCTV video in the lift and shows him walking in and moving his arm to press the button to go up and meet the woman character, Charley. During this scene I feel that I have demonstrated the use of continuity because the audience can easily tell that Andy has just walked in to the lift. Because Andy is also in the same clothing and it also tells the audience that he has just walked into the lift. When I create my thriller intro I will make sure that the clothing of my characters is the same therefore not confusing the audience.

Throughout this sequence I also feel that the camera was quite steady, but at times the characters sometimes walk out of shot or the camera in quite jolty which means when I create my thriller into I will focus more on the steadiness of the camera and also make sure that if my intro does contain characters, they don’t walk out from the view of the audience. On the whole the camera was steady and some of the pan shots were effective when Charley was walking up the stairs because they were smooth which is something I would like to use in my thriller opening therefore I will need to practice using the camera and tripod.

The editing in this sequence is overall smooth and the cut shots from Charley walking up the stairs and Andy in the lift are shown clearly because of the different locations and the speed of the editing. Although most of the editing was good overall I feel that some could have been better, for example the hand over and conversation between Andy and Charley. The conversation between both of them worked will in a sense of shot reverse shot because of the use of over the shoulder shots, which means the audience, could see both characters talking to each other. But on the other hand as the conversation began the camera was quite shaky. This is because we had to use a piece of film that we decided was too shaky but we didn't have time to go out and film again. This has helped me come to the conclusion that when filming my thriller opening I will have to take time and set up the shot properly and not rush into it, therefore getting a better quality piece of film.

After editing the film and watching the finished product over, one of the group members pointed out that we had broken the 180 rule when they were having a conversation. After looking closely at the conversation sequence we came to a conclusion that we had broken the 180 rule but had no time to change it because it was already loaded on to a disk. This has given me the opportunity to think about my thriller opening and how I can plan to make sure that the 180 rule is not broken. I will make sure it is not broken by drawing where the camera is and the layout of my shot before filming and mark out where the camera cannot cross.

When editing the lift scene we felt the CCTV would look and feel a lot more realistic if it was in black and white and has the date and time of the bottom on the screen as all CCTV has. So we used some of the effects on IMovie to re-create the CCTV view. This worked well because of the realistic appearance and also taught me that I could use something like this is my thriller opening.  At the end of our prelim we decided as a group to have a fade away shot to the end credits. This was a good idea because we didn't have much time to think of anything better but when I create my thriller opening I will try to think of a more creative way to show who was involved and what they did.

Because if the day that my group shot the prelim and the amount of windows there were where we were filming, it meant that the lighting was good and the audience could see what was happening and what was in the frame. This is something I will take into grave consideration because if the lighting isn't right for my thriller opening, it could drastically reduce the amount of tension produced by other elements that are included in the opening, e.g. costume and sound track.

When filming my prelim I learnt that the camera is key. This means that I have to take everything into consideration when creating my thriller opening, things like framing and composition I will think about very carefully before shooting. I have also learnt to take a couple of shots of the same scene because although when watched back straight away the audio and steadiness of the camera may seem fine, often when you start to edit on IMovie things become difficult. This is why I will think carefully about what is going on in and around the shot when filming my thriller opening.  

I would like to improve on my editing skills on IMovie because this is one of the most important parts when trying to create a video. But I feel becoming better on IMovie becomes easier with practice and reading the manual that is online. I would also like to improve on my variety of shot types, meaning that I would like to think of more creative ways of showing different parts of my thriller opening. for example, I could use an extreme close up to show a characters reactions to a situation instead of an over the shoulder shot.