Thrillers conventions:

Enigmas
This refers to a puzzle, something mysterious or inexplicable or a riddle or difficult problem. In thrillers this is commonly something which the protagonist has to try to find out or solve before the narrative is resolved and the film finishes.

Red Herrings
A read herring is the name given to a device which intends to divert the audiences from the truth or an item of significance.

Cliffhangers
Sometimes, although not always used. Often feature a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation. This can entice the audience to keep watching in order to see how the situation resolves itself.

Drive
A mysterious Hollywood stuntman, mechanic and getaway driver lands himself in trouble when he helps out his neighbor.

This scene is near the beginning, it is dark, the only lights is the street lamps. There is no dialogue in this scene, the only talking you can hear is on the radio and its the basketball game. When the police chase the car, it is fast pacing cuts and there is a few tracking movements. 
 There is also lights from street signs of clubs and traffic lights, the music is quite up beat with the action and the mood of the scene. The Street Lights suggests night life and they can be associated with the basketball game that was happening at the same time.
  When he parked in the car park, he made it at a specific point where the basketball was over and there time won and it became very business so he wouldn't have got caught.

Thrillers Conventions
- Red Herrings
- Action
- Protagonist/Antagonist
- Attractive Women
- Cliff Hangers
- Suspense/Shock
- MacGuffin
- Subgenres
- Inigmas
- Locations
- Pursuits/Chase
- Plots Twists

Jaws, is full of suspense and shock for the audience. As there is suspense when people get in the water and the audience know there is a shark in the water but the characters don't. There is shock when a body pops out of no where and scares the audience and the characters.

No Country for Old Men
The opening scene on this film is a kind of contrast as a man is arrested for murdering a 14 year old girl and then he is in the police offices and then he gets out of his handcuffs and kills the police officer. There is no music in this scene, there is dialogue with the narration and when the officer is on the phone. It is quite bright, there is a few cuts and then there is fast pacing cuts when the man is killing the officer.
No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American thriller written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name. The film stars Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, and tells the story of an ordinary man to whom chance delivers a fortune that is not his, and the ensuing cat-and-mouse drama, as three men crisscross each other's paths in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas. Themes of fate, conscience and circumstance re-emerge that the Coen brothers have previously explored in Blood Simple and Fargo.

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
In the midst of the Gulf War, soldiers are kidnapped and brainwashed for sinister purposes.

Directed by Jonathan Demme
Produced by Jonathan Demme, Ilona Herzberg, Scott Rudin, Tina Sinatra
Screenplay by Daniel Pyne, Dean Georgaris
Starring Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight

 

Thrillers

There are certain types of thrillers:
- Spy Thrillers, James Bond, The Bourne Supremacy
- Political Thrillers, Manchurian Candidate, Enemy of the State
- Conspiracy Thrillers, Taken, Salt
- Legal Thrillers, Pelican Brief, A Few Good Men
- Psychological Thrillers, Gothika, Psycho

Susan Hayward, Key Concepts in Film Studies,
"The thriller is a very difficult genre to pin down because it covers such a wide range of films. thrillers are films of suspense... that are supposed to instil terror into the audience"

Suspense and Shock

Suspense is a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience's perceptions in a dramatic work. Suspense may operate in any situation where there is a lead-up to a big event or dramatic moment, with tension being a primary emotion felt as part of the situation. In the kind of suspense described by film director Alfred Hitchcock, an audience experiences suspense when they expect something bad to happen and have (or believe they have) a superior perspective on events in the drama's hierarchy of knowledge, yet they are powerless to intervene to prevent it from happening. 

Shock is a feeling when something happens very quick without any warning what so ever. So it basically grabs our attention or it can empathise that moment in the scene because it has shocked you then you can remember that scene very well as it has implanted in your brain.

Chuck Jones and 'The Rules'

Chuck jones is an animated director who worked at Warner Brothers for decades making short movies including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and company. He also made the Road Runner cartoons and from the first episode he made a set of rules:

- The Road Runner cannot harm or upset the coyote except by going 'Beep Beep'
- No outside force can harm the coyote, only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products
- The coyote could stop anytime, if he were not a fanatic
- No dialogue ever, except from 'Beep Beep'
- The Road Runner must stay on the road, otherwise logically he would not be called the Road Runner
- All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters, The Southwest American desert
- All materials, tools, weapons or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from Acme Corporation
- Whenever possible, make gravity the coyote's greatest enemy
- The coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.

James Bond Thrillers

Recipe for James Bond Thrillers

Like his famous shaken-not-stirred martinis, all you need is:
- A dashing, sexy and heoric secret agent
- A eecentric villain of equal strength
- Gorgeous 'Bond' girls
- Exotic locations and plot devices
- Eye popping, stuntdriven action of absurdity

The James Bond film series is a British series of spy films based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond (code designation 007), who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. Earlier films were based on Fleming's novels and short stories, followed later by films with original storylines. It is one of the longest continually-running film series in history, having been in ongoing production from 1962 to the present (with a six-year hiatus between 1989 and 1995).

James Bond Men:

1. Dr. No (1962-Sean Connery)
2. From Russia With Love (1963-Sean Connery)
3. Goldfinger (1964-Sean Connery)
4. Thunderball (1965-Sean Connery)
5. You Only Live Twice (1967-Sean Connery)
6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969-George Lazenby)
7. Diamonds Are Forever (1971-Sean Connery)
8. Live and Let Die (1973-Roger Moore)
9. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974-Roger Moore)
10. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977-Roger Moore)
11. Moonraker (1979-Roger Moore)
12. For Your Eyes Only (1981-Roger Moore)
13. Octopussy (1983-Roger Moore)
14. A View to a Kill (1985-Roger Moore)
15. The Living Daylights (1987-Timothy Dalton)
16. Licence to Kill (1989-Timothy Dalton)
17. GoldenEye (1995-Pierce Brosnan)
18. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997-Pierce Brosnan)
19. The World is Not Enough (1999-Pierce Brosnan)
20. Die Another Day (2002-Pierce Brosnan)
21. Casino Royale (2006-Daniel Craig)
22. Quantum of Solace (2008-Daniel Craig)
23. Skyfall (2012-Daniel Craig)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

A former Korean War POW is brainwashed by Communists into becoming a political assassin. But another former prisoner may know how to save him.

Director: 

John Frankenheimer

Writers: 

Richard Condon (based on a novel by), George Axelrod (screenplay)

Stars:

 Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Janet Leigh 

This film is basically about a soldier (Raymond Shaw) who has worn the medal of honour and then the other soldiers (Marco, Melvin) start having nightmares about the war and having suspicions that they were brain washed to think that Shaw saved them all in the war. Marco then starts digging things up about the war. Mean while, Shaw gets controlled when he starts playing solitaire and he can get controlled to do anything, he kills his newly wed wife and her father. Then at an election, his mother makes assigns him to kill a Presidential nominee in his speech, marco tries to persuade shaw to break the links of the brain wash and instead of killing the nominee, he kills his mother and his stepfather and then he kills himself.

 This film was a thriller as well as psychological included. In this film, they had a quite few sequences where the soldiers were seen being brain washed, one bit of the sequence would be at a sort of tea party with ladies and another would be the korean soldiers.

Preliminary Task

This task is demonstration of continuity editing.

We had to show match on action

shot/reverse shot

180 degree rule

Eyeline match

In my group, I had me, paige and georgia. We had georgia come into the room, and going over to paige and then them two having some dialogue and then paige storming out. I was in control of the camera and then paige done the editing.

Terminology

Denotation : What is in the scene
Connotation : What this can imply
Diegetic Sound : When you can see the source of the sound on screen
Non-Diegetic Sound : You cannot see the source of the sound e.g. sound effect
Mise-en-scene : What is literally 'In the scene'. Everything that appears in that single shot.
Montage : Putting together of visual images to form a sequence.
Narrative : The way a story is put together within a text, traditionally equilibrium- disequilibrium, new equilibrium, but some text are fractured or non line.
Props : Objects that are used in scenes.
Characters : People in the film/play.

Camera Movements, Angles and Shots

Birds eye view, Worms view, Normal view, Low Angle, High Angle, Pan , Tilt, Tracking, Crab, Long shot, Extreme Long shot, Medium shot, Close up, Extreme Close up, Over the shoulder shot, Point of view shot, Steadi Cam shot, Hand Held shot, Crane shot, Aerial Shot.

Lighting

Back Light : Back Light separates subject from background, saints from sinners, and one pro from another. Angle: toward the lens from above and behind the subject, or above, behind, and slightly to the side of it, high enough to cut lens Flare. Also used to make silhouettes.
Far-side Key : In relation to the camera, the main light is set on the far side of a model's nose which leaves the camera-side of her face in partial shadow. Far-side Key*, Ear-side Key*, and On-the-Nose Key* are terms which, if they don't exist, should, because they are fast descriptions of dramatically different lighting-looks.
Fill Light, Filler : Fill is used to lighten shadows and control Contrast and Lighting Ratios. Tip: Avoid Hard Light fill and Over-kill Fill*. Angle: usually close to the lens, on the side opposite the Key.
Floodlight, Flood : A wide, semi-soft source often used for general illumination or to bounce light.
Key Light, Main Light : The key may determine the character of the lighting, but often a strong Back Light for example, sets the Mood. The key should usually be Motivated by a source like the sun or a window
High Key : The light that is used to take away shadows on the face or object.
Low Key : The light used to create shadows.
Top Lighting : When the main source of the lighting comes from above highlighting the features - used  to create glamorous look.
Underlighting : When the main source of lighting comes from below the subject. Used in thrillers and horror films.

Camera Exercise
This is another camera exercise we did with Mr Johnson. Where we experiment using camera angles and movements in an interview.

In this exercise we used a shot and reverse shot, and we used cuts to cut out anything that was not important. we also used over the shoulder shot to get the audiences attention to the character's eye line.

Thriller

BIRDS
A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people there in increasing numbers and with increasing viciousness.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writers: Daphne Du Maurier (story) and Evan Hunter (Screenplay)
Stars: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren and Suzanne Pleshette

The threat in this film is nature, as the birds started attacking people and causing them to stay indoors.
in a screen where Tippi Hedren gets attacked by birds she literally is getting attacked by real birds and she did not know that this was going to happen and was traumatized .

This sequence gets the audience in tension as she goes up the stairs slowly only showing the light and the music gets the audience tensed, then when she opens the door the camera is on her hand when she opens it which implies that something bad is going to happen, she then finds the hole in the roof and then turns around and all these birds start attacking her. The shots are very fast cuts which shows action and this also sets the mood for the audience, as some of the shots are shown as if it was her point of view and the audience can feel like how she felt in her shoes.

Camera Exercise

In one of our lessons we had to experience using the camera angles and movements. This is my groups video we had made. We edited it on Final Cut Express and then we uploaded it to Youtube. Enjoy.

Thriller

Psycho

A young woman steals $40,000 from her employer's client, and subsequently encounters   a young motel proprietor too long under the domination of his mother.

The young woman was on her way to her lovers and had to stop at a motel where she met a young man who owned the motel and offered to have dinner but the mother doesn't like it so he brings food down to her, after she goes back to her room to have a shower and this is where she gets killed by the young mans mother. this is the most famous scene of all horror scenes, where the person gets in the shower, the door opens and someone comes in and opens the curtain and you see the person scream and then show them getting stabbed to death by the killer, with fast pacing shots and movements.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writer: Joseph Stefano
Casting: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin and Janet Leigh

Thriller

Thrillers

Many films have a MacGuffin; a MacGuffin is a plot element that catches the viewers attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction.
The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are (at least) willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is. Sometimes the MacGuffin is ambiguous, villains want money, power, victory etc.
The MacGuffin is usually shown at the beginning, sometimes the end or its forgotten.

Hitchcock defined a MacGuffin as the object around which the plot revolves but as to what that object specifically is, he declared, "the audience don't care".

Thriller

"North by Northwest"

"Devices such as suspense, red herrings and cliff hangers are used extensively"
In the film, there is actually a cliff hanger where Roger Thornhill and Eve Kendall are literally hanging onto Mt Rushmore. There is also a red herring where we a thought to believe that Eve Kendall was helping Roger Thornhill but was actually on the villains side and we then found out that she was actually an agent who was investigating the Phillip Vandamm situation.


"A thriller is a villain driven plot, whereby he presents obstacles the hero must overcome"
The villains kill the real Mt Townsend when Roger Thornhill is with him so it looks like he killed him and he must overcome being chased by the police; so this is the villain creating obstacles for the hero to overcome.

Thriller

"North by Northwest"

A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writer: Ernest Lehman
Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason

This is a thriller because the film is "characterised by fast pacing and frequent action"; this is down by the Mr Thornhill being chased by a crop duster aeroplane, when he was being chased at the train station, an actual 'Cliff hanger' on Mt Rushmore.

Thriller

RECIPE OF A THRILLER

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres. 
Thrillers are characterised by fast pacing frequent action and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipped villains. Devices such as suspense, red herrings and cliff hangers are used extensively.
A thriller is a villain driven plot, whereby he presents obstacles the hero must overcome. The genre is flexible and can engage the audience through a dramatic rendering of psychological, social and political tensions. Hitchcock said thriller allow the audience "to put their toe in the cold water of fear, to see what it's like".

An example is House at the End of the Street, they created tension when the mother woke up and looked out the window to see a house put on a light at 3am when there wasn't meant to be anyone in the house as it was abandoned.

Welcome

My name is Katie Gray. I am studying Media Studies A-Level at Robert Clack School. This blog is going to record all my work and research that I am going to be doing for this coursework.