Film genres.
We chose thriller for our genre in the end. What we went on to find the most difficult was choosing the sub genre for the thriller we wanted to do. We went through the list of possible sub genres we could use such as torture, psychological, action, historical, medical and erotic thriller. I personally wanted the group to do torture because it’s my favourite type of thriller. The group however decided that psychological thriller would be best and more interesting to make. Psychological thriller heavily relies on the characters fear, eeriness and emotional instability of characters to build tension in the plot.
In torture thriller, the action is usually physical.
The plot in psychological thrillers relies on character's fear.
To get a broader idea of what is included in a film to fully make it a thriller, we all watched openings of different psychological thrillers. I watched The Sixth Sense (1999), The Order (2001) and Devil (2010). Around the same time we were filming our movie, I watched the Woman in Black which inspired me and gave me an idea of the portrayal of a ghost.
We look at
conventions of opening sequence. The film I looked at was The Devils (2010).
The order of events in the opening sequence involve
-
It
starts with the company that made the movie (universal)
- It then goes straight into a
chapter of the Bible which talks about the devil (Peter 5:8).
- Voice over of a man talking about
his childhood
- Production: MRC- Media Rights
Capital-subsidiary of The Night Chronicles)
- Soundtrack
- Names of characters on screen and
we see an elevator moving from the outside
- The name of the film is repeated
through out
- Sense of danger from the
beginning (the film starts with a man falling off a building)
- A dialogue foreshadows the
future of the film “I mean do I look like such a threat?”
- This reflects the general
convention of a psychological thriller such as religious symbol and harsh
and intense soundtrack
We tried including
most of the traditional conventions in our own film but at the same time, we kept
it original. Conventions in our film include;
- Threatening setting and sense of
danger from the start: Our film was set in an empty warehouse. The
environment looks lonely and dangerous. The audience are immediately
drowned in and the environment foreshadows what is to come.
- It involves a teenage girl and an
older man to create an enigma. (Who is the victim?)
- Plot: We used a dialogue comes in at the very end of the opening sequence which puts more tension to the film.
We used the more traditional conventions such as dark houses.
We added our own convention by making the girl the villain.
How typical thriller influenced the use of Mise-En-Scene, Framing and Camera use.
Even though we wanted to use our own conventions, we decided to include some typical thriller to influence our camera use.
We knew thriller strongly relies on camera angles to make it effective which is why we included as many shot angles and shot distances. An example of camera angle is used in the film Devil, is when the film was starting, the setting of the building was shot in a high angle. This showed the vulnerability of the people inside the building.
The first shot of our own film showed a our setting of the building. It was however not a low angle shot but from image itself, it looks scary and untamed.
Another camera work that was included in our film was framing. Framing is a very important key factor use in thrillers which we also included in our sequence. Rebecca (the female character), is always in the middle of of the frame. This shows how dominant her character is through out the sequence until the end. For example, when we see her character talking over the shoulder to the male character, she is in the middle of the frame.
Example of Rebecca's character in the centre of the frame.
Another element used in psychological thriller is Mise-En-Scene. Mise-En-Scene is a very important factor which is used in thrillers to add tension. They include lighting and costume . Most psychological thrillers usually use under exposed lighting which is what we used for our film. Our film had it's natural lighting which fortunately for us, the building was dark and worked well with our genre.
Another Mise-En-Scene element we used was costume. We tried to keep each character's costume simple. Our character wore normal day to day activities clothing. This was because we wanted to make our film as realistic as possible. Usually in psychological thrillers, the audience are able to differentiate each characters class, statue and background through their costume. For example, in the film Devils, the bodyguard was in a normal bodyguard costume which his statue could be seen as not significant.
Both of our characters were dressed in normal teenage and adult daily clothing.
Generally, we had a mix of conventions that the film would easily be recognised as a thriller from the start. Compared to traditional thriller conventions, we used our characters differently. For example; traditional thriller conventions mostly always make men powerful and superior. In our sequence, the man is the vulnerable character while the woman is powerful.
Even though we wanted to use our own conventions, we decided to include some typical thriller to influence our camera use.
We knew thriller strongly relies on camera angles to make it effective which is why we included as many shot angles and shot distances. An example of camera angle is used in the film Devil, is when the film was starting, the setting of the building was shot in a high angle. This showed the vulnerability of the people inside the building.
The first shot of our own film showed a our setting of the building. It was however not a low angle shot but from image itself, it looks scary and untamed.
Another camera work that was included in our film was framing. Framing is a very important key factor use in thrillers which we also included in our sequence. Rebecca (the female character), is always in the middle of of the frame. This shows how dominant her character is through out the sequence until the end. For example, when we see her character talking over the shoulder to the male character, she is in the middle of the frame.
Example of Rebecca's character in the centre of the frame.
Another element used in psychological thriller is Mise-En-Scene. Mise-En-Scene is a very important factor which is used in thrillers to add tension. They include lighting and costume . Most psychological thrillers usually use under exposed lighting which is what we used for our film. Our film had it's natural lighting which fortunately for us, the building was dark and worked well with our genre.
Another Mise-En-Scene element we used was costume. We tried to keep each character's costume simple. Our character wore normal day to day activities clothing. This was because we wanted to make our film as realistic as possible. Usually in psychological thrillers, the audience are able to differentiate each characters class, statue and background through their costume. For example, in the film Devils, the bodyguard was in a normal bodyguard costume which his statue could be seen as not significant.
Both of our characters were dressed in normal teenage and adult daily clothing.
Generally, we had a mix of conventions that the film would easily be recognised as a thriller from the start. Compared to traditional thriller conventions, we used our characters differently. For example; traditional thriller conventions mostly always make men powerful and superior. In our sequence, the man is the vulnerable character while the woman is powerful.
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