Q1

Thriller evaluation

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The Thriller genre is a broad genre of film that uses suspense, tension, excitement and mystery to convey ‘Thrills’ in films.  Unlike other film genres, Thrillers stimulate audiences more, either through uncertainty, fear, surprise, anxiety or terror. As well as certain shot types and editing techniques, Thrillers often use music and sound effects to build suspense and fear. This often includes fast paced music, deep toned music and high pitched supernatural sounds.

There are many thriller sub genres such as crime, spy, comedy, sci – fi, political, psychological, religious, action, conspiracy and espionage. Our Thriller is a mix of dystopia and spy. We believed that this mix would be something different than other thrillers and our availability of props and location were a large influence in choosing our idea. Audiences of espionage thrillers expect intense and high suspense, they are thrillers that captivate the audience more than other sub genres as they often involve a complex plot. We were influenced heavily by films such as ‘Inglorious bastards’ (2009) ‘The Departed’ (2006) ‘Where Eagles Dare’ (1968) and ‘Munich’ (2005).  All of which are spy, espionage, crime and action thrillers.  

Many sub genre’s of Thrillers use violence in their films, such as; Crime, Noir, spy, action and espionage. This is mainly because several of the main elements of the thriller genre include the main protagonist facing possible death and at some point of the production, being put in a dangerous situation that they are not prepared to resolve. For example the ‘Taken’ films and ‘District 9’, these sub genres of Thrillers often include these elements. As our production is an espionage/spy thriller we felt we also needed to include them. 

One of our shots in Le monde whislt using fast-cutting editing to build tension

We mainly used elements of thrillers in our production, for example we used a lot of fast cut editing in order to keep the pace throughout our film whilst at the same time showing our range of shots. One of the main conventions of Thrillers are close ups and a variety of shots in a small scene, We used a number of close ups and extreme close ups to express emotions of the main character and to build tension In our production. We also used a lot of different shot types in the scene to build tension whilst also keeping the pace of our production and showing our variety of shots. 

Inglorious Basterds had a graphic ending scene with a non dramatic sountrack

Dstrict 9 featured a common element of the thriller genre

Our Music choices were a key part of our Thriller. We chose ‘Ticking of the Clock’ by Chromatics to create a build up to our killing scene. We thought the track suited the Thriller genre perfectly as it was deep and continuous. Our second track was ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rein’ by Edith Piaf. We believed this track was perfect as it fit our setting of our Thriller of a 1950’s Paris. We drew inspiration from Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglorious Bastards’, In the ending scene there is similar use of music combined with a violent act that is similar to our production.

We also developed certain aspects of Thrillers in our production. One of which was the non-dramatic music we used ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rein’ for our killing section. As I have previously mentioned, it is common for thrillers to have fast paced deep toned music leading up to an event (which we used) but also to then have a high pitched piece of music during the killing, ‘Psycho’ is an excellent example of this. We drew inspiration from Quentin Tarantino’s ‘inglorious Bastards’ (2009) which has a violent ending scene coupled with non dramatic music, other Tarantino productions have used similar techniques (Resevoir dogs) however we felt this scene was more similar to our own than his other films. Using non-dramatic music could also be challenging the conventions of other media products. Seeing as it is not common to have music such as ours over scenes of violence in thrillers, our use of music completely challenges the conventions of a thriller.

We also developed a mystery element to our thriller with the kiss on the protagonist neck suggests that there could be a relationship between the killer and the protagonist. As this is an opening to a thriller, this is aimed to capture the audience and encourage them to continue watching the rest of the film as well as providing some sort of link between the two characters in the opening which could be further explained in the rest of the film.

Conventions of Thrillers vary between sub – genre’s however a lot of them have similar narrative, Cinematography, mise-en-scene and sound techniques. Narrative can be one of the most important parts of a thriller, a unique narrative can be the determining factor as the whether or not the audience want to carry on watching the rest of the film. Typical narratives of a thriller will set up the rest of the film for the audience and create questions, mystery, suspense and excitement for them at the same time. This is done in a number of ways, for example, two typical narratives used are flashbacks and dual narratives. Flashbacks can vary between being a violent killing or attack, which affects the main character in some sort of way, or it can be something to do with the current position of the character in the film. A dual narrative can be effective as it shows two different perspectives of the story of the film. It could also be used to suggest a possible future/current relationship between the two in the film.

Close-ups show character emotion in Thrillers

Camera shots are one way that thrillers present emotion and setting of films. Long shots and extreme long shots can be used to present the characters and locations in the opening of a thriller. Close-ups of characters can create mood and express the emotions of that character, they can also connect with the audience as they can share the same emotions as the characters in certain sections of thrillers by using close-ups. They can also highlight important parts of mise-en-scene in a scene or significant characters. Long shots and extreme long shots can set up the location of a thriller and inform the audience more of the time/setting.

This scene in Drive uses non-diegetic sound to create serious tension

 Sound is an incredibly important part of a thriller opening. Opening credits combined with a certain soundtrack can set the tone of the film and whether it’s a supernatural, crime, comedy or action thriller for example. The soundtrack can be used to create emotions within the audience, this is Non – diegetic sound, which is typically much more prominent in thriller openings than diegetic sound (natural sounds). Drive (2011) uses a lot of non-diegetic sound to create an atmosphere during certain scenes.

 

 Mise-en-scene can also be used to captivate the audience in a thriller, and with certain cinematography techniques, can be used to highlight significant objects in a scene. Well placed mise-en-scene combined with cinematography can be extremely effective in a thriller opening by creating tension or mystery for example. This is a common feature of Noir thrillers such as Sin city (2005) which is in mainly in black and white but certain objects or part of a the characters are in colour. This is to highlight significant aspects of the story. We used this technique in several shots of our thriller. Such as the shot where Harry turns the key, the camera is focused and zoomed in onto his hand in order to highlight