Conventions of the 'Thriller' genre in films

As I discussed earlier, a thriller aims to thrill the audience. This is done by employing a well known set of conventions, mainly these are:-

• Male protagonist - usually very macho or highly intelligent, or sometimes both.
• Female or Child is the vulnerable victim who needs to be saved by the hero.
• Antagonist usually on a par with the protagonist (can match their strength, can play mental mind games, etc). Also, unlike other action based film genres (i.e. Horrors), the antagonist in a thriller is often known to the audience and/or protagonist straight from the outset. And the antagonist often will engage in some sort of communication with the protagonist as well, e.g. telling them riddles through a phone call, etc.
• Fast editing and camerawork
• Plot revolves around a crime, mystery, etc.
• Protagonist does NOT always defeat the antagonist, or at least not without some sort of sacrifice.
• Fast tempo non-diegetic music.
• Emphasis on some diegetic sounds, e.g. the ticking of a clock which is counting down the time for a bomb to explode.

Definition of a 'Thriller' and the Sub-Genres associated with thrillers

The 'Thriller' genre in films is one which uses elements to create suspense or tension, in order to excite the viewers or to carry on the plot of the film.

The genre of thriller is the same in literature, the definition of thriller in books etc is "One that thrills, especially a sensational or suspenseful book, story or play"

A SUB-GENRE is a genre that can be successfully merged with another to make a different type of film entirely.

Different types of 'Thriller' movies are:-

• Crime Thriller - These type of films are a mix between crime films and thrillers which are about successful or unsuccessful crimes and show suspenceful accounts of the people involved. These films often focus on the criminals rather than the police. Crime thrillers usually focus on the element of action scenes. These films are usually about any crime such as murders, heists, etc. An example of this Thriller would be 'Reservoir Dogs'.
• Disaster Thriller - This type of film involves either a natural disaster such as a tsunami or earthquake, etc... Or an artifical (man-made) disaster such as a nuclear explosion. An example of this type of film would be 'The Day After Tomorrow' where the disaster they face is global warming throughout the film, therefore making it a natural disaster.
• Psychological Thriller - In this sub-genre the conflict between the main characters is mental and emotional, untill the end which is usually violent. Alfred Hitchcock is very good at this type of film. Some examples of this sub-genre are 'Panic Room' and 'The Butterfly Effect'.
• Mystery Thriller - These films are suspenseful and include the Main character(s) trying to solve a mystery. An example of this would be 'Shutter Island', or 'The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations'.
• Political Thriller - This sub-genre usually involves the protagonist either trying to expose a government's corruption, or being a member of the government and tryin to uphold it against false claims/media attacks. An example of this would be 'Frost/Nixon'.

• Horror Thriller - This type of Thriller is one that not only thrills viewers... it scares the mind into submission. Basically, just a very fast paced, "jumpy" horror. An example of this would be 'My Bloody Valentine'.

Main Task Commission

Our main task for this course is to create, plan, design, and film the first two minutes of a full length feature film. We must make use of all skills and techniques obtained throughout the course, and then present our finished piece available for examination.

Our Chosen Film Genre:

We have decided on the 'THRILLER' genre for our film.

We have chosen this genre because it usually attracts the largest audience variety. This is mainly because no matter what age viewers are, people of all ages can be 'thrilled'. Whereas if we had chosen a Romantic Comedy, we would have a very specific target audience - mainly young to middle aged women, most likely on a "girls night out", who might enjoy romantic mishaps, optimistic characters, and the traditional "happy ending" of Rom-Coms, but a 50 year old tradeworker may not enjoy those elements and would hence not go to watch the film.

Technique Tests

The task we were set here, was to experiment with 'Three Point Lighting' and to use a "dolly" (basically a trolley for our camera that rolls along two parallel tubes) and to experiment with 'Tracking and Panning' shots.

Below is a diagram demonstrating how to execute 3 point lighting:

See below for example of how to operate a 'dolly' to film a tracking shot:

These types of shot may be useful to us in the future as we may wish to include them in our final film for the AS course. The results of the task are displayed in the video below. Thanks.

AS Preliminary Task: 'The Caretaker'

This was our first ever time filming in our new production teams, and so gave us a chance to get used to working with each other closely.

In the Preliminary task that was set, we were given the following requirements of the film that we should adhere to:-

• Film someone walking through a door in two shots (i.e. one shot was done from behind the person as they open the door, then in the second shot; we film that same person coming through the door from the other side), taking care to avoid continuity errors and hence create succesful 'match-on-action'.
• Include a few lines of dialogue between one character and another.
• Clear use of shot/reverse shot, and adhering to the 180 degree rule of shooting.

The finished piece is displayed below for your viewing pleasure. Thank you.

We felt that our film was quite good for our first try and the audience feedback provided us with some positives and negatives points. Our audience said that our framing was good yet our sound could have been improved by integrating it with the initial soundtrack that we produced.  The amount of dialogue we used was also a strong point that our audience picked up on; yet our match on action could have been improved when Lewis and Dean run through the door, this error could have been fixed in editing and we shall take this into consideration for future tasks. I feel that producing this has gave us some of the basic skills we need to make our films in the future better.

WELCOME TO MY BLOG

Hello, and welcome to my blog.
My name is Dean, and I am studying AS Media Studies at Great Wyrley PAHS. Through this blog, I will present all my work from the course for your viewing and assessment. Thank you for your time.
The members of my group are:-

• Myself
• Rebecca Wheeler
• Jessica Jones
• Laura Gardiner

Our film company is called 'DOMINO Productions'