In what ways does your thriller use, develop or challenge forms and conventions or real thrillers
Introduction • Before planning our thriller we watched clips of different thrillers in class which helped us when it came to planning our own thrillers. When we were planning our thrillers we thought back to all of the different film noir/thrillers that we had watched and analyzed what characters wore and the colours of the scenes and we then decided to use similar aspects of those thrillers in our own opening so we could develop the conventions and try to add our own twist on them while still using some of the conventions within our characters and settings.
Characters • When planning for our main character we were unsure on how we wanted them to be established until we saw a clip from the beginning of sin city. We took influence from sin city with our main character as in figure 1 the character is wearing red and has red lipstick on. We had also seen in other film noirs that female characters tend to wear red to connote being a femme fatale henceforth that they are dangerous. We decided that our character should use this convention of wearing red as this stereotypically connotes danger and the female being a femme fatale which we thought fitted our character rather well as she is trying to look for someone which could put them in serious danger. We decided by having the shoes red it would be the first thing that the audience saw when they watched our opening as this would allow them to view what type of character she is before they have seen her. By using the convention of red being a symbol for danger we thought her lipstick should be red as this would make her standout within the other characters. For our other two characters we used part of the conventions but switched them around. For our other female character we decided that she should be dressed up as quite dignified and mysterious henceforth why we dressed her up as a detective which we took the influence from The third man with the long coat as pictured in figure 2 as this connoted intelligence and dignity. This is different to our stalker/killer character as we thought to have him look quite rough and not as dignified as the detective as this connoted a sense of hierarchy and difference in class/status between the two characters. We didn't really take this costume idea from a film we had watched where as we just thought that it suited our film best and represented how we wanted the character to be perceived by the audience.
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• In our thriller we planned to use a variety of shots to exhibit the full characters and their surrounding while still establishing what type of characters they are.But also to display the best scenes that we could. We took influence from films like 'the third man' and 'kill bill' which were some of the first film noirs we watched. An example of a piece that we took form the third man is the use of obscured/tilted angles. We decided to use a tilt angle at the beginning of our opening as this created connotations of disorientation and confusion within the main female character but also within the audience as they are unsure of what is happening. It also creates connotations of being slightly broken and not very well or organized because if the character was well put together and organized then the scene would be straight which wouldn’t create disorientation or confusion within the audience. An example of a scene in the third man that we were influenced by is displayed in figure 1. Figure 1 exhibits a tilted shot which has connotations of confusion as the audience doesn't know where the character has gone or is going. But by using a tilted shot they have displayed the type of film and story line that 'The third man' is or what the directors want it to be perceived as. But we were also influenced by the film 'Kill Bill' and the shot of all the different shoes. We thought that this established characters but that it also gave different connotations depending on the characters shoes but one of the main connotations was that nothing was as it seemed but also that it was quite sinister. We adopted this idea and thought that by using it with our character it not only established her further but it also created connotations of mysteriousness as the audience is not able to realize where our main character is going. We also used a variety of close ups and long shots to display the surrounding but we used the close ups to highlight certain parts of the opening that we thought were essential to our thriller opening. An example of this is at 1.38 minutes where we used a close up to exhibit the importance of the envelope but also to push the plot further along. We thought that by using the close up it would connote importance and also mysteriousness as to what the envelope is.
Sound/ Editing • We decided to only use a soundtrack at the beginning of our opening as we thought a soundtrack didn't suit the rest of our opening as we decided to use mainly diegetic sounds for an atmos track. Examples of sounds that we used were sirens and taps running and the sound of traffic. The soundtrack we chose to use at the beginning of the track is almost like a jewelry box melody which we thought it would create connotations of a chilling scene but also a tense tone to our opening. By using mainly diegetic sounds for our atmos track we thought that it would exhibit how run down the main female characters surrounding were and the type of life she lives which would be shown by the siren noises that connote trouble and perhaps death. Our influence for our use of diegetic sounds came from se7en when you can hear all the traffic and the different sirens which connoted danger and death within the opening of se7en. • For our editing we decided on using a variety of shots and interchanging between them to create diversity and to keep the opening moving. Before the exchange that happens in the bandstand we are using a time lapse to connote to the audience that time has been moving on but also that the character has travelled far to collect these documents. By using a time lapse it gives the effect that the character has travelled different places just to be in possession of these documents which connote that they are important to the character. When we began editing we realized that some our shots didn't flow but we then realized that by putting a title screen there it allowed for our opening to flow a lot better but it also allowed for it to transition from one scene to another while making it look abrupt and not together but also by making a statement. An example of this is at 20 seconds to 23 seconds where we thought about making the transition smooth whilst making the audience be patient about what will happen in the opening. We didn't really use a film as influence for our editing as we didn’t feel it necessary but we may have without being conscious about it as we have watched many film noir openings and clips in class. Also we changed the colour of our opening and made it look colder to create a tense and harsh tone withinour opening.