Spy thriller

Spy thrillers generally revolve around a hero, who is often a government agent who needs to go up against agents of a rival government or villain. The hero is often needs to investigate various events, sometimes on a global scale. Spy thrillers deal with the topic of fictional espionage. They often have fight scenes and are quite intense, as the audience watching will connect with the hero, want him to succeed in what it is he must do.

Examples of Spy thrillers are The Tourist and The Bourne Series: 

Planning ideas for our thriller (Pitch)

Planning ideas for our thriller (Pitch)

Planning our pitch was essential in putting everyone’s ideas together in order to create a successful film opening. To do this the group prepared a presentation that outlined a clear pitch to what we needed to do in order to create the film opening. The pitch included the title of the film followed by a brief outline of what it was going to be based on. The group had 15 mins to present the pitch to the class.
When completing our pich, everyone had various parts they played eg finding costumes and doing the storyboard. The ideas were crucial from each member of the group as we had to make sure everyone agreed with the idea. To do this everyone put forward there own views in what they liked to see and happen, which then was pu together as one idea to create our thriller opening.

Supernatural thrillers

In supernatural thrillers there is often a case where the main character has some sort of psychic ability, or there may be some otherwordly elements involved in the film. Supernatural thrillers should have plots with twists, tension and suspense, so that the audience is entertained and interested in the film.

Examples of supernatural thrillers are Knowing and The Gift: 

Psychological thrillers.

Psychological thrillers place heavy focus on the characters, the conflict between the characters is often very emotional and mental, rather than it being psychical. In psychological thrillers the characters are often dragged into dangerous situations, in which they must mainly use their minds, rather than physical ability to get themselves out. 

Examples of psychological thrillers are Shutter Island and Phonebooth. 

 

Analysis of previous students work

Analysis of previous students work

Perviously i choose to anywise the clip 'Rushes' done by a previous student. Below i have taken certain print screens from the film opening and thought there were many aspects in which identified this film opening to be a thriller.

The 2 minute film opening of 'Rushes' has a variety of conventions which identify the opening to be a thriller. The structure of this film opening is discrete.

Looking at the above screen shot , we see different ways in which the location has been represented. Looking at the above shots we see there are many jump cuts used for example a long shot is represented of the moon then coming into a close up generating a fast pace motion for the audience to build up upon. 

The above shot is of the props used. The camera is the main focus within this film as it is seen to be in every scene. At this stage we see the camera has been placed in different angles at different stages, this is to allow the audience to see the way the camera has been used and in some way is linked to what has happened to the character.

Here we see close ups used of the characters eyes reinforcing the action taking place. The close up of the eye clearly reinforces that the character is dead allowing the audience want to know what has happened. Close ups of the characters face allow the viewers to get great detail in the expressions being perceived on them.

Looking at the way the titles have been introduced is different and effective from the normal ways which we see them being represented. The titles being represented in this way allows us to think it is apart of the mise en scene of where it has been set in which this case is the mysterious room as the camera tends to shine over the written documents. The titles are shown to come in conventional order where we see the director comes first followed by the producer, cinematography, writer, editor and lastly the producer of the music. Once being introduced to the titles we are then introduced to the title of the film at the end as shown below.

The television is also another prop used to clearly signify the connection to what has happened. The TV has been identified through three different positions allowing the audience to see the connection it has with the character. The medium close up of the character shows the emotions perceived on his face as well as where it has been set in which this case is a dark isolated room.

Elements such as mise en scene have also been used during the opening of the film. During the beginning of the film we see it is very dark, with a lot of trees in the surroundings. Looking at the first part we see it is based on the surroundings of grass and the image of the car. This is then followed by the setting of the light  green garage door with silver locks. As shown above the props include a video camera, parts to connect the TV and the TV itself. Although we see the lightening tends to be dark throughout we see the lightening tends to be brighter when focussing on the props. This allows the audience to be aware that the camera plays a huge significants to what the film is based on.

Here i have done a close up of the title which is represented at the end of the trailerThe title being represented at the end of the trailer we see that it gives the conventions that it could be the beginning of the film not giving away that what we are watching is the trailer. This makes the audience feel more involved and interested in the film itself.

Previous Students work film opening

Previous Students work film opening 

Looking below is work done by previous students. Here is shown to be the opening to the thriller 'Rushes', we can tell this as certain conventions are used such as sound, mise en scene and so on in order for the audience to recognise the thriller aspects.

Arlington Road

Arlington Road is a thriller, we were given the opening of the film in little parts, and had to put it together correctly. After that we created a title sequence for it on Final Cut Pro, because when editing our own thriller opening we will have to create our own title sequence, so this activity was good practise for us.

Thrillers

Thriller films are often adrenaline rushing, to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and contain plots with suprising twists and that buld up the the very tense climax of the film. This is often done by how the central character is in a dangerous situation often involving mystery or murder, therefore thrillers are full of tension. They also have puzzling plots, where the characters may be fighting each other. Thriller is a extremely successful genre of film which is still being made today.


One of the most common things which happens in thrillers is a scene in which the protagonist is being chased. Kidnappings, murders and a character being stalked by someone are the part of the plots of many thrillers, particularly the sub-genre of crime and psychological. Thrillers often end in the villain being defeated, or the situation being solved, giving the audeince the happy ending  they want to see. 


On of the earliest thrillers was the 1931 film M, a german drama thriller and it is considered a classic. It was directed by Fritz Lang and is considered by many to be his finest work.  There is a remake of this film which was released in 1951.  

Intertextuality in glee

Besides Tangled and Shrek, intertextuality can be found in many other films and television shows, one show which makes frequent references is Glee. Glee is a American musical comedy-drama film series, and the show has made many intertextual references: 

 

Michael Jackson's super hit song Thriller. 

Intertextual reference to Lady Gaga. 

Intertextual reference to Britney Spears. 

Previous student film opening

I watched Succubus, a previous student thriller opening.  

I thought that it was an effective thriller opening, it was entertaining and had the qualities of a good thriller. The opening is set in a bathroom, which is quite sinister, and is a good setting for a thriller opening.  I also thought that they were quite good actors. There was a good use of props, the knife which was used for the murder was quite effective. It was edited quite well and I also felt that they used sounds which were nice and suitable for a thriller opening. What i particularly liked was the shots, there were a variety of different types of shots in their opening which I liked. 

Intertextuality- Michael Jackson 'Thriller'

Further Intertextuality in Michael Jacksons Thriller video

Michael Jackson's Thriller video was the first ever short film to be made for a music video and has changed the way we see music videos we see toady with more music videos being made into short films like Lady GaGa's Telephone. 

Thriller is a thriller video featuring scenes of acting, singing and dancing. Many aspects of this video has been used in many other media texts also. The video is also structured like a normal song with an opening title and ending credits as the screen shots show:

The final clip, the ending of the video where Michael (holding an innocent girl in his arms) turns around to look at the camera with evil eyes is a clip used in many other music videos for example. 

Here is the screen shot of the clip explained in Michael Jackson- Thriller.

Clips like these are also used as Intertextuality in two other recent American music videos I have seen. The screen shot is from Britney Spears- I wanna go and feature the same shot at the end of the videos as the one in Thriller (as shown above).

The iconic featured dance in Thriller is one intertextualy used in many other forms of media texts, for example, the dance sequenced was copied in the US TV series Glee and the US feature film 13 Going On 30.

Here are the screen shots of the copied dance of the Thriller choreography.

glee 

13 going on 30

Cinema reviews on most popular genre

Cinema reviews on most popular genre

Below we see the different cinemas listed such as VUE, Odeon and also Cine world. These cinemas are most common in where most poeple go and watch thriller movies. Listed below is shown a chart which indicates the genre of film and how often they are watched in cinemas. The genre of films include comedy, thriller, drama,action/adventure,documentary and many more. Thirller is shown to be less popular in the way that most poeple do not find it interesting and mostly predictable to watch. Looking at this pie chart gave me an idea of what i will need to include to make this thriller interesting to watch.

This chart above shows the different genre of films that people watch. We clearly see the chart shows what gender prefers what genre of films. Looking at the chart thrillers are shown to be popular with the total of 11 points mostly being watched by a male audience aged between 15-25 years. Looking at this chart it helped me looked at the different film genres and see which ones are most viewed by and what type of audience. We clearly see that most people aged between 50 and above prefer drama. Overall this aloud me to generate who watched thrillers most often therefore allowing me to focus on the audience it targeted and influenced most.

This is shown to be the logo of the Odeon cinema where some people watch the movies released in the cinema.

Looking at the above image we see on the Odeon website the top 10 movies are listed, showing what the audience tend to be more interested in and what they like to watch, i have labeled the numbers in which films are thrillers as shown above

The above image is a print screen of the thriller, horror the devil inside. Below the thriller of chronicles is shown with a trailer to allow you to see what the film is about.

Cine world also offers movies that are most popular and shows those which will be coming soon. Cine world does this through introducing the film cover and giving the audience a brief trailer of the movie it self. Above i have chosen two thrillers which are shown to be coming soon to the cinema.

This is the logo for the cinema VUE

Again looking above the website offers the top 10 movies that are watched by most people.

The website offers a variety of clips to allow us to see the trailer before we watch the film.

Overall the images I have gathered helped me see what people find interesting and the types of films seen frequently and why. Most of the thrillers shown all have tense music with dull but interesting backgrounds. Looking at most of the poster being advertised on the cinema websites we see most focus on the character showing they are the main focus.

Feedback from questionnaire of what people like

Feedback from questionnaire of what people like

Getting feedback from different poeple was important, as it aloud me to generate an idea of what poeple liked and what they thought about thrillers in general. The questionnair below gave me an idea of what people like about thrillers and what type of thrillers they enjoy. The age of the poeple i asked were mostly aged between 17-19 who mostly enjoy thrillers to have alot of action and tend to be very exciting to watch. Below i have indicated the questionnair i had asked people on what they liked about thrillers in general.

The above image is of a questionnaire i have created and gathered feedback from. Above is a sample questionnaire that has been completed by one person.


The feedback i gathered from all of the questionnaire was very useful, it aloud me to generate different ideas in what people like to see and stuff they haven't seen which they find more interesting. The overall feedback i had gathered from people was what i expected as most people expected to see blood in thrillers and suspense. This was predictable as most thrillers give this away form the posters and trailers. When collecting the data for my questionnaire I made sure that the same amount of both males and females were used both from a wide range of age groups. Looking at question 4 aloud me to see what people expect to see in thrillers and what they will like to see, most of the people asked said they expect to see the main character to be courageous , willing, nice, helpful etc. People also said that in most thrillers someone tends to die once solving a situation which always tends to cause distribution for viewers. Getting feedback from this question was helpful as it aloud me to reflect upon the views stated from various amounts of people from different age groups which made me take on board. Most people aged between 15-24 yrs found thriller to be the most interesting genre to watch, simply due to the amount of suspense and violence generated within the films they watch. People at this age group were in my interest the most as the views they though about thrillers were interesting as most expect to see some sort of revenge and violence.


When asked the question how many times people watch thriller moves which mostly said was hardly never, was interesting to see. Most people responded to this in saying that most thrillers that have been released are boring and don’t create the suspense that most thrillers do. Paranormal activity, psycho and the ring were the most frequent films people have gone to the cinema to watch. Looking at the feedback from this question it gave me the idea that more people will like to see more interesting openings to thrillers which enables the audience to feel engaged in what is going on allowing them feel apart and involved in what is happening in the scene. I think that good thriller openings need to have the key conventions of mise en scene to engage the audience and make sure they do not get board, this will also allow the tension of what is going to happen build up quickly.


Sound is crucial in an opening of a thriller, as it sets the mood and creates tension towards the viewers. The question weather there should be dialogue or not in the opening of a thriller most said there shouldn’t, as the opening of a thriller shouldn’t give as much detail about the film as most show to introduce the setting and the characters who are in the film. I think there shouldn’t be any dialogue in the opening scene of a thriller. This is because thrillers tend to only introduce you to the setting and the characters in the scene. However most people may disagree with me and say there should be some dialogue as without it, people will get board and wouldn’t feel as involved, as the characters are not introducing themselves. Sound is an important convention in the opening of thrillers as it sets the mood throughout, this is what makes people feel involved.


Overall, gathering a questionnaire aloud me to generate both positive and negative points about thriller openings. The information I gathered aloud me to think of what people find interesting and there views on what they think of thrillers in general both positive and negatively. This information will help my views when considering the opening sequence for my thriller.

Main places used whilst filming

Main places used whilst filming

Below i have shown to take print screens of the main places our group used when filming. The setting of the kitchen was where most of our filming took place. Looking below we also see our group using the camera whilst we were filming. Taking images was significant at this stage, this enabled us to see the way we were filming and the mistakes that were made. The images taken also helped us link what we had done to the story board as shown below.
We took a wide range of images and choose ones that we were proud of whilst the characters were in action whilst filming.

This above image is of the setting our group used whilst filming. The kitchen was the main place where most of the action took place.In the kitchen we had certain props which the main character used these included a kettle fridge cups etc.

The above image is shown to be of the characters in action whilst filming.

The above image is of the characters who are on the table acting the scene, a long shot is used to show where it is set then followed later on by an over the shoulder shot when the characters start the convocation.

We then go on to see the the part where someone is filming the action taken placed. At this stage we see a medium close up is needed to show the characters emotions once the news is revealed. Moving the camera towards the characters face gave a more detailed effect rather than using the zoom in button on the camera.

Above is a more detailed shot of how the camera moves towards the characters face as she announces the news.

A close up of the door is then shown after the close up of the characters face to allow the viewers to see that this is apart of the next scene.

The last shot is of the character who then shows the expressions of anger as the news didn’t go down well.

Pictures taken while filming Prelim Animatic

Today we filmed a few scenes for prelim animatic to get more practise, and it was my first time filming, we also took pictures while filming.

PRELIM- Filming the prelim and photos during Filming

One shoot photos whilst filming our drama piece

Here is a short slide show on shoot photos taken whilst filming our prelim piece. The pictures were taken throughout the process and show the location we used to film the prelim, which was a small kitchen with props like mugs and the sink used to add on to the reality of the scene.

Location Setting:

Filming the prelim was done within the kitchen scene shown.  It ran smoothly as with the aid of our storyboard we knew what we was doing for each scene. All four of us in group 17 work together in the filming of the prelim, with two acting, one filming and the other taking on-shoot pictures to record the filming process in stills. When working on our opening all of us will too have allocated roles to play to create a suitable opening.