Thriller Suspense

The Suspense 'Thriller' Hitchock Model
Under the influence of Hitchcok, thrillers often begin with a crime and the accusation of the innocent bystander. Were the accused to contact the authorities, no doubt the case could be promptly solved, but instead the poor bystander runs from the law thus further jeopardising life and limbs- Rick Attman- Film/Genre.
Shown in North by Northwest 1959
....North by Northwest the accused was an innocent bystander Roger O. Thornhill who was simply there at the wrong place and time. The innocent bystander who simply was mistaken was taken through a turmill of twists and turns full of suspense which was consequently dropped at the end of the film. 

An example of Suspense: 
A scene where the audience sees the exact replica of an office. Inside the office we see a masked man with a gun, we the audience are aware of the masked man with a gun but the workers within the film are not aware. 
Will they be saved?
Will they see the deranged mad man with the gun?
WHO KNOWS!?
Rope (1948)
Tells the story of two young affluent men named Brandom and Phillip who strangle and murder their friend to see if they can get away with it.
They then host a part inviting fellow acquaintances including the murdered mans parents, while hiding is body in a box in the setting room where the party is being held. 


The clip is a typical example of suspense. The suspense is created by keeping dead body in the box at the same place and time the party is happening. 
Will the partygoers ask to see whats in the box?
What will happen?
Will the body be discovered?

Another example is the film Sabotage (1936)



The film clip embedded above show a young boy called Stevie who is  killed, along with many other people, when a bus explodes. Stevie thought that he was simply delivering a film canister, but he was unknowingly carrying a time bomb. Stevie had become distracted along the way which had been because all of the street commotion, which had delayed his delivery, and the then bomb exploded en route to the destination. 

This clip showed a suspense factor because we weren't sure where the bomb was going to be exploded, was it on the street full of the hundred onlookers? But it happened on the bus, but as an audience we weren't sure when. And when the bus did explode, it was a shock as it happened.   

Conventions or Rules of a Thriller

Conventions or Rules of a Thriller

In class we outlined rules or conventions of a thriller. This the brainstorm we came up with, I have added a few of my own too.



Tension: Is apparent in thrillers it sets the mood of thrillers especially during the climax of the film.
Maguffin: set the base of the thriller, but the film is not centered around the base. Such as in the movie Unknown the Maguffin is the Prince's new agriculture deal, but that wasn't the main plot.
Chase: A chase is scene is famous in many thrillers, especially spy thrillers such as James Bond in Casino Royale. Chasing the man with the gun at the beginning of the film.
Cliff hanger: Cliffhangers bring tension and climax. This a popular convention in thrillers such as in The Birds: when she was hanging off a cliff. It was literally a cliffhanger! We didn't know what was going to happen.
Dilemma: Dilemma brings the whole film together, without a dilemma there wouldn't be tension, suspense apparent in thrillers. Without this a thriller won't thrill.
Suspense: Suspense keeps the audience at the edge of their seat.
Red Herrings: Lead us astray, we believe we have the person the film is about, but then at the near end we are faced with the truth we didn't expect. As seen in Psycho we thought that Mrs Bates was the serial killer, but we find out it's actually Norman Bates DRESSED as Mrs Bates.
Twisted Plot: A plot full of twists and turns, expect the unexpected.
Mise-en-scene: Setting, Make-up, costume, camera angles, lights etc are all essential to a thriller.
Fast editing: Including jump-cuts. Brings tension and suspense to the thriller. The mood is heightened.

Types of Thrillers

Types  of Thriller 

A thriller is a film genre that doesn't rely on supernatural elements to entice the audience.

The thriller is a very difficult genre to pin down because it covers a diverse range of films. Thrillers are film of suspense….that are supposed to insist terror on the audience.’ Susan Hayward, Key concept in film Studies.

There are different types of thrillers:-
Spy- James Bond

James Bond is a spy thriller, consisting of James going out different missions to fight the villains and their plans that lurk around. 
Political- The Man Who Knew Too Much

A Family vacationing in Morocco accidentally stumble on to an assassination plot and the conspirator are determined to prevent them from interfering.
 Conspiracy- Red Eye

A Woman is kidnapped by a stranger on a routine flight. Threatened by the potential murder of her father, she is pulled into a plot to assist her captor in offing a politician.
 Legal- Law Abiding Citizen

A woman is kidnapped by a stranger on a routine flight. Threatened by the potential murder of her father, she is pulled into a plot to assist her captor in offing a politician. 
Psychological- Memento

    A man, suffering from short-term memory loss, uses notes and tattoos to hunt for the man he thinks killed his wife. The suspense created by psycholocial thrillers usually come from two of the main characters preying on each others mind. In the case of Memento it would be Leonard and Teddy

“When you enjoy something, you must never let logic get in the way. Like the villians of the James Bond movies. Whenever Bond breaks into the complex, ‘Ah Mr Bond, welcome, come in. Let me show you my entire evil plan and then put you in a death machine that dosen’t work”- Jerry 

Seinfeld. 

Collateral Overview

Hello again. A few lessons back we watched a movie called Collateral.

We start by analsying the poster (to the right). The poster has a picture of Tom Cruise, at the time of the movies release Tom Cruise was a huge hit amongst audience. Therefore it was no surprise that no Tom Cruise's picture was only used for the poster. In addition his name was enlarged, even Jamie Foxx and the directors name were nothing in comparison. Moreover Jamie Foxx who I believed was the main focus- protagonist in the film, had nothing other than a small printed name.

Collateral released in 2004, it is  a crime thriller; starring Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise. Directed by Michael Mann and written by Stuart Beatie.
This film could be described as experimental as it was Mann's first feature film shot with mostly high-definition camera.

There is a lot of evidence of the use of high-definiton camera used in scenes where the LA scenery can be seen.

The Trailer:



The briefcase scene is also one to be noted:
The use of a gun- which is a convention of a thriller is seen in this scene. The man who had the gun, believed he was a bigger man as he had a weapon and even tried to apprehend Vincent, but was obviously no match as Vincent later on killed him.

Vincent's New Friend:
This scene is a very big contrast to other scenes analysed in the film. The lighting in the scene is very bright, full use of high-key lighting. We feel in this scene the uneasiness felt by Max, almost tension. We see Vincent, almost normal-like as he converses with the Ida and also buy her a gift.

Pulled Over:

Mann stated that the film takes place on the night of January 24–25, 2004 from 6:30 p.m. to 5:40 a.m. There is a reason why the film is predominately is set in the dark, except for the hospital scene. We see a lot of tension in this scene, between Max, Vincent and the police. As the audience we are left on the edge because we know that there is a body in the trunk and the police had requested for Max to open that trunk. 

Mann used a scene which was spontaneous to take advantage of the the low key lighting available. In the clip below, we hear the Mann's and Cruise's view of the coyotes running through to the intersection.



The sequence of the Korean Nightclub was shot in 35mm.

When analyzing this scene, I realise the film has a blue hue, mostly everything looks blue. The music in the foreground is very contrapuntal because as there are nightclub goers dancing, and having fun, howver the actions among the character can not be heard only seen, doing this as an effort to portray the audience as one of the night club goers. As we progress through this scene we see that guns and have been fired (conventions of a thriller) but the music still continues to play through.

Background information of the film.
The film was co-produced by DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures. Paramount released the film on Blu Ray, March 30th 2010.
Collateral had waited for 3 year for developing with DreamWorks. The work for directing it was passed from Mimi Leder to Janusz Kaminski. But it wasn't until Russel Crowe became interested in playing Vincent, that the project started developing. 
Crowe than brougt Mann on board, however due to constant delays Crowe pulled out. Which Mann decided to ask Cruise as Vincent and Adam Sandler as the cab driver.

The film opened August 24th 2004, in 3,188 in the theaters in the US and Canada and grossed $24.7 million; ranking number 1 in the first week.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task- Overview

PRE-PRODUCTION. The brief.

We were asked to create a short clip that displayed different camera techniques these were: Point Of View shot and a 180 reverse shot. We were asked to add these techniques in our short clip that had a basic story line to it.

PRODUCTION. How did we achieve  it?

I worked with my fellow classmate, Sveta Ankomah. Before we started filming, we created a story board to create a basic outline of our video. Then we started to using the camera, talking about the different elements that can be added to our video. The shooting primarily took place inside a classroom, but the outside was also feature mainly for the beginning. 

POST PRODUCTION. Was it successful?

We worked well as a group, as we were able to talk about different ideas inside AND outside of school. If any problem did arise we would go back to the storyboard and find a way to resolve it. Sveta was in charge of filming and editing. I was the creative mind behind it, trying to find out what camera angles worked well with what. In addition myself and Sveta were the actresses in the video. The final edit looks professional, with some elements of comedy.

Thriller Conventions

In this blogpost I will explain what the typical thriller will contain. A central to plot: the justice verses the injustice. The elements of the blurred line of good and bad. The elements consisted in a thriller are enigmas, red-herrings, plot twists and cliffhangers (most noted in a thriller, such as The Birds). The sub genres contained in a thriller are mystery, crime, psychological and political;  these sub genres give thrillers an extra aspect allowing it to have that extra twist or shock. The moods available in a thriller would heighten the tension present these moods that are responsible for these are: murder, menace, mystery and paranoia. The 
characters that feature in a thriller seem to be in a dangerous mission and trying to escape from the impossible. These escapes do not have to be actiony, but always have to seem to be escaping from anything, even the most bizarre and unnatural occurrence (A fleet of birds who seem only to attack humans). The characters themselves have to seem troubled, disturbed, confided or multi-faceted morally complex). The settings provide a typical thriller setting as they are seen as dark and corrupt. 

During class, we looked at several opening scenes of different types of thrillers.

Se7en
The opening scene shows the two cops; one who plays the good cop and another person who plays the bad cop. The sub-genre I received from just watching the opening scene was that it was crime thriller. The mood was a mysterious  as we were not getting the location of the setting. In addition, the setting was dark and grey. The film mostly took place in rainy, dreary and dark days; to match to the sub-genre and the characters of the film.

Drive
The opening sequence for driver we watched did not have a lot of the conventions of a thriller. The room is not lit- the only source of any light is from outside street lamps. At the beginning we don't see the characters facial features who is talking, but only a Scorpio print on his jacket. Use of non-diegetic sounds.The radio was a contrapuntal sound as it didn't reflect with what was happening outside; a car getaway. 

Kill Bill
The openiong of Kill Bill was a duplicate of James Bond film, which was re-edited to fit into the order of the thriller-intertexuality. There are gasping sounds at the beginning, but we are not aware of the source of the sound. In addition with clucking sounds of boots from an unknown source. Element of another film; Psycho sound after she gets shot.

James Bond Thriller Analysis.

James Bond Thriller Analysis.

The character James Bond is based on a fictional novel starring a fictional hero first published in 1953. He is often referred to his code name 007 and his mission working as a British Secret Service agent. The novel is created by Ian Fleming. These books are set during May 1951 and February 1951. Fleming continued to set base at his Jamaican home, Goldeneye and wrote a total of twelve books and a collection of two short stories.

James Bond is popular across the globe. If you haven't read the book or watched the movie, you'd still know about James Bond. I know that applied to me!
But why? Recipe of a James Bond Thriller will tell us how:

-Well it first has to have a handsome, heroic secret agent who plays James Bond.
-In addition it has to have a super villain of a greater or equal strength.
-A number of extremely beautiful Bond HAS to make love with.
-A location. An exotic location.
-Exciting stunt driven action, one that will leave you at the edge of your seat.
-The FAMOUS John Barry music. Most famously the one everyone associates with James Bond is the extract from Casino Royale.
-A pop song promoting the James Bond film.
-An opening action sequence.
-Bond receiving his mission.
-Fights and car chases
-Bond being trapped
-Bond escaping from his trap against all odds and triumphs to beat the villain.

We are going to analyse the opening scenes of several Bond films: Casino Royale.
CASINO ROYALE


THE SPY WHO LOVED ME


GOLDENEYE


These three films in comparison all share the same element of typical James Bond thriller film. It has an opening action sequence, I outlined earlier on before. The opening action sequence shows us who Bond is up against. Goldeneye and The spy who loved me opening sequence is set in a snowy region, not exactly an exotic location. However the element of snow may have been added, to add a suspense of 'Where is he'? and 'I can't see him', to leave the audience in awe when they realise where he is. In addition, Casino Royale and Goldeneye use of heavy artillery allows the audience to wonder will he survive? And of course he does. 


But why has James Bond always been popular?
This is the question, I ask myself. I have come to realise that James Bond is popular because he is the original superhero with no superhero strength, at all. Bond fulfills every man's fantasy the ability  to drive fast cars, wear fancy suites,use great gadgets and make love to no-strings attached women. And yet it fullfills every womens fantasy a sexy, hamdsome, smart dashing man, who's able to save them from any situation. What more is there to ask for?