Thriller Opening Evaluation - 1. In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

These are some of the main conventions used in Thriller films:

Most of these conventions are found in the majority of thrillers, and is what people expect when watching or making a thriller opening. This is why we tried to include as many of these as possible when making our opening, we almost tried to make it cliché to fit perfectly with the genre. As well as these expected conventions, we also used shots and angles you would expect in a thriller e.g. close ups of faces/weapons/clues, flashbacks and dark over the shoulder shots. This is all able to build up the mystery and tension as well as making the audience focus on one thing, such as an emotion, murder weapon or any other incident of importance that we need to emphasis, as well as using all of the expected conventions in a thriller.

We wanted our opening to be a noire style detective thriller set in the 50’s, so we all brought in any props that would look like they’re from that period after WW2, we used things like; an old radio, an old brief case and an old toy handgun, we thought this would help create the 50’s atmosphere in the house through mise-en-sene. We were also able to use a couple of old cars from the 1950’s that we parked outside the house. And the house itself is secluded on the edge of a small remote village, we thought this would be a perfect location for our opening to be set, as when we first heard about this house and how it was surrounded by forest, we thought how we might be able to get it to look similar to the Bates Motel were Hitchcock’s classic Psycho is set. However, with this convention we had some problems with complete isolation, as on one side of the house there is another house, so it was quite problematic as we couldn’t have an establishing shot of the house as planned, as we thought that it would be a good convention to include in our opening.
The non-diegetic sound we used was very conventional for the thriller genre. The sound effects came off the Mac’s, which sounded as if they were taken directly from Psycho. We also added a dramatic, conventional soundtrack over the opening credits, which we thought would work well and resemble a different thriller opening to ours such as Hannibal or Se7en. There isn’t much diegetic sound in the opening, as it’s very quiet and all you can really hear are footsteps, we thought this was very conventional for a thriller opening as this piece of editing can be spotted in other thrillers too (such as Se7en), but when the flashbacks start the old car’s engine kicks in with its heavy, deep growl, and a short but penetrating scream from the wife as her attack begins.

We have looked at a few other thrillers such as No Country for Old Men, Se7en and Shutter Island:

Se7en is a very conventional neo-noire styled thriller, especially in the opening credits as it sets the tone and pace for the rest of the film. Within the first few minutes it should hook the audience making them want to know and find out what will happen in the rest of the film.

In Se7en this is done by using a dark figure, in a barely lit room cutting out newspaper articles and highlighting text, this creates a hint of mystery making the audience wonder who this person is and what he has to do with these articles.

There is very little or no diegetic sound at all making it seem as if this figure is quietly planning or working, but there is a creepy and disturbing soundtrack which does a great job setting the mood for this character and his intentions. The opening credits is edited so there is a shot of the figure with the newspaper clippings and then it cuts straight to a name in white over black, and towards the end of the credits as the music quickens so does the time between each cut. This might be a representation of the actual story of this film, as it’s very mysterious and slow to start with but the further you get in the clearer and more disturbing it becomes. In terms of Mis-en-scene it looks quite cluttered and untidy suggesting this person may live alone or is lonely, there are also a lot of books and newspapers on the desk. This is a perfect example how Mis-en-scene can create a persona for a character or place. We tried to use this in our media product as the desk we had in the attic scene was cluttered and very unorganised, we tried to create this sense of disorganisation in our opening.

The opening should also include the names and roles of the main stars of the film e.g. Director, Editor, Actors etc. This will give the audience a sense of star quality within the film.

The creation of a narrative is also required in the first two minutes of the opening of a film, this can be done through:

• Camera shots – close ups, over the shoulder, reaction and establishing shots
• Editing – continuity, transitions, pace etc.
• Sound – Diegetic and Non-Diegetic
• Mis-en-scene – props, location and costumes

These are all used to help identify what type of film it is e.g. a thriller.

Not only is Se7en a very conventional thriller, it was also our biggest inspiration for our own opening. Although the stories are very different the location and editing is very similar, as we tried to make Se7en’s over the shoulder shot our own:

This shot shows the murderer/thief running away after he has killed the detectives’ wife in a struggle. This adds a sense of personal tension, as we wanted the audience to feel and connect with the detective.

We also looked at another thriller to help us with our soundtrack through the opening credits, we thought the music from the opening of the thriller; Hannibal was very dramatic and quite unusual for a thriller, as it’s slow but also very tense, this will help with the slow build-up of our opening and as the pace quickens too. We used a similar soundtrack to Hann Zimmer’s, Virtue, used in Hannibal:
Hann Zimmer, Virtue:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWzelYim1G4&feature=related

Shutter Island also inspired us in some ways for our thriller, as the main character, Teddy Williams (played by Leonardo Dicaprio), realises that he has lost his wife towards the end of the film and this sudden sense of distraught and terror was portrayed really well and we also wanted to try to show this through our Detective’s lust for revenge against the Thief.