Thriller Film Coursework.
1. What is the purpose of the opening to a film?
The purpose of having an opening to a film, is to lure in the audience to the remainder of the film. Having a good and promising opening will persuade potential viewers into watching the remainder of the film. Keeping the viewer in suspense, unleft answers, good acting, and famous actors and actresses will keep viewers in suspense and attracted to the rest of the film.
2. What techniques can a director use to create suspense in a film?
A director can use various techniques to keep the audience in suspense, such as quite music, or no music, but keeping in time with the clip, sudden actions with sound effects, having a dark surrounding, locations well known but which may not have potential danger regularly. Having swift camera motions which keep the actors in focus and view, but maybe taking a glimpse at an object, or weapon, which causes people to be alarmed to.
3. How do you think a thriller film is defined?
In my opinion, a thriller film is defined by having an intelligent side, even if only a slight bit, but it has to have something that keeps the audience in suspense, also having many dark areas, allowing for potential jumps and jolts. Furthermore, having a range of music, nothing really up-beat, but more dramatic and slow, from an orchestra or such.
4. What films can you think of that would fit into the thriller genre?
A fair few films made today, have some aspect of thriller in it, such as: Law Abiding Citizen, Spider 3, Salt, Cloverfield, Black Hawk Down, Inception, Shutter Island, The Crazies, Alien, We Were Soldiers, The Usual Suspects, Identity, One Hour Photo, Black Swan, Psycho.
5. The thriller film can be divided into sub-genres, what different types of thriller films do you think exist?
All these consist along side the overall thriller genre, but other sub-genres include: Romance, Comedy, Crime, Action, Horror, Sci-Fi, Adventure, Disaster, Historical, Medical, Religious, Serial Killer, Techno, Conspiracy, Erotic, Legal, Psychological, Spy, Political, Supernatural.
6. What are the characteristics or conventions of a thriller film? (Consider narrative, characters, mise-en-scene, stars?)
Personally, I enjoy thrillers mainly because of the stars, or the conept which the film revolves around, such as in Inception, it has Leonardo DiCaprio starring, whose past films have been huge box office hits, so that drawn me into watching his later films. Then also the level os surrealism in the trailers for the film, it made me want to watch it, with the lighting effects dimmed for unusual cercumstances, and the sound which had been loud for huge effects, kept me in suspence and wanting to know what's happening next.
7. What do you think is the audience pleasure of a thriller film?
The audience pleasure of a thriller film, includes quite a few aspects of what a thriller consists of, such as the suspense, which makes the audience gripped onto the feature, keep thinking what's going to happen next or what's going to jump out. Also the storyline, as it tends to be more in depth and intellectual, which makes the audience think a little more than a alternative film. Furthermore, having, for example, a crime thriller, the viewer would expect some aspect of a crime or criminal concept towards the movie.
Thrillers tend to cover a vast variety of genre, which makes thrillers hit alot more targets for reaching audience demand.
8. What do you think are the differences between a horror and a thriller film?
The difference between and horror and thriller, in my opinion, differ between the fictional or fantasy based concept of the storyline. So thriller is reality based, and horror is fantasy or supernatural based. Normally when a film has a glimpse of supernaturalism, it is turned into a horror, such as 'Nightmare of Elm Street', where as it may be classed as Horror/Thriller if it's reality based such as 'Hostel' or 'Wolfcreek'.
Most thriller films tend to have a storyline where someone is running away, such as within 'The Bourne Identity.'
But in today's concept of the two, it tends to be abstract, taking concepts from both genres and merging them into the genre of Horror/Thriller.
9. Using the Internet, research the 'top 50 thriller films'. Look at the top twenty - which ones have you watched? If it is not many, why do you think this is the case?
Information from: IMDB
Position: | Title | Watched / Not Watched |
| 1 | Pulp Fiction(1994) | Watched |
| 2 | Inception(2010) | Watched |
| 3 | The Dark Knight(2008) | Watched |
| 4 | Goodfellas(1990) | Not Watched |
| 5 | Fight Club(1999) | Watched |
| 6 | Rear Window(1954) | Not Watched |
| 7 | Psycho(1960) | Watched |
| 8 | The Usual Suspects(1995) | Watched |
| 9 | The Silence of the Lambs(1991) | Not Watched |
| 10 | Se7en(1995) | Watched |
| 11 | Memento(2000) | Not Watched |
| 12 | Leon(1994) | Watched |
| 13 | North by Northwest(1959) | Not Watched |
| 14 | Double Indemnity(1944) | Not Watched |
| 15 | M(1931) | Not Watched |
| 16 | Taxi Driver(1976) | Watched |
| 17 | Vertigo(1958) | Watched |
| 18 | Terminator2: Judgement Day(1991) | Watched |
| 19 | Alien(1979) | Watched |
| 20 | The Lives of Others(2006) | Not Watched |
I have watched the majority of the top 20 thriller films, I feel that this is the case because of the range of films which tend to come out at the cinema. I enjoy thriller films more than most other genres, except comedy films, due to the indepth knowledge that most newaday thriller films tend to go into.
Some of the movies that I haven't seen in the list above is mostly because that I haven't heard of them, or not had the time to see them. I have watched most of the more up-to-date thriller films as friends of mine tend to visit the cinema alot to watch these films.
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