Institutions to produce the Thriller Film.

At the beginning of films, there is always a mention of the institution that produces the film; for example Warner Bros.



Warner Bros have produced films such as; Harry Potter, Mystic River and cradle 2 the grave. Warner Bros however started their company making cartoons, which still exist as of today like, Looney Tunes, Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny



Warner Bros is a company from Time Warner, which also controls a number of television under the name of HBO aswell as Warner Bros, PC games and also deals with AOL. Time Warner Inc, a global leader in media and entertainment with businesses in television networks, filmed entertainment and publishing, uses its industry-leading operating scale and brands to create, package and deliver high-quality content worldwide through multiple distribution outlets.

The main officers who run the corporation which is Warner Brothers are :-
Officers:
Chairman and CEO: Barry M. Meyer
President and COO: Alan F. Horn
EVP and CFO: Edward A. Romano

With a running revenue of $11.8 billion, you could say that Warner Brothers are successful at what they do and have certainly established themselves. Founded in Hollywood in 1918 this multi-billion company will continue to produce films, TV programmes and even video games for many years to come.

Directors from the Thriller genre

Steven Spielberg




He created the magic of ET and countless award-winning films including the thriller Jaws. He was born in 1946, in Ohio USA. He started off with being assistant editor in small budget films, the first he assisted was of a different genre to those created by himself later on, a western called' Wagon Train'. Afterwards he delved a little deeper into directing when he started with 'Escape to nowhere', 'The last Gun' and 'Fireflight' which seemed to have features simular to ET but on a smaller scale.

His first acclaimed film was 'The Sugarland Express' featuring actress Goldie Hawn. This was the first of his many films which established him as a serious working director. Then followed the thriller which scared everyone from having a day at the seaside, 'Jaws'.



Steven Spielberg doesnt specialise in thrillers, but has ticked off on his list of multi-genred films. He has made many different films and with Jaws it follows a different pattern on events from a UFO film. As you have to create suspense, and that takes a certain skill.


M Night Shyamalan




Born in 1970 in a Wealthy Surburban area of Penn Valley, he is the son of two doctors. When given a camera at age 8 his creative geniuses came alive.
There is a pattern in his thriller films, as they all include a link to the main characters past, and creates characters that have extrodinary abilites or events happening to them.He uses patterning throughout his films, as to create the same successful thrilling movies he needs to keep the same feeling all the way through.

The camera shots are usually lengthy, uncut, immovable shot of two people talking. Usually the two characters are standing a distance from the camera.
Colours are important too as the use of bright colors, especially red, to signify a clue or crucial item in the movie.

He has made serious money with his films also like Steven Spielberg. His success shows that people enjoy thriller films, as he has made over $7 billion dollars with just his films; 'The Sixth Sense', 'The Village' and 'Unbreakable'.





Thrillers have developed over the years, with introduction of new technology such as CGI( computer generated technology) which includes computer graphics. It was first used in movies in 1973's 'Westworld'. This helps anyy strange scenes suddenly become more believable to look at and view as the audience. This helps the form of Thriller take even more creative risks, as they can make nearly anything possible. With its easy accessibility to all, this has made even the lowest of profession directors make professional film grade films.
Also with equipment like Apple Macs being more and more commonly spread, it is easy for students like myself to be able to attempt and create amateur films.

Times have changed...

My group have recently changed the complete plot of our thriller, as we wanted a plot which suited the genre of the thriller and moulded our opening around that.

Our new plot goes as follows :-

Young girl babysitting, normal situation. Enters kitchin to get drink, when the door opens, she goes to venture out into the darkness....which is where the opening ends.

The plot continues with...at the restaurant where the parents are having a night out, the wife goes to what seems to be an average trip to the restroom but she never returns. Husband becomes worried.

He asks the waiters in the restaurant surrounding the table where are his wifes whereabouts only for them to reply, 'she was never there'. Goes home to find no photots, or no trace of his wife ever existing. Makes the husband and the audience doubt his sanity.

Different flashbacks throughout about the abduction, everytime you see a different shot and it leads to a different clue. Bringing everyone one step closer to solving what happened to his wife.

We later find out the husband was in debt with his business partner, who kidnapped his wife and was holding her captive- waiters were in on the plan.

Man wakes up to find child has also gone missing, starting to realise these disappearances are no coincidence. Puts pieces of the puzzle together and realises whats going on and why his family are going missing.

He tricks his business partner abductor and fights him to get his wife and child back, he ties him up and gives an ultimatum of 'tell me where they are or ill kill you' the abductor tells him where they are. Then kills him anyway.


With our new plot came new title ideas which are as followed; Last Orders, Untraceable, Conspiracy, Ransom, Decpetion, The Deceit and Forgotten.
We got votes from our peers, which lead untraceable to be put strongly in the lead with the most votes. So majority rules....Untraceable it is !

Alongside with our many plot changes we also changed the title of our film. As the plot got narrowed down our list of different names got longer.

Our options were :-
Untraceable
Last Orders
The Conspiracy
Ransom
Forgotten
Deceit

We asked our peers to take a class vote, with majority ruling 'Untraceable' was our decided name of choice.

Planning continues

Also when planning our own production we watched movies to help inspire our own work, including Blue Velvet. It starts off with scenes that include the song 'Blue Velvet' which creates an odd atmosphere, as it starts slow and eery. There is a theme of blue throughout the first scene which continues the theme of 'Blue Velvet' clearly the film has some sort of relevance with the title. It uses an enigma which is the aspect of a thriller used within the opening, as you start asking yourself questions about the opening leading into the film. Including also a contrast between the sinister death of the bugs then the beauty of the green fields around him. All these features are something that can be used within a thriller, and gives some thought for my own individual thriller opening.




Decisions on location, characters and props need to be made as filming will proceed in the next few weeks.

We had decided on a plot, with a babysitter scenario involving a strange phone conversation followed with a scary woman appearing outside, to create an air of mystery and intensity. Deciding temporarily on this idea we made a script


Dialogue Script

Phone- Scene 1

(Girl picks up phone, reads witheld)

GIRL: Hello?

WOMAN: Hi, is everything alright?

GIRL: Yeah, fine- everythings fine

WOMAN:(sounds abrupt) and the children

GIRL: ye.....

(line goes dead)


Scene with old woman

(Woman stands staring)

GIRL: Are you alright?

(woman continues to stare)

GIRL: err..hello?

(Woman slowly walks away)


Phone- Scene 2

(Babyistter rings parents)

PHONE: caller has not been recognised.

We then decided not to use this idea, as casting an old woman would take longer than filming, and with time management this would not suit as it would be longer than 2 minutes (max. opening time) in the opening scene.

Beginning your plan production: Step 1

First ideas of Thriller

Main Character: Young woman, babysitter
Plot outline: Woman babysits at a house where strange things happen, repeatedly. There is a certain time when these occurances happen, at 8 o'clock as many things occur. Old woman always appears and makes comments that can only stir the imagination.

Opening: For the coursework we are currently creating an opening for a project, which is to be no longer than 120 seconds. We have considered lighting, camera movements and what would fit in with our plot. Which includeas a dark scene with an effect of bright light in the first scene, as a phone vibrating sets the scene. We then zoom out to show the girl taking the phone. While trying to create suspense we also have to consider timings and types of shot which would be used most effectively, alongside transitions. With a mixture of medium close-ups and long shots, and special effects mixed with editing to bring lights flickering, Tv's fuzzing and Loud door knocks to create the tension, to bring the thriller to life.


But we are yet to decide what the entire plot of this story is going to include.

Even though we are no longer using this plot idea, i will keep this on my blog so that i can compare my previous ideas to my current ones.

Evaluation of Preliminary Task

When starting the task we were given the chance to be creative and experimental, with a scene involving a conversation. Individially we created storyboards, my first storyboard included two people talking with different sounds, lighting, camera movements and transitions. Seeing as it was a preliminary piece and not coursework, it could be simple and accurate. My group collectively together, chose a simple idea of a student and headteacher scenario. Therefore meaning that my idea was put to the back burner in favour of what was to result in a very effective first piece of video footage. We decided on a location and any props we may need, and how it would fit in to the story board we created with a variety of different shots such as; long shots and medium shots, a large space was needed. So we selected a classroom. We went through different ideas for the length of the piece aswell, deciding to make sure every shot ran at the right time with the minimum lenth of timing being 2 seconds and maximum being 20 seconds, there was no unnecessary timing and everything needed such as a person entering a room, sitting down and beginning a conversation was all included in the filming which in its entireity came to 30 seconds. We decided to use the transition of zoom in and zoome out to enable the audience a closer look of the actors faces, throughout the scene. We made sure that as this was not be a lenghty and entirely detailed and defined piece, like the coursework will be, we used different transitions and camera shots, to test how it worked when physically using a video camera and it was a challenge we were all ready to take on. When on location, we quickly learnt to use the tripod and the camera, using the tripod for when steady shots were needed. Which for the preliminary task was needed most of the time. We used a multiple of different camera movements like; match on action, shot/reverse shot and still shots. There was difficulty at first when trying to figure out how shot/ reverse shot would be used manually and how to enable a smooth zoom in and zoom out without adding the effective of shakey ‘Blair-Witch Project’ style filming. We managed to film all these movements over the space of a lesson, which for first time directors I think is an achievement. We spend the rest of our time in the editing suite using the Apple computers, after half an hour of guidance on how to cope with using the advanced material we then were able to edit our simple video, and managed to resolve the unforeseeable ending problem of smooth transitions and camera shots but with the Apple Media area there were ways and means of creating the result we desired. We used transitions to make sure that the end video ran smoothly, and edited out any unwanted scenes then to finish off the piece we used an ending of ‘fade to black’ using a feature with the Apple computer to end our video. We were very speedy in our entire film process, and i think when making the thriller there will need to be more planning, more details and dialogue to be added and more editing meaning that it may not be as speedy as the preliminary piece. From the preliminary piece I will use simular shots, such as; Match on Action and shot reverse shot as they were simple to shoot but looked effective when done properly on screen. With our new found knowledge of the Editing suite also there will more of a chance within making a thriller scene, to use special effects, lighting and sound effects meaning out creative minds can run wild.

The Thriller: Generic Conventions

The Generic Conventions include:-

The thriller relying on an intricate plot in order to create fear and apprehension in the viewer.

The hero(ine) in the thriller is seen in situations of threat/peril before the peril before the film's narrator is resolved.

The female characters in a thriller are often objectified through a series of gazes

The thriller narrator contains a build up of suspense.

The thriller is often located within an ordinary situation where extraordinary things happen.

The killer ensnares the victim in a set of intricate moves

The thriller narrative is usually centred on a crime(usually a murder)

The hero(ine) of a thriller is fallible ( can relate to a normal person)

The audience are often positioned as voyeurs

The themes often include themes of identity( mistaken identity/loss)

There is often a theme of mirroring involved in a thriller.

Labyrinths and mazes are often motifs; they may be actual or psychological.

Women always suffer in media

The role of women in society has changed over the years. Women now have the same rights and roles as Men do. Somehow in Thrillers women are always interpreted as weak and useless. Within Media whether it be print or TV advertisements women seem to also be depicted as childish, helpless and simply objects of sexuality for men. With many films displaying the lead role of the women as very beautiful but also very naive and helpless and always the victim...Have you ever seen an unnattractive women victim in a thriller?

Things have not changed,

Pyscho (1960)




Notice how the woman is shown on the Poster for the film as very feminine but looks weak as to the other images around her, as she is wearing nothing but underwear. She is in Yellow which shows a lighter softer side, whereas the men are in Red and Black showing they are stronger and more powerful. Very Sexist.





The Return (2006)








Look how vulnerable and weak the victim is as the man grips her arm, this displays a perfect example of how Women in thrillers are rarely, if ever seen standing up to the males.

One day i would like to see a woman standing up for herself in a thriller....
maybe one day we'll see this

All you ever needed and wanted to know about THRILLERS

Thrillers are types of films known to promote uncertainy, unexpected and nerve-wrecking tension. There are many other genres linked to Thriller, such as Suspense and horror as they have simular characteristics and features making it harder to decifer whether a film is a Thriller or Suspense or a horror as they are very alike.

The problems you normally face when examining the Thriller genre come in the form of hybrids. A film would not generally be aknowledged as just simply a Thriller, for example; the film 'Alien' is called a Sci-Fi Thriller and 'Safety Last' is called a Comedy Thriller. Just to make things really simple....

If you simply cannot decide if the film you are watching is a thriller, take the thriller test to see if it is...
Are you on the edge-of-your-seat?
Are there cliffhangers as the film builds towards its climax?
Is the main character placed in a menacing situation or mystery?
Is a life at risk?
Is there conflict between characters or life forms?

If so...I'm afraid YOUR WATCHING A THRILLER!

The characters that are usually thrown into thrillers usually include Convicts, Stalkers, assassins, down-on-their-luck losers, innocent victims (often on the run), prison inmates, menaced women, characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, fugitives, private eyes, drifters, duplicitious individuals, people involved in twisted relationships, world-weary men and women, psycho-fiends, and more. So basically the most unfortunate types of people you find in the world.

Some frequent themes of a thrillers would be Conflict, Death and Danger all the ingredients to get your heart rate up.

If you want to feel all these emotions and more AFI (American Film Institute) have given a top 3 of most thrilling films being;
3. The Exorcist
2. Jaws
and if you dare..
1. PYSCHO
*watch at your own risk*

Alfred Hitchcock (who directed PHYSCO) has been crowned the master of Suspense. With any list of chiller/ thrillers featuring his films, with his orginal ideas and creations he helped mould and shape the modern day films we see today. As most modern takes on thrillers feature ideas originally used by Hitchcock. The first film he made was a silent thriller, 'The Lodger' released in 1926 making his first release completely different to the style of thriller we see today.

Hitchcock usually placed an innocent victim, being an average everyday person, in a terrorizing situation in a case of a wrong person or mistaken identity. Also he places a 'red herring' throughout his films also which intrigues the viewer and helps guide the plot in the right direction helping his films keep a clear, clever and thrilling storyline.
The usual conventions of Hitchcock films is his films were wildly uneven, although he produced the shocking and engrossing thriller 'Physco', and the suspenseful and strangely terrifying 'The Birds' and 'frenzy' which was given an 18 rating for its vicious and strangulation scene... They certainly all differed.

Thrillers such as; Gaslight, Laura, The Spiral Staricase, The Lady from Shanghai and Sorry, wrong number all have the aspect in common that the victims chosen are all female, but not just female but with descriptions along the lines of beautiful, innocent and invalid. Making the victim woman seem powerless and weak.