Analysing a Thriller film.- MAN ON FIRE

A wave of kidnappings has swept through Mexico sending a sense of panic amongst the wealthier citizens, especially parents. in a six day period there were twenty four abductions leading many, to have bodyguards for their children. enters Creasy (Denzel Washington) a former CIA assassin  and presently an alcoholic,  who has seen too much of violence and corruption in the world and has become jaded and withdrawn and has pretty much given up on life, has agreed to take a job to protect a child whoose parents are threatened by the kidnappings, he is hired by an industrialist Samuel Ramos with the recommendation of a friend Rayburn to be the bodyguard of his young daughter, Pita., But Creasy sees this only as a job, showing no interest in her whatsoever, as he is not interested in being a bodyguard especially to a youngster. 

 Creasy barley tolerates the precocious child and her pestering questions about him and his life, but gradually she chips away at his seemingly impenetrable exterior changing the behaviour of the cold Creasy making him live and smile again, reawakening their relationship and rekindling his spirt whilst regaining some of his faith in humanity again.

  Things take an ugly turn when Pita gets abducted by gunmen who shoot Creasy and leave him to die in the streets. enraged beyond reason the tragic event changes the old Creasy back to his old behaviour, his fiery rage becomes unleashed at those he feels responsible and he becomes determined to rescue her and kill everyone who is involved in the kidnapping and no one can stop him.

  Unfortunately for Creasy it gets out of hand,he has done all he can and soon realises  the only way he can reason with these abductors is to give up his life for Pita   

you tube link: man on fire trailer

Representation in Silence of the lambs and The usual suspect.

Silence of the lambs.

The opening sequence starts off with Clarice (Jodie foster) running through the training course in thick fog. when she enters the frame she is tiny in comparison with the dense forest, you can sense her strain of her efforts wanting to complete the course, with her breathlessness and her determination. This portrays her female character as wanting to push herself in a way that a man would, in a male orientated profession. she is isolated in the forest with the sinister trees towering above her, the steady cam  follows her through the forest, giving the impression someone is following her in her isolated state.  

 she's met with a FBI colleague, who tells her to meet Crawford back at the base. she hurries back and enters a crowded lift of tall males in red jumpers, this shows her being intimidated  by older dominating men, showing off the small physique amongst the masculine mass above her.

  when Clarice is in Crawford's office she scans across the sinister newspaper articles of a number of women killed by Buffalo Bill, this accensuates her innocence showing that she has a sensitive side under her thick skinned front.

  

 The usual suspects starts with a man on a  burning ship, with several dead men around, he lights a ciggarette which will start a fire and kill him and another man. the fire is temporarely stopped when a man above pisses on the line of the flame, this gives the impression he is powerful because he is towering above the man on the floor and he has the authority to piss on those less powerful .

 the more powerful figure pulls out a gun and two shots ring out , and the ship blows up in flames. judging from this opening sequence this thriller seems to have the main topic of power and whose better. ie. the battle of the sexes. also the plot seams to have the strong sense of the power of will.

Orren's first on time update!!!!

Okay so today in lesson we looked at representation in thriller films, the films we looked at were Silence of The Lambs and The Usual Suspects.
The main points that we looked at were:

• Disability
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Wealth/Class
• Sexuality
• Age

With disability, thriller films portray it in a negative way and it there are usually clinical aspects portrayed as well, there is also mental illness displayed thriller films and it is portrayed darkly and is seen as mysterious and it may have links to why a person is killing or doing whatever they are doing. There are also links to sexuality with mental illness, for example in Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock, the character Norman Bates shows arousal when touching a stuffed dead bird and he is a voyeur, due to watching the character Marion in the shower, his character may also have an Oedipal Complex because he dresses in his mother's clothes (sorry if that's spoiled the film for anyone).

Gender representation has some quite interesting points, because the characters can have many different roles. Male characters are quite often portrayed as the hero or anti-hero, and it is male characters who suffer from mental illness in thriller films, mental illness is not really shown in female characters in thriller films. there is sometimes the weak male character, who may appear weak, but is actually very cold, calculating and smart, or they may physically but use someone to help them complete their "mission". The roles of women in thrillers are wide and varied, in some films there is the femme fatale who may be evil but tempts the hero to help her and she wants to use the hero and is happy to kill once she gets what she wants, this is seen in the film "The Spirit" (2009) the two main female characters, are portrayed as beautiful but deadly, which is a favoured quality in the femme fatale. The opposite to the femme fatale is the damsel in distress character, this is who the male protagonist has to save, and they may end up falling in love with each other. Hair colour is also seen to play a part in the representation of women in thriller films, blonde hair was favoured by Alfred Hitchcock because he thought that it made women seem virginal, but this view may have changed slightly in modern cinema; brunette hair colour makes the female character seem smart and possibly deceiving. Also the female character is quite often a passive character.

Ethnicity is an odd, piece in thriller films because it is not usually a major storyline, thrillers have a predominantly white cast, the hero is often white and the antagonist is often white, thrillers use racial stereotyping however when showing other cultures.

Wealth/Class is not exactly a major theme in thrillers, but sometimes it can link in with the storyline of some films, for example money may come in to films if there is a hostage situation. Often when showing a characters home life and lifestyle, wealth is implied, this can be shown by mise en scene and what a characters home and what their clothes are like. Money can also be used as a macguffin to drive a story, but it is not necessarily going to be looked in to in the storyline.

Age is sometimes seen as sign of weakness in thrillers, for example in Se7en when you see Morgan Freeman's character in bed, the audience just see him as an old man.

Sexuality is sometimes a powerful theme in thrillers because it links to a lot of the previous areas, and it is still seen as a taboo subject in modern times. In thrillers there may be influences of sexual tastes from a characters family, in some films a male character may have been bought up to see sex and women as evil because of what their mother made them believe as a child, this may also be linked to child abuse. Sexuality is not necessarily openly explained but is often subtly hinted at.

Silence Of The Lambs

The background music (non diagetic) consists of stringed instruments and makes the audience feel very tense, because the sound is odd and unusual, this is also added to by a thick fog that makes it hard to see what else is about in the wooded area, and this is very eerie. The camera is angled straight ahead, looking at a lake, this makes the audience think that there may be something going on over the other side of the lake, but then the camera starts tilting downwards to see the protagonist pulling herself up a hill, this makes the audience wonder what is going on and whether the character is running away from someone or just exercising. Because the character is doing an exercise course this gives her image of being strong and a hard worker, also the audience hear her breathing heavily and loudly, this shows that she has been exercising for a long time and pushing herself. The camera tracks the character and uses steady-cam when following the character, the distance between the character and the camera increases when she is running, this gives the impression that she is pushing herself to her limits. The camera switches to following the characters feet as she is running/jogging this may allude to the character running away from something, possibly a memory of something that scared her - in the film Hannibal picks up that Clarice (the protagonist and the running character) grew up on a farm and she used to hear the lambs being slaughtered and that it had a major effect on her and she would still wake up sometimes from dreams of the cries of the lambs. The camera follows Clarice as she climbs an obstacle and watches her from the side, the actress is small woman but when she climbs over the obstacle she seems bigger, but this may be to make her seem more powerful, she then carries on running, but the camera stays where it is, a man then calls out to Clarice, and when he appears on screen the camera then moves forward to join their conversation, this may give the idea that Clarice is living in a "man's world", by this i mean that she works in a male dominated profession, and so the man is more important. When you hear Clarice speak, she has a heavy southern USA accent which seems fairly masculine, and also seems to add to making the character seem strong. The clothes that Clarice wears are bland, a grey jumper and navy blue jogging bottoms, these also take away from her femininity. There is one camera shot that adds to the femininity of Clarice and it is of the side of her face, and you can see that she is wearing earrings. As Clarice leaves the obstacle course, the camera tilts up slightly to see what is on the man's hat and it says FBI, this explains why Clarice was exercising and where she is. The camera then looks up at 4 signs on a tree:

Hurt

Agony

Pain

Love It

these give a very morbid view of the FBI and their view on hard work, it also sort of stuns the audience because they wouldn't expect something so dark from the FBI. When Clarice goes in to the FBI building there is a shot of an office building, this shows that there is a change of place. As Clarice is walking around the building the only person who speaks to her is another woman, also there are a lot fewer women in the building, this also goes to show that her profession is male dominated. When Clarice gets in an elevator she is the only one is blue and the other people in the elevator are men in red jumpers, this makes Clarice even more of an individual, even though her clothes are very bland and boring. Clarice walks around with her hands behind her back, this gives her an air of innocence as if she is taking everything in as she walks about the building, when Clarice is waiting in an office, she looks very young and innocent and it seems almost like she shouldn't be there. The credits in the opening are big black opaque almost military style lettering in the center of the screen, and this gives the impression that there is going to be something to do with police or military themes.

The Usual Suspects

The background music is soft and sounds like it is played on a piano, it sounds fairly nice, but there is something that causes suspicion, its quite odd it just seems like something is missing from the music. The camera is tilted down towards a large area of water, as the camera moves along, the reflection of lights can be seen , this gives the impression that something is going to happen near water and then the next shot is of what looks like an abandoned house, but then it turns out that it is a boat where the action takes place. At the end of the credits it says "San Pedro, California - last night", this tells the audience that this is just a flashback and that was is about to happen may be what causes the rest of the events of the film. A man then lights a cigarette, smoking gives the impression that the man is trying to relax, because of something that has just happened (the camera looks at a man tied up on the floor, so maybe he was tied up by the smoking man) and then drops the lit matchstick packet onto a line of liquid which then lights up, as the flame travels down the liquid, it is put out by a man urinating, this makes the audience laugh and is also surprising because you just expect the flame to go and set something off, but instead the audience is happy with the toilet humour, which you just don't expect in a thriller film. The person urinating is shrouded in black and you never see his face which will keep the audience guessing who the killer is. The camera goes to close ups of barrels that are leaking oil, from this the audience can tell that they will be of some use at some point in the future, and then you see their contents come into use soon enough. When the shrouded man comes down from where he was, he and the smoking man have a conversation, this gives the impression that they are acquaintances or friends, so when the shrouded man pulls out a gun, the smoking man doesn't seem bothered by this so he seems to already know that he is going to be killed, also he is slumped in a corner and doesn't get up when he sees the shrouded man, so he may be injured. When the shrouded man points the gun at the smoking man, he holds the gun on it's side, this gives the impression that he is a trained killer or that he is only holding the gun on its side because it looks cool.

Analysing openings of 'The silence of the lambs' and 'The usual suspects'

Today in our media studies lesson, we watched the openings of both 'The silence of the lambs' and 'The usual suspects', after which we were given an assignment to analyse the opening of these thrillers:
In 'The silence of the lambs', there are many aspects of the opening scene, which make it a good thriller. The scene starts off with a Jodie Foster running through woods. While this is done, there is slightly eerie non-diagetic music being played. This, together with the steady cam being used gives the audience an impression that something's wrong. The steady cam being behind her is a very effective method to use as it gives the idea that she is being chased and she's in danger. As the music becomes slightly faster, the camera starts to track Jodie Foster to make the visual effect of her running faster. The title (The silence of the lambs) displayed while she is running is also effective in setting a thrilling atmosphere as the title is in harsh, bold, formal text. As she is climbing over the obstacle, she appears to be taller, which gives the audience a sense that she's now not as vulnerable. After she speaks to a member of the FBI and there is a shot showing 'FBI' on his hat, viewers will be confused because they will feel she is now safe, which is a big contrast. The non-diagetic music is also changed, which establishes she is not in danger. When the scenario changes and she is in an office building, everyone is wearing uniform which shows a sense of security. Although she is quite small compared to other people in the building, she is still looking powerful as the camera is mostly focusing on her by slowly following her movements. There is creepy music (slightly more eerie than before) when she is looking at the photos. This is an impression that the photos may be linked to something bad that will happen.
The other film's opening that we watched was 'The usual suspects'. There was not as much key techniques used as there was in 'The silence of the lambs', but there were some techniques used that I found interesting.
As the scene starts, there is a slow mood, the music playing is slow and the font also appears slowly, which creates a calm mood. This contrasts with later on when there is a man shown in black clothing, who looks like an antagonist. The choice of colour for the clothing was good as black usually symbolises evil in thrillers. More eerie music is played when he is shown to further make him look like an antagonist. He looks like the dominant character in this scene because when he is standing up the stairs, there is a low-angle shot looking up at him. The camera is also following his movements making him look important.
Overall, I think both these openings are interesting in terms of the techniques they used.

Representation of Silence of the Lambs and Usual suspects.

Silence of the lambs:

The opening credits had very harsh looking, bold text which kind of looked military and formal. This is the first thing the audience see so it has to stand out and it sets the mood for the thriller.

As the credits are shown the setting comes across very disorientating as the camera just seems as if its floating through the trees and you don't know where its leading to, whether its going up or down. This creates tension for the audience as they don't know what's going to happen or if anything will jump out on them. Also it didn't look a very nice environment to be in as he whether was miserable and dull and seemed cold. The music being played helped the tension in this as it went well with the scenery and sounded rather mysterious and creepy.

One of the representations in Silence of the Lambs was gender. There was a female, Jodie Foster, who was running. As it was only the opening i got several different impressions of her. there were that she seemed as if she was running away from someone and when the camera did a close-up of her feet running, the speed increased creating more and more tension until suddenly the audience gradually saw the obstacle course which therefore i got the impression that she was sporty and maybe something was on her mind that she wanted to get rid off. This also indicate that she was hard working because she was sweating and heavy breathing as if she was really trying hard. As she reached a climbing frame and got to the top a low angle was used as this made Jodie Frost look big all of a sudden which made the audience think she was a strong character and stood up for herself. Her voice was surprising when she spoke as it was quite deep for a small innocent lady like she looked.

The camera stood still whilst she was running away and then suddenly a male turned up and then the camera went back to close up of them both. He came across as if he was a messenger boy as he told Jodie that someone wanted to talk to her. The camera had a close up of the mans hat which said FBI this was done purposely so the audience notices it and realises that they are working for FBI. This is when there is hint dropping and our impressions all change so we know what the characters role's are.

When shes back at her work she was the odd one out as she was wearing grey and everyone else was wearing red. This was so she stood out more and also shows she is obviously an important person that what she comes across. She is also the only girl in he lift with a group or men who are all a lot taller than she is. This shows she is powerful and doesn't mind being the only girl. The audience wouldn't expect this as she seems very small, innocent and to herself. 

As Jodie was in the office waiting for someone, the music got creepier slightly. This was because of the horrible photos that Jodie was looking at on the wall and also nobody knew why this man, the boss, wanted to talk to her. Another representation was that the man was a lot older than Jodie was. Also his clothes indicated him being important and intelligent.

Unusual Suspects:

The credits was a very different font compared to Silence of the Lambs. It was very thin but obvious. This looked very mysterious and it was if the writing wasn't to be seen although it was obvious. The screen was very dark with a funny patting slowing moving across the screen. I got the impression that it looked like water that is being reflected. As this was being shown there was slow suspense music being played that got higher as the credits finished. This was to create tension.

The first opening scene straight away had a close-up of flames of a match then it zoomed out. This was very bright and effective to the audience as they at first couldn't work out what it was and what was going on.There was a male smoking who looked very sligh and as if he was the antagonist. However this wasnt who he was, there was another man who was standing on scaffolding looking down on the innocent man. This made the man who was up high seem in charge and more powerful.So it made the other man seem weaker. the man standing on on scaffolding was holding a gun. This also showed that he was the antagonist as he killed the other man. However we didn't see this, the audience would persume it as were heard it and it seemed obvious to us. It all happened very fast which made it have more tension and the murderer then set the location were he killed the man alight. We got the impression that he did this to hide the body which he killed. This made it have more of a story as it seemed like it had ended but was only the opening so automatically the audience think, "what will happen next?"

Orren's opening idea - another late-ish post

Okay, so i wasn't in the lesson yesterday, but i saw the ideas the others came up with yesterday, and i thought that they were AWESOME!!! (our group is great! i really like these guys) and so i spent ages trying to come up with an opening, so here is what i came up with, and some notes on other things i looked at

This is my idea:
The opening credits start when the light in the darkroom is turned on (there would be a red filter used for the light), the door opens and the character comes in.
The camera then follows the character to a side in the darkroom where there are photographs developing in developing fluid, this would be good as an over the shoulder shot, whilst the character is walking to the side, he knocks into Polaroids that are hanging down, when these photographs are knocked, the camera cuts to a close up of them, swinging, and having an actor's name or the title of the film on the blank bit at the bottom, the pictures however will be of a mutilated body (recreated of course, not a real one), as the character get to the side he sits down and pulls out a book full of photos of murder scenes, from under another selection of books, and flicks through it, he also then starts writing in the book, there could be a use of over-laying (i think this is the name of the technique of placing one cut over another), and one of the cuts could be slightly sped up, to add a bit of confusion to the audience and to show that the character does this a lot, another way to add to the audience's slight confusion could be to have lots of short cuts that make the characters movements seem odd and wrong, as if there is something wrong with the character. On another side in the darkroom there could be torture devices that the character used on his victims, also on this side there could be a battered book that relates to why the character is killing people, this book could be a bible or a book that seems fairly well known and discusses people and the problems with them, this could be Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche or Paradise Lost, and these could show that the character has good reason to be killing people and it might be all for a greater good. On one of the walls there could also be a collage of photographs and post-it notes, this could show how big a collection of photos that the character has and how many people he has killed. There could also be a lot of extreme close-ups of the character's eyes and his hands, to give some mystery to the character, and we could also not have any shots showing the characters entire face or enough of his face to be able to tell who he is. There could also be a television set that shows a person locked up in a dungeon of the characters creation, this could give the impression that the character always has a victim.

I found that the opening credits for Se7en influenced my idea for the opening.

I'm not completely sure that i like my ideas for the opening credits, but this is the best that i have come up with so far.

Music that i found that could be used could be something that is fairly dark and a bit heavy, preferably from the metal genre, but not something that has a fast tempo and is very heavy or loud, it should be odd and mysterious and makes the audience feel slightly uncomfortable, like the remix of Closer by Nine Inch Nails in the Se7en opening credits. I think that Tool or Nine Inch Nails have songs that fit in this view (although i didn't explain it very well). Songs that i thought that could be used are:
Tool - Schism - about 2:50 minutes in to the song, well music video,
- The Grudge - 5 minutes + into the video,
Linkin Park - Breaking The Habit, but the tempo may be to fast and the song may not be dark enough,
- Somewhere I Belong
Nine Inch Nails - We're In This Together
- Closer, a remix of this was used in Se7en
- Burn, but I'm not completely sure about this song.

Hope you enjoyed reading this and found my ideas interesting.
Bye for now =]

Opening- what we have came up with so far!

There will be opening credits and an opening scene to our opening. This will be no longer than 3 minutes long. The credits will appear in and out, fading slowing in an unusual font that looks suspicious to go with the "thriller" theme. This will make it more effective for the audience as we found out from our research that people like the suspense and tension building up in a thriller.

The next thing we discussed was sound. An idea for this was to have a background piece of music that changed now and again throughout the opening, depending on the cuts. To build up tension we thought to make the music faster or slower but keeping the same piece of music. Also we thought to add sounds in, like screaming, when its relevant. I thought this as it could relate to the film by the audience recognising the screaming when the main character kills his victims. 

There will be lots of short takes of Gabriel's photos of his victims, tools which he used to do it, how he did it and flashbacks of his past. When the opening credits are being showed it will show gabriel in his lab with a red filter indicating blood. It will involve lots of close-ups, panning and probably a few more which we havn't discussed yet, however will when it comes to our final decision on a story line which we are planning on doing.

Our Characters Motifs

Main Character:  

• Hard working, ordinary business man who wears a suit and tie to work to work.
• schizophrenic, more than one personality because of his flashbacks he keeps having.
• Talkative to his friends at work, however quiet and keeps himself to himself.
• At home a dark personality and lonely as always alone, nobody knows his lifestyle out of work.
• Wants to be normal and be close with a girl, however he'll end up abusing her because of how he is.
  
• Doesn't really talk to any of his neighbourhood and participate in any organisations.

Work Friends:

• Outgoing and like a laugh at work.
• Tries to be really friendly to main character as they think he's quiet and to himself.

Neighbour: 

• Very helpful and considerate.
• Tries to be friendly, especially to his neighbour, Gabriel, the main character.
• Does the best for everyone.
• Feels sorry for Gabriel as he thinks he is lonely as he doesn't hardly see him.

orren's first post

Hey everybody, sorry for the late update but i will be better. Anyway, on Friday 23rd January, we analysed the opening credits to three films Se7en, Day of The Jackal (1973) and One-hour Photo. Each of the films had very different openings, and the last two films we focused mainly on analysing the use of sound in the openings.

Se7en: the opening scene starts with Morgan Freeman, in bed, with his glasses off and a metronome ticking, this may give the ideas that he sits there and finds the metronome ticking relaxing, or that he is thinking whilst the metronome goes. The ticking also has a hypnotising effect on the audience. The ticking is also fairly similar to that of a clock and it could go to mean that time is counting down for the character until something happens, those who have seen the film will know that Morgan Freeman's character is a retiring detective, so the ticking away may be linked to how long until he retires. There is an establishing of the bedroom and then, it cuts to a close up of the glasses, this may be to show that the character is relaxing or getting ready to go to bed, the next shot is of the metronome ticking, this may be to show where the ticking sound is coming from or to also hypnotise the audience with the backward and forward motion of the pendulum. The opening credits are very odd and disorientating for the audience because there are lots of quick cuts and the camera uses a lot of close-ups and extreme close-ups. The sound in the opening credits is non-diagetic and it is music, it is a song by Nine Inch Nails (who i guessed correctly), but the song is and edited version of their song "Closer", the drum beats in the music work together with the actor's names, the names are scratchy and often upside or back to front, but when there is a drum beat in the music, the words move in to the right position, this gives the impression of the words having been written because they are scratchy and this links with the idea of a murderer being odd and crazy. When the camera cuts to a clos up of the person's hand writing, there is a use of overlaying, this gives a sense of the person writing a lot of the time, possibly everyday, and that it is a part of their daily routine.

Sound

Day of The Jackal: the sound in the opening credits are all non-diagetic, and it starts after a procession of cars move off, the sounds is very bassy, and is played on a stringed instrument, this gives a very tense. When the camera cuts to following the motorcyclist a brass percussion sound is heard, this show that the motorcyclist is a main character, but it also builds up suspense, because you're not sure whats going on and the metallic sound makes you very suspicious of whats going on.

One Hour Photo: the sound is very bassy, and it is made up of one note being plucked and held for a few seconds, whilst the pitch changes. With each piece of text appearing on the screen there is another beat, and as the credits goes on the sounds start to seem eerier, which keeps the viewer tense. Each time there is a red flash, like that of a camera, in the background, the text disappears and then another piece of text appears. At the end of the credits there is silence and all that you see is a camera used for taking photographs of suspects at police stations, the camera focuses on this for up to 30 seconds, I think, this makes the audience feel uncomfortable, because it feels like the camera is staring at the viewer.

Sorry again for the late update

opening ideas

The man is asleep and has a flashback of his childhood so he wakes up suddenly. goes down to his lab where the audience will see his photos of the people he has abused. This will trigger the storyline. Then we will see him walking to work as it shows him being an ordinary person.

by leanne

The first scene will start with the man developing his photos in his lab, the camera will pan across the line of the photos showing his abused victims, it will focus on 1 or two photos and zoom in , it will then flash back and showing a few seconds of them in the torture chamber.

by Suzy




Our opening scene could begin with the man doing day to day activities and looking inocent. This would contrast with later on in his photographic lab, where pictures are displayed of how he tortures people. Different techniques like eerie music and a lot of short takes as well as extreme close ups will be used to enhance the suspense.
By Nathan

senario for thriller

Gabriel Bennet, the main character, is aged in his late 30's.

We decided that the main character will be a hard working man who works in an office, however this will contrast with later on in the opening sequence when he is in his secret photographic lab in his house which he uses to develop his photos of his abused victims. To prove that he has been killing these people he will leave a memento to show that it is him alone doing these killings. All this is because he has had an abused childhood from his parents and has disturbed his future life. He has a flash backs of his childhood one night which triggers his abused lifestyle and this is where it all starts. After a long period of time he gets caught out by his next door neighbour who saw his lab and put the pieces together of the abused people in the news and reported him to the police and then he got sent into a mental home still having his bad nightmares. Gabriel will be the antagonist as so was his parents.

Analysing sound in three triller openings

The first thriller we analysed was Seven. It started with the man in bed he pushes the metronome this is diegetic sound, the ticking of the metronome, could  suggest that it is the mans heartbeat, the metronome had the manner of hypnotising drawing you in sort of mesmerising you.

  Eerie sounds are heard throughout the opening creating dramatic effect and mystery, music is used to build up suspense, as the pace of the music gets faster it draws you further into the movie with wonder and excitement as you sit on the edge of your seat waiting in anticipation for whats going to happen next.

   The Day of the jackal (1973), the sound of the violins and the drums playing quickly creates dramatic effect, making you think that something is going to happen. judging from the opening scene i would not necessarily know that it was a thriller because not much tension was built up. the sound definitely helped me understand it was a thriller if happier music was played it would be difficult to judge this.

   One hour photo (2006) starts off with the opening credits, has the credits appear they show up as if a picture has been taken of them, the sound of the camera taking a picture can be heard every time a credit appears. A strong beat is heard throughout the opening sequence suggesting it is quick like how developing photos is, the time plays a key part in this as it relates to the title "One Hour Photo" silence is used to create tension and keep you hanging on the edge of your seat, and to keep your understanding to a minimum, to keep you guessing and adding mystery.

Comparing sound in thriller openings

Today, in our media studies lesson, our group anylised the sound use in three thrillers: Day of the Jackal (1973), 1 hour photo and Se7en. I noticed that the sound used in all the thrillers are not particularly different, but some of the techniques slightly vary.
In 'Day of the Jackal', there is non-diagetic music at the beginning, which is upbeat, so you may not be able to tell straight away that this is a thriller. However, further on during the opening sequence, as soon as the title is displayed, the music becomes slower and more eerie, creating a mood of suspense.
'1 hour photo' differs from this in terms of sound use. Instead of the music changing, there is eerie music, which plays throughout the opening sequence and maintains the same simple beat, which is a way of building up suspense. I also noticed that silence can be very effective to use in thriller movies as there was a part where a shot of a camera was shown in a still shot and no sound was made for several seconds and was building up suspense because we didn't know what was going to happen next.
'Se7en' uses a completely different technique compared to 'Day of the Jackal' and '1 hour photo'. The sound starts off diagetic, when a metranome is ticking. This method is used to hypnotise the audience. The sound later seems to be the sound of many items being used at once, and non-diagetic. It is only later on during the opening sequence of 'Se7en' that rhythmic eerie music is played. The music has, for example, scraping noises and saw noises, which give it more of a thriller feel.

Analysing triller openings with miss map

In one of our lessons with Miss Map we briefly analysed the openings in our groups to Seven, Day of Jackal and One Hour Photo.

I thought each individual opening was different in their own ways. Day of Jackal was very old and i found it hard to analyse as my group had sound to deal with, and their was hardly any sound but us as group put it to it being an old thriller, compared to the other two openings. I thought that this opening wouldn't keep the audience sitting on the edge of the sofa as much as the others, however it still gave tension to the audience and a slight "what will happen next?" question. It also had sounds which none of the others had such as, car horn and traffic. This was more realistic sounds than the others as the others had sounds that had a lot of tension in and the audience wouldn't necessary no what the sounds were, which is what made it more suspicious and a nervous feeling to the audience.

The one which i chose to analyse was "Seven", the one which we did in class. I chose this because this is the one which made me feel as if i wanted to watch the whole film as i hadnt seen it before. 

Seven had a lot of low lighting and had used a dim lamp to which gave the small amount of lighting, i felt this was to give a secret, hidden, mysterious effect which automatically catch the readers and makes them want to watch more althought they might not realize this.

It had very quick cuts and flashes of mainly close-ups. This made it seem like there was a lot going on and much more to find out, therefore makes the readers sit and watch to see what happens. The close-ups were of lots of photographs, this engages the audience as they want to know who the photo is of. Also there was close-ups of very fine detailed objects such as, a hands of a person with bandages on, needle work, books and writing(which u cant see what says), scribbles other writing and peoples faces. all this gives a strong impact on the rest of film as to what will happen next. 

Red filter was used over the camera, this indicates blood and thinking into to it, it goes with all the photographs and the camera work that went on.

The credits had an unusual font which looked scratchy and they moved in quick reactions. The font almost looked hand written, this gives it a more personal, suspicious effect as it looked like real written and went well with what we saw from the opening.

There was background music through this which was very mysterious and changed slightly through it. It went well with the credits and movements in the opening. Now and again i heard screaming and weird sounds. Straight away i thought, well who's screaming and why? It was done to purposely make the audience think what i thought. From this point onwards by putting the things u notice in the opening together you can tell that something bad will happen.

At the opening sequence where the dim lighting was just before the opening credits, it was very quite but with a metramoan and had a continuous clicking sound which represented time getting on and going away. As the man was just listening to it, repeatedly, it made him seem mental or mad, maybe something was wrong with him, however we know we was intelligent as there was a close-up of him putting his glasses down.

Overall i thought this was the best opening out of the three as it was fast, showed a lot, and made me really interested but suspicious, i will have to watch the whole thing.   

Creating A Photographic Dark Room.

Creating A Photographic Dark Room.

As i had been given the task of lighting, i decided to research, lighting for a photographic dark room, As we all knew creating a photographic dark room would be difficult but i found out that all we needed was a fairly small room with no windows, this would also be difficult , but as long as we found a solution to avoid letting in any natural light we would be ok. one of my ideas was to stick black sugar paper over the windows to stop the natural light from seeping in. 

  To make the room red i thought about a red light bulb, i will have to give it a try to see if it is effective, also i thought that we could use a red filter to give it a red ambience. 

  to make it authentic the following props would be needed:

>Three developing trays

>Rope or line of some kind to hang film and photos to dry

>Photo clips

>A timer

>Tongs

>Paper

>Toner and developer- (this would be created by writing the names on to bottles and filling them with water to make it look like they are the actual chemicals.)

> A fan

what should Thrillers involve?

. Mystery- confusion,

. Mise en scene- represents state of mind, props

. Changes in the audiences loyalty

. Protagonist and antagonist

. Diegetic sound effects

. Suspense

. Keeping the audience guessing

. Non diegetic music, ambience sound.

. Establishing shots, close ups, quick cuts. etc

. Messing with the audiences head

. Lighting, varying with the mood

Themes

>Death

>Character identity

>Minds

Evaluation of questionaire

from the people in my group individually asking people questions to do with thrillers and then comparing all our results with each others has given us an idea of what they want to see in a thriller and what they like best. Also which thrillers are popular. We have realised that the age range we have asked was slightly too young as all of us together asked people with the age of 14-25+. We think its too young as people below our age may not have the understanding of thrillers as we do as they may think a thriller is a horror if they find it slightly scary. So we think sticking with people our own age and above will be more appropriate when we come to making out thriller opening. We were lucky with what everyone said to question 3 as they all said words which relate to each other of what a thriller is and near enough everyone likes to see the same similar things within a thriller.