media

2. Thrillers ( Summary Edition)
Over the past few months while working on reaching the brief objective by creating
our opening sequence, being able to have created our final project as a group has
resulted into various research into the Thriller genre. Here is a few facts and a
summary of what the ‘Thriller’ genre is all about.
• The Genre is a film, literature and TV production that specialise in using tension,
suspense and excitement as its main aspects.
• There are many sub- genres of thriller but main ones include, comedy, conspiracy,
crime, erotic, legal, political, psychological, horror, spy and supernatural.
• Thriller are mostly created to stimulate feelings from the audience , such as giving
them high levels of anticipation, uncertainty , terror and surprise.
• The genre plot is mostly focused on the villain who creates obstacles the
protagonist tries to overcome.

3. Thrillers ( Summary Edition) Continued
• Literacy devices such as cliff hangers and plot twits are what mostly create a thriller.
• Non diegetic music mostly includes orchestral music, mostly from the string section who
create high pitched and minor sounds which create tense and gripping moods to the
thriller scenes.
• Diegetic sounds include loads of ambient sounds such as rustling, thunder, creaks and
groans of objects. These sounds are used especially during ‘Silent’ moments where
characters are mostly alone or trapped somewhere unknown.
• Technical codes are mostly presented through cinematography shots which are vary but
are mostly extreme close up shots of the characters face as by catching the facial
expression helps the audience to engage more with the character through the feeling
they express such as fear or curiosity. Also lighting is normally low-key or back lighting to
create suspense or mystery.
• Mise- en-scen usually includes locations such as abandoned houses or haunted areas or
secluded areas. Make and props depending on the particular sub genre relate to the
character sand the theme for example if it were a horror thriller, blood and dark clothing
would be used frequently.

4. Inspiration ( Overall)
After gaining knowledge about the thriller genre, as a group we decided to
merge a few thriller sub genres to the creation of our opening sequence.
We choose to mix horror with mystery and crime and by looking at videos
clips on YouTube, got inspired by clips to create our plot for our opening
sequence 'Dead End'. The plot for our opening sequence simplified, is
based on the idea of pranks turned into harmful, dangerous reality. A
specific prank we selected as a main idea was the 'clown prank'. The prank
centers around a clown who is caught crushing a persons 'fake head' with a
hammer then chases after the by standers who caught him in the act. By
looking this clip we were able to gather our own ideas on a prank which
could tie in all of our thriller sub-genres and be able to produce the codes
and conventions a thriller uses.

6. • To make sure our opening sequence matched the techniques of how a
‘Thriller’ film is produced we decide to include various extreme close ups
and close up’s of our characters, so that we were able to catch each raw
emotion of fear and confusion. Also mid shots were used to the show the
forest like surrounding ( location) and the characters as they interacted and
their body language as the action took place.
• We also used our editing skills to show the two different points of view.
One from our group walking through the park ( victims) and the attacker (
the villain). Here we were able to build suspense by cross cutting from one
view from the character Sarah and her group of friends ,to the view of the
unknown attacker who was following them. The edits were also very fast
paced when it got closer to the attack, this linking to the idea of
anticipation increasing as the audience watch to see if she will get attacked.
Fade and blur transitions were used as effects representing the uneasy
feeling of the characters. We included grey scale effect to our opening
sequence changing the colour the original colour of our piece to a greyish
haze. This helped us create more of a tense feeling as the colour was very
gloomy and dull.

7. • For our sound elements we used both diegetic and non diegetic sound.
Ambient sounds included the rustling of the bushes and leaves, light wind
whispers and tweeting of birds. Our diegetic sounds included laughter and
dialogue between the group of friends. These two sound aspects were
however kept to a minimum as we more focused on the non diegetic music
that played in the background. The music starts off very light and
crescendos to the peak moment of where Sarah screams and is taken away
by the attacker. This helped build up to the climax as the orchestral string
and horn sound play in minor keys and sound very distorted, adding a very
eerie mysterious vibe to the opening sequence.
• All these elements link to what a thriller film requires, however we
decided to add our own unique plot twist by having a news report at the
end who announces the disappearance and the fate of Sarah instead of her
friends who have escaped. Which leaves a mystery of what happened to
the friends, and if they all got away safely.