2. Usually crime/thrillers contain a main
character, who discovers a crime or gets
involved with a criminal scheme – often
this character is a detective, usually with
an assistant.
There is an antagonist, usually a
murderer or criminal who is being
tracked by the detectives.
BBC TV series (Although a series with
film length episodes and production
values) ‘Sherlock’ is a good example of
this typical format, with the detective
Sherlock Holmes, his assistant John
Watson and Criminal mastermind James
Moriarty.
1. Characters
In the stalker sub-genre this is
partially inverted, as the antagonist
tracks the main character, such as in
‘P2’.
3. Our sequence follows the stalker film conventions of having a character
involved with criminal law being stalked by a criminal – in this case a
rapist.
How this links to our
sequence.
Shania is a lawyer who
has a direct connection to
Jeff Richardson as she got
him convicted. She
therefore has many
qualities of the typical
detective character in the
thriller genre.
Jeff Richardson is a
typical antagonist for the
crime/thriller, as he is
obsessive, mentally
strange and has
committed an atrocious
act – in this case being
rape.
4. Usually stalker films contain the same
specific scenarios and situations, some of
which are present from our opening
sequence:
There is usually a shot of the victim being
watched by the stalker from the stalker’s
POV, as this puts the audience in the
stalker’s position, making the audience feel
more helpless and removed from being able
to ‘help’ the character who is being stalked.
We included this in our POV shots from Jeff
Richardson.
We also have a ‘red herring’ where through
using the right shots it is possible to make
the audience believe that something terrible
is about to happen, only for the threat to be
revealed as much less dangerous. This raises
tension without having a large impact on
the plot and helps to keep the audience on
their toes. We have demonstrated this with
the jogger scene, where the audience
believes that Richardson is running towards
Molcott, but it turns out to just be a jogger.
2. Events/Themes
We also included many of the
common themes of stalker
films in our opening sequence
– Crime, sexual abuse,
obsession and revenge.
5. Since stalker films can take place anywhere in any time in theory there
isn’t much significant mise-en-scene. Nonetheless, our sequence uses
very naturalistic props and everyday items to give the opening a
feeling of normality which makes the stalking more scary.
Mise-en-scene
In this shot we can see lots of files,
which are common props in crime
films due to their prominence in real
life law and order.
In terms of saturation and lighting
our sequence is very conventional
of a stalker film, as it is desaturated
and fairly naturalistic.
