2. Psychological thrillers are frequently misleading their viewers.
They mainly focus on the unstable emotional state of the characters.
Therefore, the action that takes place will usually not involve much
violence and gore, but more mystery and questioning action. It is
usually centred around one character such us, Nina in “Black Swan”.
This film centres entirely around her state of mind, we follow her
story and become involved in her strange deteriorating mental state.
The audience will constantly be asking questions and become more
attached to the film. They will want to continue watching in order to
see the revelations at the end.
This is the type of genre we want to base out thriller on because it is
unsuspecting, unique and will grab the audiences attention. We also
agreed that a psychological thriller would be difficult to create for
effective results, but we were enthusiastic for the challenge.
Ellie Stephenson
3. THEWOMAN IN BLACK (2012)
Ellie Stephenson
The Woman In Black is a 2012 thriller film starring Daniel
Radcliffe. It is based around a man who comes across a
haunted manor. Whilst here, he encounters the “Woman
In Black”. It is known that if anyone sees her, a child will
die.The children initially go into a kind of trance, they
stare forward with a neutral facial expression and then
slowly walk towards their fate.
We liked the idea of the characters issuing their own deaths,
because it seemed more mysterious and upsetting.We
thought the audience would question why they are killing
themselves and who/what has convinced them.We also liked
the opening sequence, when the three little girls drop their
dolls, (similar in our film), and walk slowly forward to the
window, (also alike).
4. Ellie Stephenson
Psycho is an Alfred Hitchcock film that has received controversy
because of its content. The iconic, “shower” scene sparked our
interest for the film. Firstly, we enjoyed the fact that the film was
shot in black and white, this seemed more effective especially
when the blood flowed down the shower. We felt that this created
a more chilling atmosphere. After research, I discovered that
Hitchcock did not want the gore of the blood to disturb viewers
and put them off the remaining scenes.
We liked the idea of the main character supposedly being
killed off during the films action, instead of at the end like
other thrillers. We thought that this would capture our
viewers attention and they would be curious as to who the
next protagonist will be, or if there will be one at all.
5. THEWOMAN IN BLACK (2012)
Ellie Stephenson
The make-up of the woman in “TheWoman In
Black” is very effective. After having a film night
watching thrillers, including ‘TheWoman In
Black’, we decided that we wanted to create our
make-up for our video based on her design. She
seemed to have white face paint and dark eyes.
This created a gaunt and eerie figure which
made us feel alarmed and suspicious.
We adapted this design and decided that each of
our characters would have this make-up applied
because it created a link between them.The
audience understood that, when they saw the
character with the make-up, they were
possessed.
6. JAWS (1975) Beach
Ellie Stephenson
Jaws is one of the most memorable thriller films of the
century. It centres around a great white shark who kills
many characters in the sea.
We liked the idea of the setting of the film, (obviously the
beach and ocean), this appealed to us because we liked
the idea of the water being the unknown. For example, in
jaws, you only know that the shark is near because of the
use of music, but the characters never know when they
may be attacked.
We liked the idea of a beach because it is unassuming
and a lot of other thriller videos will not be set on a
beach. This gives the audience a realistic sense of fear
because they can imagine their local beach and perhaps
relate to the location , resulting in them feeling tense.
7. Ellie Stephenson
Train Station
Black Swan is a physiological thriller. It
centres around Natalie Portman’s
character, Nina.
After we watched this film, we decided
we liked the train station scenes. It was
very unsuspecting and we felt scared
whenever she approached the station at
night, because it seemed eerie and
unusual. We liked the atmosphere of the
train, it was busy but the darkness of the
reflection in the window she looks in was
creepy. We didn’t know what was going
to look back at her and it was fantastic
for creating suspense.
8. Ellie Stephenson
Car Park
The Dark Knight is a very successful batman film. It is
mostly an action film but we enjoyed some scenes that we
would incorporate into our video.The car park scene
appealed to us because we enjoyed the action, we were
left thinking of the dangers he encounters and wondered
what awaited for him on the other levels.
For our thriller, we want to use a car park to
create an eerie effect, we want our
audience to feel as if they can relate to the
character and feel for them.
9. Ellie Stephenson
Forest
We watched the remake of Friday the 13th in hope
of gaining some inspiration.At first, we were
apprehensive about using a forest as one of our
locations because we felt it would appear to cliché.
We thought that everyone would want to set their
thriller in a forest and we decided at the start that
we wanted to use unique ideas to stand out .
However, after watching this film we realised that the
forest location was still very effective.We liked the
idea of the dark trees because the audience would
think that our characters are trapped, with no means
of escape.
10. Schindlers List is a 1993 film set during world war two.Whilst
this film is mainly shot in black and white, there is a distinct
view of colour from a little girls red coat. Later in the film, it is
revealed that the girl died at the hands of the Nazi’s. we know
this because of the coat in a pile of bodies. For us, this was
incredibly effective because we remembered the girl as she
stood out, and her death really touched us because we grew to
care for the little girl and we believed she had hope.
TheWizard Of Oz (1939) is one of the most popular films
ever made. At the beginning, the film is shot in black and
white but when Dorothy enters ‘OZ’, it switched into
colour.This contrast appealed to us because we felt the
black and white signified despair and anger, but colour
represented hope and curiosity.This is something that we
have adapted into our video to hopefully gain the same
effective results.
Ellie Stephenson
Colours
11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLk9y0RZSGo
Although “The Hangover PartTwo” is a comedy film, there was
a specific scene that stood out to us.When Alan has a
flashback to the night before, we liked the editing techniques
used.They used fades, fast cuts and they blurred the action so
we knew the contrast to the main scenes.
As flashbacks are a significant part in our video, we wanted
them to appear clear to the audience. After watching past
videos that explored the use of flashbacks, we felt confused at
some points, and we didn’t want our audience to be confused
when it went back in time.To overcome this, we experimented
with a lot of editing techniques and decided to use the same
fades to switch from reality and we changed the flashbacks to
black and white.
Ellie Stephenson
The Hangover PartTwo (2011)
