Thriller Essay

2nd draft of Thriller/Horror research essay, 918 words

Thriller/Horror essay

I chose to do an opening to a thriller as the first part of my Media AS as opposed to doing still image. I chose to do this because not only did I think it would be more interesting but I thought because I would be able to express my ideas through moving image easier, I would be able to obtain more marks.

After deciding I was going to complete a moving images piece for my final project, I chose for pre-production to do a storyboard as I thought doing this would compliment my final moving image piece. This is mainly because whilst creating the storyboard I would have to think about the camera angles, the positioning of objects in the frame and the sound, these elements will all be important during the production and so when it comes to doing it I will be prepared for it. This also gives me practice if I need to make further storyboards for any future projects.

When I researched thriller/horror films I constantly stumbled upon a list of stock characters and stock situations became apparent and I recorded these down so I could use them in my film. What was quite obvious was the fact that the genre doesn’t really change, but just the names and faces. It just became apparent that reinventing the genre in thriller/horror doesn’t necessarily work every time, but creating films with generic stock characters and situations sell well.

This persuaded me, in my own storyboard, to not overdevelop a storyline and to just keep it simple by using the stock characters and situations found in most horror/thriller films. In my particular storyboard I chose to use darkness, normally a pathetic fallacy, to create a sense of mystery. Darkness is successfully used in about every thriller/horror film so I thought using it in mine could only work in a positive way. Personally I think darkness is scary because of the uncertainty that comes along with it, not knowing what is coming around the next corner is something thriller/horror film makers use to scare the audience, and something I hope to replicate when I make my film.

Death is also used quite often in horror/thriller films as a scare tactic for the audience to threaten the hero and our main characters, as throughout the story we are made to relate to them making their death, sad and scary for us. I chose to include a murder and a possible murder in my storyboard to scare the audience and then leave them wondering. Often in openings the film makers don’t do much to give away any of the stories, sometimes they set up a hero’s character or kill off someone that might never even be given a name. This creates a confused audience that wants to know what has happened; I tried to create this same sense of mystery and confusion for the audience, this way they will be eager to continue with the film, something every film-maker wants.

Audience for thriller and horror films vary, but we can expect them to be people who want a fast, compelling visual and audio ride that doesn’t really test your brainpower, but instead engages you into a scary and interesting story. For more brutal horror films it is the physical denotations of a shot that scare the audience, being able to see such gruesome shots, however for thriller or more tension building horror films they use darkness and what is not there to scare the audience.

From advertisements and DVD sleeves the audience can know and expect what is to come and if they should expect to be horrifying or expect a good story through different reviews they might trust. This is why in my storyboard I have used dark, empty and isolated settings, so the audience can expect a hybrid and be scared but still be prepared for what is going to happen.

As far as camera angles go from watching many horror and thriller films I have seen where the directors have done a shaky-cam shot with framing, watching the main characters. I chose to also do this because this technique gives the impression they are being watched and is perfect for horror films.

For editing I would try to create a dark atmosphere by using what most other thriller/horror makes do, darkness. Not only would I shoot at night but I would edit the contrast and brightness to create an even darker and eerier setting for the film.

Some films use little other sound besides from the natural sounds from the characters and their environments, I tried to do this to create a sense that there is nothing else in the situation but them. Lack of sound also creates tension and kind of creates a ‘calm before the storm’ feeling that works so well in thriller-horror hybrids.

Researching thriller and horror films was a vital part of this media project, mainly for the fact that if I didn’t do so I would have been lost in the production and wouldn’t have known how to create anything in an effective manner that would sell to the audiences of thriller and horror films. Luckily, I did the research and have now summed it up in this essay, making my research easy to come back to at a later date, this way, throughout my production I will be able to keep looking at this research and will hopefully be able to produce a better production because of it.

More Storyboard notes

For the Storyboard pictures I took actual photos with my camera phone, then I uploaded them onto my computer and placed them into my storyboard presentation. For the pictures, I tried to take them at the angles they would actually be taken at and focus more on angle and foreground content than the details in the background. I took the images in the daytime due to my friends only being able to help shortly after college hours. Two of my close friends agreed to appear in the images and even though they are females and my main characters are males I thought the actual angles and composition is more important than having two males.

To find an actual setting I would need:
- A number of empty streets and at one point a T-Junction where two streets meet
- An alleyway with a brick wall at the end of it
- A street with a bushes somewhere along it
- An old building that looks isolated and abandoned
- A bedroom

In terms of actual props, costumes and characters I would need:
- A puddle of fake blood (coloured water?)
- A gun
- More fake blood and possibly make-up for someone being shot
- A man with messy/dirty clothes and mucky face
- Another man with also dirty clothes and mucky face but prominantly different clothes so the audience can differenciate between the two characters
- A man and a woman with clean clothes looking well groomed (for the flash back scenes, they need to be extremely clean to contrast with the present day scenes)

For the actual storyboard however because I still wasn't sure if this was going to be my final ideas I didn't get all the resources I need, and set the shots just within my street.

General overview of : The Detour

My film focuses on a group of young adults (aged around 20) who go to camp in the woods during Winter break. The false hero (Jack) is convinced there is a quicker way to get to their cabin when they want to stay. When the usual bridge to get to the cabin is broke down, the group find a strange old man that reinforces Jack’s idea and says they need to carry on further into the forest to be able to get to the cabin. The detour leads them to an abandoned building to which the whole group want to go and investigate, Kim (Jack’s girlfriend) objects and has a bad feeling about it, but Jack ignores her and almost forces her to go.

In the abandoned building they find nothing, it is completely empty. Until they stumble upon an underground warehouse in the facility. They find experiments on animals and humans to try and genetically engineer them. The old man that helped them appears almost out of nowhere and warns them to stay away. The old man is genetically engineered and can move extremely fast across short distances, they try to fight him off but end up splitting up and running away.

We split to different groups of people, one of the groups being Jack, Tim and Kim. The old man finds them and battles them, Tim is knocked unconcious and when he comes to he chooses to run as far and as fast as he could. This is where this storyboard happens, half way through the story, disorientating the audience showing them a glimpse of what’s to come. He meets up with Jack half way and then talk about what happened. They both eventually get killed and that is where the storyboard ends.

Target Audience

If the film is in the horror or thriller genre generally the rating will be 18+ due to the adult themes in the film such as sexual content, violence and offensive language. Filmmakers know that the genre is intended for people over the age of 18 and while they are writing the film and directing it they don't need to change their film to suit different ages. This is why often horror/thriller films are contreversial due to their extreme violence or disturbing ideas.

Storyboard notes

The main person in our opening is running away from something that can’t be seen. The man is wearing a suit and looks tired and messy, as if he has been up all night, this man then gets killed at the end of the scene. The camera angles will be a mixture of close ups, tracking shots and long shots, the long shots will be in bushes and as a shaky cam as if the unseen villain is chasing him.

The focus of our opening will be the ‘false hero’, someone who throughout the film will be the hero’s best friend and will then run away to save his own life. The audience will not know this character and will be confused to what he is running to/running away from. At the end of the opening we will have a shot of a landscape and then the sound of a bullet shot immediately cutting to black and that will be our end. This will give the audience uncertaincy of what has happened and keep them wanting more.

For the titles we will have cuts to black with shaky white writing just like in Se7en going through all the producer/director/writing, then after the bullet shot and it cuts to black red writing spelling out our film title will show. The bullet shot will prompt the audience to watch as it will be loud, and then they will see the film title and the name will stick in their heads.

The character will be running through grassy/park/isolated areas at night, in rain if possible, to create the scariest atmosphere possible for that specific opening. Within the cuts of the man running and the titles, there will also be small segments of a close up (of the gun) with a man reloading a gun and other things relating to the villain or the story.a

Horror research

Conventions of the Horror genre

Death is used constantly as a scare tactic in this genre, as the main character is someone we constantly want to prevail it is shocking to us if he/she is in danger of death. Shocking images are used (funnily enough) to shock the audience, films such as 'SAW' use extremely graphic and violent images to make the film seem uncensored and more real. Films within the Horror genre don't generally have a musical theme (a single tune that runs throughout) but it uses dark tones to create suspense and tension. There is always a villain in the horror genre, someone who (generally) they eventually kill/get rid of, so there is always a balance of good and evil between the hero and the villain(s). As well as this there is always a sense of darkness, darkness is always a huge theme in horror because our fear of darkness comes from our fear of the unknown and some horror directors use darkness to hide the villain to make it even scarier for the audience.

Stock situations

Normally in the horror genre you have the hero and the heroes friends going to a new place. After they go to the new place there are always a few strange events that start to happen, in which one of the group believes something is going to happen, although the others in the group never believe them. After this members of the group start to get killed off by the villain until eventually only the hero and/or heroin are left. At this point they manage to either escape, kill the villain or (very rarely) die themselves and then film doesn't have a resolution. Film makers tend to have a resolution to the film rather than leave it to a cliffhanger because some people are annoyed the film doesn't have a 'real' ending and other times they feel the film has sold out so it can make a sequel to make more money.

Another stock situation that is always there is that the hero and/or friends of the hero are always helpless against the villain in some way. Either they don't have anything to fight it, or their friends are dead so they cannot help, or they are far away (in the woods) and cannot call for help or the one used in most horror films, they don't even try to get away until right at the end! Generally the police are either in on it which gives the audience a sense of confusion of how can they win if the police are against them, or the police never believe them until right at the end when it is too late. Also good looking women get killed, this goes away from our societies love for being thin and good looking, or maybe film makers just love killing young attractive women?

Stock characters

The hero - The hero always has the best plans and is able to bring all the friends together to work as one against the villain. The hero is generally the character that eventually kills or gets rid of the Villain and brings resolution to the story.

The heroes best friend - This character always has the heroes back, or sometimes is totally against them during the new situation against the villain, in this case, the character will probably be the first to get killed (clearly the villain likes to believed to be real).

The villain - The villain is generally hidden in some way, and in some films not shown at all to create more tension and mystery behind the character.

The wise man (knows about the situation) - The character has either been through the situation before or is clever enough to work out what is going on. This character is also very mysterious and generally we don't find out how he/she knows what she has done.

The false hero - This character will pretend to be the hero and try and do what he can to protect everyone, but will eventually be killed by being cowardly or doing something wrong.

Camera work

The camera work in the horror genre always focuses on dark, moody shots generally with high contrast. The darkness again signifies mystery and focuses our fear of the unknown. Close up shots are used very often and often tracking shots are used to follow a character running, as if the villain is also running. Sometimes shots are used as if a handy cam so that it is as if the villain is watching them.