Research Into Genre

Psychological Thrillers 

“Psychological thriller is a thriller story which emphasizes the psychology of its characters and their unstable emotional states.”

Conventions:

• Lighting is often low key with the use of shadows and occasional flashing lights, this is used to add to tension and the darkness symbolises the mental state of characters or situation.
• Colours often found are very dark like blacks to show mystery, death and suspicion. Another colour could be red as it shows danger and also blood.
• Costumes aren’t that of a ‘horror’, usually no costumes of an abnormal nature are used as the characters are usually living a normal life.
• The film is nearly always set in an urban location, again showing that most are just about bad things happening to everyday people. The location can be claustrophobic spaces which make the characters (and possible the audience) feel uncomfortable. Other typical settings include a cellar, the woods and abandoned buildings.
• The music used is tense and often build up which can create a shock for audience, it then usually goes silent which gives a sense of uncertainty that somethings about to happen.
• The use of quick camera movements build up the tension and show the characters as being panicked and also put the audience on edge and therefore have the same emotions as the characters. The use of close up shots allow us to see facial expressions, this could either be a threatening look from the antagonist or a scared, panicked look from the protagonist.
• Props that are typical to be found are weapons such as knives that can be used to either threaten or injure people, also objects found in everyday life that wouldn’t normally cause harm such as dolls, adding to the uncertainty for the audience as they would have some of these objects in their homes. The props can also be used as hints to an event that is about to occur in the film.
• The typical types of characters found in a psychological thriller include the antagonist which could be a convict, criminal, stalker and escaped convicts then there’s the protagonist that finds themselves in danger from one of these types of villains. So in general, people found in everyday life, unlike horrors which are fictional characters.
• Some conventional directors include: Sir Alfred Hitchcock (psycho), Martin Scorsese (shutter island), David Lynch (Mulholland drive).
• Some conventional actors include: Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman.
• Themes often featured are death, identity and torture. Mainly acts that cause pain or cause a character to feel threatened in some way.

Why watch a psychological thriller?

                These films appeal to audiences as they’re exciting and engaging. If done right, the trailer will encourage the audience to watch the film as they will want to see what happens to the character. Psychological thrillers are known for their suspense, therefore is exciting for the audience and engaging; people watch these films for the thrill and adrenaline they get from it. On the other hand for people that may enjoy watching the danger and enjoy getting scared it would be a way of them getting entertainment from it. Sometimes psychological thrillers are based on a true story or true events and therefore people might watch to find out what really happened or what people think really happened and get some answers. Blumler and Katz’s uses and gratifications theory is supported as the audience would use these films either for an escape from their own lives as the bad things in the movie aren’t happening to them, it would also be used for entertainment for the excitement it brings. The themes don’t change too much in different psychological thrillers, audiences like this as it supports Steve Neale’s theory as he says audiences enjoy texts because of the repetition and difference of the elements, psychological thrillers are also always evolving which would be another attraction for audiences.

Some famous psychological thrillers:

Se7en (1995)

The Machinist (2004)

The silence of the lambs (1991)

Analysis of past students opening sequences

One Day

                Whilst looking at the opening sequence of one day it was clear to understand the genre of the film as it shows two people that will potentially meet so we can assume the film is a romance. I found the camera shots and angles worked well with the idea of following them around London as it added interest for the audience. The use of split screen was clever when they were on the train as it showed the contrast in the two characters as he was reading the newspaper and she was on her phone but also shows the events took place at the same time and may suggest that they're destined to meet at some point. The shots aren't particularly fast, they're quite slow and smooth as they're meant to have a calming effect on the audience and shouldn't alarm the audience that something bad might be yet to come. They thought carefully about how to show they're there at the same time for example both being seen on the bench projects a sense of fate as theres not much chance that two people will be in the exact same place at the same time and not bump into each other. The choice of setting was a conventional romance because London could be seen as a romantic city and the day they choose to film was bright to portray happiness as a theme in the film. We know the genre isn't something like horror or thriller as the mis-en-scene doesn't suggest any danger or evil.

                However I felt that for the opening sequence to be engaging it may have worked well if there was more of the story line mentioned, for example ending the two minutes with the characters meeting. And although the shots of London worked I felt they went on for a bit too long and didn’t allow the story line to engage the audience. I also don’t think they thought about the costumes that much as the female character is in black leather which could be seen as masculine and hard looking – it would have been better if she was in something a bit more feminine like a dress. Unless this was linked to an idea thats yet to come in the film about her doing something bad or having a hidden secret, therefore the black would work to make her look mysterious, this is unknown for the audience.

Analysis of opening sequence: Jaws

Jaws

                The scene is set from the start from the use of the low lighting, low lighting is often used in locations to make them seem dangerous and untrustworthy. The use of the non diegetic sound creates a lot of suspense in the opening as it is the point at which the death occurs; this piece of music is then alarming for the audience throughout the film as it indicates when this will happen again. The characters seen in the opening are young and carefree, we know this as they’re at the beach at night and the woman strips as she runs in the water. Therefore they are likely characters to be targeted as victims in the film which engages the audience as they can predict something is about to happen to them. As the music starts and the attack occurs it would cause many questions for the audience and could be a narrative enigma as the killer isn’t revealed and if they didn’t know what the film was about they would wonder why she was screaming, this supports Roland Barthes theory which is that directors include enigma codes to engage the audience. Then at the end of the opening sequence the music stops and there’s silence, this suggests to the audience that the woman is dead and that the pain she was going through whilst the music was on has stopped. It also shows how quickly her life ended as the change in music was so sudden, just like her death.

                Juxtaposition is used effectively in this opening sequence between the men and woman’s situations. Mainly through the sounds, when the scene cuts to the woman the music is loud and alarms danger, and then when it cuts to the man it’s silent. This emphasises her situation and what she’s going through. It also shows us that he has no idea what has happened which means no one else will as if he’d known about the shark then he could tell other people so they wouldn’t go to that beach however now he didn’t see other people that go to the beach are at risk and the audience know this, which is engaging as they want to know how many other people get killed by the shark.