Tuesday 27 July 2010

More thriller/horror research

More codes and conventions of thriller movies are, not having a steady timeline, so this means including flashbacks and passing of time. Another one is that often in thriller movies, the point of view of the villain is often shown rather than the victim, but most often, both are shown. We will probably put this into our trailer from our idea of having the first scene as a point of view shot from the victim (who is the villain throughout the film).

Our main idea is in the thriller/horror genre, so we've looked into horror too.

-Horrors are designed to panic and frighten the audience, invoke fears (films often relate to everyday situations and places to provoke fear from the audience, such as scary attics and graveyards) also if we show flahses of crime scenes where the teenages die, they would be normal places, such as a bathroom, but with blood and slashes through the shower curtains etc.

-There is always a lead character who is the survivor in the film, if we use our bullying idea, then the survivor would be the victim who turns into the villain.

-In horrors young people are often the main characters, as our main idea is set around schoolyard bullying, our main characters will probably be teenagers.

- Real life news stories also often influence the villains in movies, such as 'Ed Gein,' a serial killer who influenced the characters of Norman from 'Psycho,' Jame from 'Silence of the Lambs' and Leatherface from 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.' Therefore we are going to look into real life bullying cases and victims to help create our characters.

Monday 26 July 2010

Ideas

As a group we have made the decision to have thriller as our genre for our movie trailer. We decided this because, looking at all the thriller trailers on youtube, it looks fun and challenging to do, but well within our capabilities so we will be researching more into thrillers soon.

We had two main ideas (although we think we will go with the second one)
1. Thriller/Romance, a girl and boy couple, but one of them is a figment of the other's imagination (this is the basic idea, to be expanded) so this would also come into psychological thriller too. Movies like this are: 'The Uninvited', where a girl thinks her dead sister is still alive, big twist at the end, this movie falls into the psychological thriller genre, the other film like our idea is 'Just Like Heaven' which is actually a romantic comedy about a girl who is dead but doesn't realise it, and is only seen by this one man who thinks he is hallucinating.


2. A child at school is being bullied, finally he/she has had enough and seeks revenge on his/her bullies through violence. A movie like our idea is 'Tormented' about a child who is bullied, hangs himself and torments and haunts his bullies, and eventually killing them. As this is our preferred idea, we are going to look into this movie, and do more research on thriller/violence.


For idea number 2, we already have an idea of what we might do in our trailer. We would start with a panning shot around a circle of school children, it would be a point of view shot from the victim, we would probably edit it so the scene is slightly blurred and the taunting voices are echoed, then a blackout with possibly some text with a rhetorical question about bullying, then quick cut editing of murder scenes, finally the title, date etc coming up, and afterwards a quick scene with a bully looking into a mirror (convention of thriller) and something to make the audience jump. These are our basic ideas so far and need a lot more research before we expand.

Sunday 25 July 2010

Looking into the codes and conventions of thriller genre

In most thriller films, and their trailers, the codes and conventions of the genre largely depend on quick cut editing to create a fast pace to the movie/trailer, music and lighting is also largely important to create tension, use of light and dark, if used correctly creates a sense of mystery, combined with music can create a very powerful atmosphere, and create unbearable tension and thrill.

Noticable in most thrillers are the use of mirrors,  the different angles used filming this, and the use of a regular household object, and the unexpected appearance of a villian in the mirror creates fear in the real world, making the effect of the movie/trailer even greater.