Thriller murders

Deaths in thrillers are most commonly murder or suicide. By looking into different locations of stereotypical death scenes we can decide where to locate the scenes for which our death scenes will be. Murder scenes are most common in the shower or bathroom almost making this a stereotypical location for a death in films such a Psycho:

Death in a car is also a stereotypical location in films such as Tormented and Texas Chainsaw Massacre:

Another stereotypical location for a death is from tall buildings/heights from which someone could be killed in films such as The Grudge and The Number 23:

Questionnaire

We have a questionnaire! Please could you complete it if you have any time to spare.


http://www.surveypirate.com/SurveyPage.aspx?surveyid=20630


Thank you!




Question 1: Please select your gender


Question 2: Please select your age


Question 3: Out of all the thrillers you have seen, which, in your opinion, was the best and why?


Question 4: Out of all the teaser trailers for thrillers you have seen, which, in your opinion, was your favourite and why?


Question 5: In your opinion, what are the three most important features in any thriller teaser trailer?


Question 6: What features would you not want to see in a thriller teaser trailer?


Question 7: For the thriller genre, what would be the best location for most of the action?


Question 8: Our basic narrative idea is loosely based around bullying. Where do you think bullying is most likely to occur?


Question 9: As the audience, would it be more interesting for the bully/bullies to attack a single person or a group of people?


Question 10: What main characteristics do you think make up a stereotypical bully?


Question 11: What main characteristics do you think make up a stereotypical victim of bullying?

Stereotypical bullying

Stereotypical bullying is usually in a gang and unusually just 1 person bullying alone.

The stereotypical image of a bullying gang is along these lines:

Taken from "tormented"

Typical victims of bullying:

Stereotype

The most common form of bullying of the 21st century is cyber-bullying:

however physical and verbal bullying can be just as common:

The most common location for bullying to occur is in school territory (for example in the image above lockers are noticeable in the background highlighting that the bullying is taking place within school)

Real life bullying

As our main idea is to do a film about revenge of someone being bullied, we have looked into films which have already taken and contextualised this idea. Some already well known films featuring this type of storyline is:

Bully
Bullies
Shockers parents night
Tormented

Different types of bullying:

1. Verbal bullying
2. Bullying through social exclusion/isolation
3. Physical bullying such as hitting, kicking, shoving, and spitting
4. Bullying through lies/false rumors
5. Having money or other things taken or damaged by students who bully
6. Being threatened or being forced to do things by students who bully
7. Racial bullying
8. Sexual bullying
9. Cyber bullying

Psychologists presume the 3 main reasons for bullying are:

1. needs for power and (negative) dominance.
2. finding satisfaction in causing injury and suffering to other
students.
3. often rewarded in some way for their behavior with
material or psychological rewards.

Consequences the victim is likely to experience (can be life long lasting effects) :

Depression
Low self-esteem
Health problems
Poor grades
Suicidal thoughts

The Bullying Circle

New Facebook group

We haven't really done much to it yet, but we set up our facebook group, and we would be grateful if everyone would join:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=137223539648829&v=app_2373072738#!/group.php?gid=137223539648829&v=wall


Thank you!

Codes and Conventions of Thrillers

The main codes and conventions of a thriller are quite easy to spot.

- There is always a chase of some kind, whether it's obvious or metaphorical.
- The pace of the film is always very very fast, making the chase seem even faster.
- Thrillers are usually set in a city or town, so you expect to see large buildings and lots of people.
- Therefore are therefore men in suits, who are usually portrayed as the "baddies."
- There is surveillance of some kind, usually through cameras, which adds to the audience's fear of being watched, thus adding to the suspense of the genre.
- Thrillers are usually seen as 'masculine' as the men are usually seen as the people in charge and causing the action in the film.


There are also micro-elements within the sub-genres of thrillers. For example, you get guns in crime thrillers, elevators in political thrillers and the colour red in any erotic thriller.


Alfred Hitchcock set the codes and conventions we see in most modern thrillers. His well-known films include The Lodger, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Pscho and The Birds, all of these showing chases, men in suits and surveillance.


We will be analysing many of these films, see how successful they were, as see if we can use some of these original codes and conventions of these thrillers to make our teaser trailer more successful.

Analysing thriller teaser trailers - Torn

An analysis of a thriller teaser trailer:





Music:
Begins with a bang. Non-diagetic slow famous orchestral musical which builds up throughout the clip creating higher and higher tension and suspense. Diagetic sound can be heard throughout the clip, most notably heard are bombs and guns, emphasising the genre and the action contained in the movie.
Camera and editing:
Shot of tall buildings and clips begin to fade into each other. The short shot of the building then fades into a high angle shot of a woman who is being taped across her mouth, the high angle shot emphasises her vulnerability. This shot then fades into a side angle shot of the woman's hands tied together and her struggling, creating a sense of sympathy within the audience. This shot then again fades to a close up of the woman's face finally revealing all of her features and her eyes are shut showing she is going through some sort of torment. As the music begins to accelerando and crescendo the clips get faster and more dramatic. At the beginning of the trailer, there is also dramatic pauses between each clip, of which the screen is black for a fraction of a second drawing in the audience. The close up of characters faces with weapons introduces the main characters to us, and the weapons emphasise the type of genre of the film. The quick shots between the characters show they are fighting against eachother. As the production companies are shown the music begins to become even more intense creating an even bigger sense of suspense within the audience. After the production companies there are 2 slow clips leading to the climax of the entire clip, this prepares the audience. The first intense shot is in black and white showing a change from the rest of the clip, the long shot shows the man running towards the camera and the music begins to reach its climax showing his sense of urgency. The tracking shot also emphasises his urgency as you are able to see the speed of his running. The shot then cuts to men with guns in a building. The shots begin to become faster and closer together there is a massive explosion followed by gun shots, showing someone getting injured. Men jumping out of a van, with more shooting. The fighting scenes continue to overlap and become more brutal, and the shots flick from colour to black and white. The end titles come up as the music has an anticlimax which is thoughtful and provoking music. The titles are red showing danger, and the bullet holes reflect the action and violence throughout the film.
The men are dressed in a typical fashion that suggests violence and war, there are men dressed in army uniforms with bullet vests and men dressed all in black. There are no women throughout the clip apart from the woman shown to be kidnapped at the beginning of the trailer.