Thriller Movie Research

As part of my research on thriller movies I looked and at all the codes and conventions to a thriller movie, why they are put in place and also what effect it has. I have put it all together and into a power point presentation ready for you to look at.

Film Treatment

A young girl around the age of seven has been constantly tormented by the death of her father. As her mother was always at work and she was an only child, she grew as close bond with him as he was always the parent that took her to school in the morning and put her to bed at night. As her family was not in the best of health conditions he was very reliant on her as her had to run a bed and breakfast all year round. Nearing her eight birthday her father passes away leaving her distraught and no sense of direction. After her father’s funeral the relationship between her and her mother takes a turn for the worst as she has to give up her to run the family bed and breakfast, leading to her always being shouted at and feeling not as loved. A year passes and she begins to hear things and have flashbacks of her father being alive and also his funeral. This aggravates her and begins to find ways make every living person’s life hell. As she plays a major part in keeping the family business running once a room has been rented to someone her duties and room keeper is taken advantage of and uses this as an opportunity to commit murder on women, and appear behind them in mirrors before smashing them and committing the murder. As she feels women are the cause of her father’s death she always wears a white dress that her father bought her as a symbol of her father’s presence.

Our Ideas

Before writing out our Story Board we put together a rough spider digram that included all our ideas for our final two minute thriller.

Mood Board Of Psychological Thriller's

Within my group we have created a mood board of film ideas based on film we believe we can take inspiration from. We have looked a thriller involving young girls and mainly psychological thrillers. We wanted the antagonist to be a young girl that is very tormented and troubled. She would be very petite and were white to portray innocence and a more youthful side.

Our two minute opening would show a young girl very lonely and secluded from her family, taking all her anger and frustration out on tenants that live in rooms in her house rented out by her mother. The cause of her frustration has been triggered by the loss of her father a few months ago. This takes me to the protagonist who’s a male aged about 20 who is extremely gullible and in need of a place to stay.

Preliminary Task

Our Preliminary Task was a short clip about our understanding of continuity. I have learnt various different camera techniques in the preliminary exercise that I can then later use in my finial piece. we used camera shoot like long shots and also a shot reverse shot.

Untitled from Wendy Asumadu on Vimeo.

Questionnaire Results and Analysis

My group and I created a questionnaire regarding Thriller movies. We wanted to find out people own opinions on what they like about thrillers, what they don’t like about thrillers and what aspects of thrillers appeal to them.

I am now going to analyse in detail most of the question that I put in my questionnaire.

1. What is your favourite type of Thriller?

Action

Crime

Psychological

Drama

Science-fiction

Horror

Erotic

Political

Spy

Religious

As you can see in my column graph Action, Crime, Psychological, Drama and Horror are people’s favourite types of thriller. Action thriller receives the most votes and Horror received the second highest votes. These results has made me acknowledged that people would rather watch a film that has a lot going on and also has the visual aspect of thrill in it. It is interesting how Political, Science, Spy, Religious and Erotic didn’t get any votes. This suggest that people are more into fictional type of thrillers and are not interested in films that could be controversial such as Religious, Erotic and Political Thrillers. I will defiantly consider creating either an action, crime, physiological, drama or either a horror type of thriller. I may even consider mixing two genres of thrillers together and see how that will work out.

2. What do you like most about thriller Movies?

Confusion

Mystery

Suspense

Characters

Horror

In this specific question, every option received a vote with ‘Confusion’ having just one vote. ‘Suspense’ gained the most votes with six, ‘Horror’ gained three votes whilst ‘Characters’ and ‘Mystery’ gained equal votes of five. I wasn’t surprised that suspense received the most votes because I believe that the whole point of thrillers us to create suspense. I will defiantly try and create suspense in the thriller my group and I produce. I will also consider the use of mystery. I feel that mystery can also play a big part to a thriller because it gets the viewer thinking. I will defiantly choose the correct actors to the play the charters as I feel this is a significant part to a successful thriller.

3. How important are the props, costume and makeup in a film?




Very Important

Important

Fairly Important

Not Important



‘Very Important’ received the most votes with thirteen votes. ‘Important’ gained seven votes whilst ‘Fairly important’ and ‘Not important’ didn’t receive any votes. The fact that all the people that completed the question acknowledged props, costume and makeup ads very important or important highlights how vital it is for my group and now to create a thriller that is of good quality from all aspects. From the quality to the filming to the costumes, makeup props, settings etc.

4. Out of these options, who is your favorite thriller director?

Martin Scorsese

Alfred Hitchcock

Steven Spielberg

Quentin Tarantino

David Fincher



Steven Spielberg and Alfred Hitchcock received the same number of votes with ten each. No other option was voted for.

5. What is your favourite all time thriller?



.......................................................................................................

Thriller films that were mentioned included Taken, Black Swan, Friday the 13th, Silent Hill, Hostage, Inception and Die Hard.

6. How do you like the lighting in a thriller movie?

A lot of light

A bit of light

No light

Don’t Mind

‘A bit of light’ received the most votes with ten votes, ‘No light’ received six votes and ‘Don’t Mind’ received four votes. This result suggests that most people like watching thriller movies that have very little or no light. It also suggests that people are not too fussy on the lighting. ¬¬





Conclusion

Through analysing each question, I have acknowledged people’s different taste’s in thrillers they watch, what they like and don’t like. I will defiantly consider producing a horror, action, drama, psychological or crime thriller since they appeal to people the most. I may take a risk however and produce a type of thriller no one actually voted for. I would like to crate suspense and mystery in my thriller and I know that would really appeal to an audience as, they got most of the votes into that specific question.

I hope to use these results as a slight guidance as to what I want my thriller to be like. I will take all of this feedback into consideration when I start planning and then producing my thriller.

Hello my name is Mellissa Baptiste, I am a AS Media Student at St. Annes and this year i will be creating a 2 minute thriller video for my coursework.I will be using this blog to document all my stages untill my finish product. Hope you enjoy watching my work!