Top 10 Thrillers

1) The Godfather (1972)
2) The Godfather: Part 2 (1974)
3) Pulp Fiction (1994)
4) The Dark Knight (2008)
5) Rear Window (1954)
6) Fight Club (1999)
7) Pyscho (1960)
8) The Usual Suspects (1995)
9) The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
10) North by Northwest (1959)

This top ten list was made by the famous website IMDb

http://www.imdb.com/chart/thriller

(Pat Henbury)

Typical Thriller

What is a Thriller?

“Thrillers are types of films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension.”
a thriller is characterized by "the sudden rush of emotions, the excitement, sense of suspense, apprehension, and exhilaration that drive the narrative, sometimes subtly with peaks and lulls, sometimes at a constant, breakneck pace".

Typical storyline:
The hero, who may even be an ordinary citizen drawn into danger and intrigue by circumstances beyond their control faces a more-powerful and better-equipped villain alone or in the company of a small band of companions.
· Jeopardy and violence confrontations are standard plot elements.
· The plot of a thriller is usually driven by the villain, who presents obstacles that the hero must overcome.
· The withholding of crucial information from the viewer is an important device

Typical music/sounds:
Typical music for a horror thriller would be high pitched orchestra or a low sounding tense music, and then in a typical thriller you get music with low tones and string and brass instruments.
Sounds for a horror thriller would be heavy breathing, load footsteps, crow screams and possible low talking.

Typical characters
Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces - the menace is sometimes abstract or shadowy.
· Often used/typical characters: convicts, criminals, stalkers, assassins, down-on-their-luck losers, innocent victims (often on the run), prison inmates, menaced women, characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, fugitives, private eyes, drifters, duplicitous individuals, people involved in twisted relationships, world-weary men and women, psycho-fiends, and more.

Typical settings:
· A typical horror thriller would be set in a abandoned village were e.g. zombies have eaten all the villages were as a romantic horror would be set in a city or a French alpine village


Subgenres:
action-thriller, adventure-thriller, sci-fi thrillers, western-thrillers, film-noir, romantic-thriller, comedy-thriller

This pie diagram about the DVD rental share 2005 in the UK shows the relevanz of thriller films in the film industry. (Thrillers, 20.7%)

(Pat Henbury, Alex Mutu, Anton Heil)

Edit Practise

The whole group made mini films today, and practised editing them then posted them on YouTube. i found this task relatively easy as i have edited quite a few films before now. (Alex Diss)

As this was my first time i learnt a lot of new skills including editing sound, adding music and some techniques in to editing video clips(alex Mutu)

The short films we made a few weeks ago was just to practice the camera angles and get use to filming. SInce then, the film has benn uploaded onto an editing program. I've learnt how to edit and make songs and I have put ideas forward to the editing of the fillm (Pat Henbury)

The edit and film practise was a good experience for me to get used to the equipment and software we use for our thriller. (Anton Heil)

Storyboard

We all started a draft on the story board including all our ideas and then putting it in to one idea, our final idea was decided so we are now drawing it up properly. When our storyboard is drawn up neatly and is finished. the group will scan it and then we will be able to upload it onto the blog. (Alex Mutu and Pat Henbury).

Credits

My first idea of credits would be fading on to the screen and fading off, but as there are not a lot of credits we will have a time delay so you can see the credits and have time to read them.
One possible way would be credits over the top of the films so you see but the movie and the credits, and another idea is to have a separate shot with possible animated shot, but this would be to hard to achieve as the software is limiting us.

A possible idea how the credits could look like from youtute.

I think the best way to present the credits would be to have the opening scene of the film with the credits playing on the top faiding in and out like this.

(Alex Diss, Alex Mutu, Anton Hiel)

Characters

The characters at the beginning that are burying the body, will be wearing long Trench Coats, this will create a very mysterious look. The faces will not be seen. They should be wearing trilbys, which are flattened top hats, this will cover their faces, to make it more mysterious.

The woman will just be wearing casual clothes as u would every day, maybe some boots because she will be walking through the woods, with a normal coat.

In the police interview room, she will be wearing again casual indoor clothes.(Alex Mutu, Alex Diss, Pat Henbury, Anton Heil)

Sounds and mucic

The first sound would be the sound of a spade hitting the ground, then another and another, this is to create a question in your head as in to why are these guys using spades? What are they digging? A good idea for the beginning would be when she is walking through the woods a loud crow cry to create the effect of gloominess and tension. Then when the woman sees the people the dog will bark and draw attention to her, the next sound will be her running through the leaves with the sounds of voices in the back ground and her heavy breathing and foot steps. An idea is to have a slight music in the back ground of the interview. (Were still unsure of the music at the moment, and if we are still going to have music). (Alex Mutu, Alex Diss. Pat Henbury and Anton Heil).

Lighting

A good lighting for the wood are would be a great fog, or mist in the morning or a light rain with a good canopy over the scene by trees, so it gives a good dark mood. Another idea is to have the wooded scene wit the guys facing the east so when the sun comes up u see the silhouettes of the people and the body bag, then when the woman walks past the sun catches her and u see her hair glare with the sun. For the scene after the credits the ideal lighting would to have a dark gloomy room, with just a bit of light on the woman face, or light coming through a window form the side.(Alex Mutu. Pat Henbury)

Location

The desired location for the first scene would be in a wooded area; this would be because it would give a good atmosphere for the burial. Then for the second scene a good place would be in a police station interview room, but this might be hard to come around so a dark room would be a good idea, or an office. (Alex Mutu, Pat Henbury)