THRILLER MOVIES

Shamilla

Thriller Films

Thriller films have certain conventions in the first two minutes and opening credits that allows the viewer to make an unknowing prejudgment about the movie, or to give them deeper clues and prompts as to what is going to happen. The movies I am going to look closely at are:

1) Psycho – Alfred Hitchcock2) Panic Room – David Fitcher3) Se7en – David Fitcher

Psycho – Alfred Hitchcock.

Use of titles

The opening credits are the names, in contrasting black and white with the names splitting apart from each other- this is to suggest the main theme of the storyline- the split personality of Norman bates

The opening titles aren't in the screen play, and happen before the motion picture comes into action. The background is dominantly black- but it is split with distinctive colours which represent again, the split personality of Norman Bates.

Sound & Camera techniques

The sound used in the opening of psycho begins very suddenly. Which automatically throws the viewer into the action. the music uses stringed instruments to create an eerie atmosphere- its very scratchy and uses a higher pitched string instrument half way through to up the ante even more. Once the higher pitched sounds have finished a deeper sounds comes in and again, changes the tensed atmosphere created by the music. On exit- the music reaches the highest point in the music and then the titles finish. Once the pan opens on the city of Arizona, the music becomes calmer- onto the camera techniques:

Obviously, in the opening credits there are no camera techniques used as the credits are animated. As the credits end and the camera opens up, an establishing shot is used, this is also a convention of a thriller movie-

Conventions

Establishing shot- most thrillers have establishing shots to show where the action is going to take place, in psychos case, this Is a skyline in Arizona. This allows the viewer to know where the screen play takes place.

the introduction of the character shows a young blonde pretty victim, this is a big convention that psycho set as the mother of thrillers. Psycho also uses a male villain, again a typical convention of the thriller movie.

Panic Room – David Fitcher

Conventions

Use of an establishing shot. The camera opens up with animatic stills over New York City.

A female victim- as the credits begin to end you see the main character talking about a new house that she has just bought. Conventionally she's white, has fair hair and is rather young.

The movie is set in a congested city, without any indication of where the action is taking place however- famous land marks indicate to the viewer where the action is taking place.

Titles

the titles are included in the action, not separated from screen play. At each different camera shot a different name is shown in a slivery white beveled bold font. This is to reflect the plot of the film. The bold stills of architecture are to represent the ‘panic room’ and the font of the names is to reflect the actual iron walls of the panic room and the stills represent that, there is no movement in the panic room- everything is still because you can not leave until all is well.

Sound and camera techniques

Sound: horn and string instruments, creepy strings are introduced when the bold beveled credits appear, as this indicates where all the trouble and thriller comes from in the movie .

Camera techniques: the shots are infact a series of stills. I found this very interesting as it deeply reflects the storyline of the thriller itself. The idea of still archaeology is given away to reflect the panic room.

SE7EN – David Fitcher

Conventions

The main conventions used in the opening scene is the dark hue. The character is set in a dark room getting on with his mysterious business .From the hands, you can see that the person is a man, you can make this assumption from the size of his hands, this is a convention of thriller movies however if it turned out that the person was actually a woman, this would go against the convention.

Titles

Titles: gothic font, looks like a type writer font, unlike panic room they aren't directly apart of the scene, they're not supposed to mould in, they're clearly credits representing some sort of distance between the character and the real world. Some of the names look handwritten by the character.

Camera techniques and Sound

Camera techniques: there are a lot of close up shots, and cuts from random things. There are no long shots and you can see nothing but the persons hands trying to kindle something.Sound: the sound used in the beginning of se7en is very eerie.

Thirteen Women

Conventions

Conventions used the opening of thirteen women after the titles is a mid shot of a steam train on a dark and foggy night. This is a clear convention of the thriller/slasher as it automatically sets the scene with an eerie feel

Another convention of a thriller/slasher is the pretty female victim. This is the first shot we see of a female in a film in a movie called ‘13 women’ prior to this we see two service men. This may be an indicator that males play a part in a breakdown of the female victims or vise versa.

The mysterious letter of someone predicting that this woman is going to kill someone. The convention here is the mysterious person.

Titles

The titles are presented as if there in a script, or a production type thing. They are in the screen play however its inanimate- there isn't a hand controlling the turn of the page which gives the impression that there will be some sort of paranormal occourance during the film.

SOUND: the sounds used in the very opening are very eerie and quite old fashioned ‘dooms day’ music which suggests that something is going to go horribly wrong. However once this music fades out, there is a happy jerky type jolly circus music tone which totally changs the atmosphere- this is sort of a cover up on the main storyline- which reflects the plot of the film itself.