Starting your research! Initial Thriller Research

Time to get more familiar with the Thriler genre.

Find out about the generic conventions of Thrillers, the different ways in which the sub-genres are categorised, including a look at Charles Derry's classification. Look at how well thrillers do at the box office, which are the most successful of recent times, which are the classics of the genre.

Start watching too! Embed extracts, opening sequences, screen grabs. Look at gender representation and typical narratives in Thrillers.


In other words, familiarise yourself with the genre!

Some recommended thrillers

Wecome to the Thriller Project blog!

To get you started, here is a list of recommended films you really ought to see in order to get a firmer grasp of the Thriller genre.
Of course you cannot see them all but you'll be expected to have seen at least 8 by the end of the first half-term, then keep watching throughout the coursework unit.
Arrange viewings between yourselves and keep a record of you what you've seen. Discuss what makes these films good thrillers or at least iconic ones. You should develop a better understanding of thriller conventions and sub-genres, and of course get much inspiration for your own project.
Some of these films can be borrowed from the Department. Some of the films from the list are 18-certificates so you will need to have that discussion with your parents / guardians; you also need to consider your own feelings.
1. Heat
2. Se7en
3. The Silence of the Lambs
4. LA Confidential
5. The Departed
6. Reservoir Dogs
7. Chinatown
8. North by Northwest
9. The Conversation
10. The 39 steps
11. Psycho
12. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
13. Charade
14. Strangers on a Train
15. The Third Man
16. Memento
17. Enemy of the State
18. The Servant
19. The Night of the Hunter
20. Rear Window
21. Rosemary’s Baby
22. The Others
23. Blue Velvet
24. The Ipcress File / Get Carter
25. The Fugitive
26. The Shining
27. The Killing
28. Blood Simple
29. The Usual Suspects
30. Cape Fear
31. No Country for Old Men
32. Double Indemnity
33. The Manchurian Candidate
34. Les Diaboliques (Clouzot)
35. The French Connection
36. Rebecca
37. Le Samourai (Melville)
38. City Of God
39. Delicatessen
40. Three Days of the Condor
41. After hours
42. Rebecca
43. Minority Report
44. What Lies Beneath
45. Copycat
46. The Bourne Identity
47. The Machinist
48. Fatal Attraction
49. Fargo
50. Schindler’s List (not a thriller but a masterclass in directing)

Independent study/ Home learning

Please make sure you catch up with everything and evaluate / assess your videos on Genre.
You also need to make use of the PPTs on Genre, particularly on Thriller Subgenres.
Complete lesson notes, upload to blog.
Continue your research on Thriller Conventions and add to your notes.

Watch Thrillers, at least the openings, making use of The Art of The Title website. Start screen-grabbing interesting ideas / camerawork etc.

You need to start thinking about your project...

PS: Reminder - Add labels to your post and a Labels List gadget.
Redraft and improve your work as you go.

Early research and planning - group and independent study

1. Picture of your initial ideas + more detail - Plot summary in a few points, ideas for the opening, mood board, conventions of your chosen sub-genre(s) with embedded examples (screen grabs, trailers, opening sequences)
2. Each member of the group needs to complete a detailed analysis of a third film opening but this time, you choose the film; it should be a similar product to the type of opening you want to produce.
3. Film production name and ideas for a logo + research into UK film production companies that produce thriller films.

Thriller Genre

Found these useful PPTs. Read them to consolidate your understanding, including the different ways in which Thriller sub-genres are categorised.

The Suspense Thriller

More PowerPoint presentations from Jon Champion

Thriller sub genres

View more presentations from Agon Koshi

Home Learning/ private study due in 22 or 23.11 - for week beginning 7.2.11

- Research Thriller sub-genres and different ways of categorising them. Focus on 2 or 3 sub-genres and illustrate with film extracts, film posters, and screen grabs from films.

- Read the sheet on Thriller Conventions very carefully and start finding examples to illustrate the different conventions highlighted. This should be on-going from now on.

- Now the groups have been agreed, each group is a now a production company - it needs a name and a logo. Come up with a name and designs for your logo. Look at existing examples of Film production companies as part of your research to get some inspiration.

ALL THE ABOVE COUNT DIRECTLY TOWARDS THE RESEARCH PART OF YOUR COURSEWORK. Look at the mark scheme for clarification (in your guidance packs).
LABEL YOUR POSTS CLEARLY WITH: THRILLER GENRE RESEARCH

- Finally, your documentaries on genre should be exported by the beginning of next week so that the other class can watch and evaluate them.
This means that the edit must be fine-tuned and exported by the end of Monday 21.11.11.
I'll upload them to YouTube so that you can embed them into your blogs.

Half-term Private Study - Thriller genre research/analysis

1. Complete the analysis two thriller openings.
You will consider and explore:
• How does the opening engage/create interest for the audience?
• Does it establish characters? How?
• Does the opening introduce themes, mood or story/narrative? How?
• How are the opening titles displayed?
• How is enigma established?

What you will need to analyse:
• Mise-en-scene;
• Use of soundtrack;
• Use of diegetic sound;
• Editing;
• Camera shot, movement and position;
• Use of special effects.

A. Analysis 1: Silence Of The Lambs

The first is the opening of "The Silence of the Lambs" directed by Jonathan Demme (focus on the first 6 min).

Watch carefully and write a detailed analysis of this opening sequence.
Create a 12-frame board of the key shots to accompany your analysis and number the frames for cross-reference.


Need help with analysis? Read the example below on "The Shining" to see a model of a good analysis.
Here is an interesting analysis of the opening sequence for The Shining which appears on the Long Road Media Blog (thank you, Long Road). Read it carefully to learn some tips.

You might want to watch the sequence first!

The film opens with a series of shots of panoramic landscape vistas showcasing the bleak desolation of the snowy mountainous surroundings, which will provide the backdrop for the film’s subsequent narrative developments. Various bird's eye view shots intermittently cross dissolve into one another, and depict an expansive clear blue lake, a snow-capped mountain range, and a densely populated forest of evergreen trees. The camera moves swiftly through its surroundings in each shot, sweeping past the breadth of the natural environs below it, and thus conveys to the audience a sense of the massive scale and large land span of the location depicted.

During the camera’s continual movement, it occasionally captures its views from distorted angles, which undermines the idea otherwise created by this series of shots of the benevolent purity of natural beauty and the wintry American landscape. It thus uses spatial manipulation to contradict the principal connotations of the images of nature captured in these shots, and hence foreshadows the heavy deployment of themes and imagery centred upon the supernatural that will follow.

Also indicative of this theme is the use of slow, sombre, unnerving and deliberate electronic music, which in conjunction with the seemingly oppositional images suggest a malevolence to the surroundings shown and imply an unknown danger amongst them.

Eventually the camera finds a road snaking through an aerial shot of a thickly forested area then picks out and follows a lone car in extreme high angle long shot, making its way along the road. The camera gradually moves increasingly closer maintaining its birds’ eye view position, but also gradually rotates to distort the angle and create a sense of unsettling foreboding in the manner described above. A series of shot changes track the car’s journey and depict a range of different natural backdrops indicating the traversal of time and space. As the camera finally tracks speedily in to a mid shot of the car from behind, revealing it to be a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, credits rise up through the frame from below in blue typeface, and each gives way to the next, departing the frame by rising out of it.

The moving camera overtakes the car and veers away to the left, aerially crossing country before again finding the car and tracking its journey, once again with another series of extreme high angle long shots, while the eeriness of the electronic score continues to aurally unsettle the viewer.

The camera’s point of view eventually shifts to depict an extreme long shot of a remotely located building amongst the mountains, trees and lakes. It slowly circles the building, getting gradually closer. This building is the Overlook Hotel, and will be the yellow car’s final destination, and the principal location for almost all of the film’s subsequent action.

Overall, the opening sequence has been gradually building up to this elaborate establishing shot of the hotel, and has served to highlight its isolation and remoteness and communicate an implication of danger, that the audience should by now have associated with this idyllic yet spectral location and its backdrop.

Remember that to achieve higher grades, you need to be ANALYTICAL rather than just descriptive. Don't simply tell me that there is a close up at this point or a tracking movement at that point. Explain how it helps the narrative and how it is supposed to affect the reader.

B. Analysis 2: Choose one from below.

For your second analysis, you may choose one of the following (or get 2 done now! You will have to do a couple more anyway...). Again create a 9 or 12-frame board to illustrate your comments.

Opening scene of The Usual Suspects (couldn't find it with the opening credits)

The first 2-3 minutes of Memento:

The first 4 minutes of Enemey of State (though a look at the credits that kick off then wouldn't hurt!)

First 5 minutes of What Lies Beneath
(embedding disabled so link provided instead) http://youtu.be/3WrycZRmIcs

Please note: Bring a hard copy of your analysis (text only) to the first lesson after half-term - 2.11.11

2. Do some research on a successful film director who has directed some Thrillers. You need to explain why the films are successful, what the director's "trademark" is, and embed trailers and screengrabs of interesting or memorable shots with some comment on technique and mise-en-scene.

Create a moodboard for that particular director's thriller style!

Extension: Try your best to re-create one of these shots yourself or in a small group, making sure that you get the atmoshere of Thriller right. Aim to choose a shot with at least one or two characters in the frame.

3. Complete the task that should have been done in class in lesson 3. Details and questions to answer are below in the previous post. It is a short extract from Enemy of State - Watch from 1:03 onwards.

Classwork 18 or 19.10.11 - Editing

Lessons 1 and 2: The Prelim- Complete the edit of your preliminary task. Screengrab key shots and your work in FCE. Embed your video.
- Then evaluate using these questions:

1. Discuss how your group came up with the idea for the script. How efficient was the discussion? What key decisions were made? Embed your script.

2. Reflect on the planning / storyboarding stage and upload the storyboard.

3. How efficient was the shoot?

4. What were the key elements from the brief you had to demonstrate and how well did you handle each one? Did you make any mistake? What are you most pleased with and why?

5. What did you learn during the course of this production? What did you learn to do or do better with Final Cut?

- Finally embed another student's sequence and offer some peer-assessment:
What is most successful and why?
Are there any mistakes and where?
What could you suggest for further improvement?

Lesson 3:The art of editing

Watch the clip below from 1:03 to the end then answer the questions that follow.

Enemy of the State, Tony Scott, 1998






1. What is the point of this sequence? Describe briefly how tension is created through the editing.
2. Look at the use of CU or Medium CU. Why are they primarily used here? Refer to specific shots (screengrab them) and embed them within your post.
3. Choose 15-20 seconds from anywhere in the sequence and describe each shot in detail, explaining its effect / function for the audience, as well as commenting on how the cuts (the editing) add to the meaning.
4. How far does the editing of this sequence fit in with the genre of the thriller? Justify your opinion.

Above all, do your best to engage with the sequence and the task.

Home learning due in Thursday 18.11.10

1. You need to write a detailed analysis of two film openings. The first is the opening of "The Silence of the Lambs" directed by Jonathan Demme (focus on the first 6 min). The second should be a Thriller of your own choice, particularly in a sub-genre that you want to focus on in your project (see guidance below).


Watch carefully and write a detailed analysis of this opening sequence. Read the example on "The Shining" to see a model of an analysis posted earlier (or click here: Research - Analysing film openings, a model)

Remember that to achieve higher grades, you need to be ANALYTICAL rather than just descriptive. Don't simply tell me that there is a close up at this point or a tracking movement at that point. Explain how it helps the narrative and how it is supposed to affect the reader.

Discuss the ways in which the extract aims to construct an effective thriller opening using the following:

• Camera shots, angles, movement and composition;
• Editing;
• Sound;
• Mise-en-scene;
• Narrative method;
• Titles.

Finally, make sure that you use screengrabs to support your points. Avoid Scribd this time and write directly into a post, including pictures. You could also do a 9 frame contact sheet again (see Art of The Title) and link your points to the relevant frame/picture.

2. The second task is to evaluate your classwork (animatic / director's commentary), focusing on the areas of the question you addressed well and those you left out or underdeveloped. You should also comment on the quality of your animatic. Don't forget to embed it.

Research - Analysing film openings, a model

Here is an interesting analysis of the opening sequence for The Shining which appears on the Long Road Media Blog (thank you, Long Road). Read it carefully and start doing your own for your chosen sequences. Remember to focus on a sub genre you want to work on for your project.

The film opens with a series of shots of panoramic landscape vistas showcasing the bleak desolation of the snowy mountainous surroundings, which will provide the backdrop for the film’s subsequent narrative developments. Various bird's eye view shots intermittently cross dissolve into one another, and depict an expansive clear blue lake, a snow-capped mountain range, and a densely populated forest of evergreen trees. The camera moves swiftly through its surroundings in each shot, sweeping past the breadth of the natural environs below it, and thus conveys to the audience a sense of the massive scale and large land span of the location depicted.
During the camera’s continual movement, it occasionally captures its views from distorted angles, which undermines the idea otherwise created by this series of shots of the benevolent purity of natural beauty and the wintry American landscape. It thus uses spatial manipulation to contradict the principal connotations of the images of nature captured in these shots, and hence foreshadows the heavy deployment of themes and imagery centred upon the supernatural that will follow.

Also indicative of this theme is the use of slow, sombre, unnerving and deliberate electronic music, which in conjunction with the seemingly oppositional images suggest a malevolence to the surroundings shown and imply an unknown danger amongst them.

Eventually the camera finds a road snaking through an aerial shot of a thickly forested area then picks out and follows a lone car in extreme high angle long shot, making its way along the road. The camera gradually moves increasingly closer maintaining its birds’ eye view position, but also gradually rotates to distort the angle and create a sense of unsettling foreboding in the manner described above. A series of shot changes track the car’s journey and depict a range of different natural backdrops indicating the traversal of time and space. As the camera finally tracks speedily in to a mid shot of the car from behind, revealing it to be a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, credits rise up through the frame from below in blue typeface, and each gives way to the next, departing the frame by rising out of it.

The moving camera overtakes the car and veers away to the left, aerially crossing country before again finding the car and tracking its journey, once again with another series of extreme high angle long shots, while the eeriness of the electronic score continues to aurally unsettle the viewer.

The camera’s point of view eventually shifts to depict an extreme long shot of a remotely located building amongst the mountains, trees and lakes. It slowly circles the building, getting gradually closer. This building is the Overlook Hotel, and will be the yellow car’s final destination, and the principal location for almost all of the film’s subsequent action.

Overall, the opening sequence has been gradually building up to this elaborate establishing shot of the hotel, and has served to highlight its isolation and remoteness and communicate an implication of danger, that the audience should by now have associated with this idyllic yet spectral location and its backdrop.

Here is the sequence:

Half-term work - must be completed by Sunday 31 October, 5pm

Dear all,

- First the bad news; some of you have not caught up enough and managed to stay up to date and will therefore need to have a chat with us after half-term about the negative referrals we've had to write. We might judge that a meeting with parents is in order.

- Secondly, there are a number of things that you need to do by next Sunday (31th October) - 5.00pm.
All tasks set so far need to be completed on your blogs; in some cases, it also includes taking pictures to demonstrate techniques and illustratE a genre.

- All Thriller research must be completed to a good (A'Level) standard.

- All of you must complete an analysis of at least one DVD cover, analysing mise-en-scene and other choices (fonts, colours, style) carefully. Embed a picture of the DVD cover (could be annotated or comments made separartely). Choose a Thriller film that could be a source of inspiration for your own project.

- The final task is to do some research on a successful film director who has directed some Thrillers. You need to explain why the films are successful, what the director's "trademark" is, and embed trailers and screengrabs of interesting or memorable shots with some comment on technique and mise-en-scene.
Try your best to re-create one of these shots yourself or in a small group, making sure that you get the atmoshere of Thriller right. Aim to chose a shot with at least one or two characters in the frame.

Thriller Sub-genres Research and Preliminary Task - Improving your work

Very few of you have produced A' Level standard research so far for this task... You need to address this and improve your posts.
Make sure you:
- Look again at conventions of Thrillers (some of you have done a Spidergram of Conventions of Film Openings rather than Thrillers)
- Provide a list of Thriller Sub genres including some of their codes and conventions and examples of films that could be put in each category. OF COURSE THERE ARE MANY HYBRID FILMS.
- Focus particularly on the "man-on-the-run" or "innocent-on-the-run" subgenre. Embed trailers or film openings. Use screengrabs to illustrate the kind of camerawork to be expected, the narrative expectations, the character types, mise-en-scene choices etc.
- Do the same for another sub genre of your choice, maybe the kind of film you would like to create for your coursework. Below is an example of work produced by another student on Conventions of Psychological Thriller (might not be totally accurate; this is just for illustration purposes):

- Write the synopsis for the first 10 minutes of your Thriller spoof - it should be obvious that you understand the conventions of the genre and are adding humour and twists to them.

I WANT TO STRESS THAT YOU SHOULD START LOOKING FOR INSPIRATION FROM YOUR VIEWINGS, GATHERING IDEAS FOR YOUR OWN FILM OPENING. START DOING MOODBOARDS AND COLLECTING PICTURES, FILMS POSTERS / DVD COVERS, SCREENGRABS ETC. Chart all your reflections on your blog. This must become on-going work.


Example of Moodboard in planning stages of script:
Example of Genre Moodboard illustrating the Psychological thriller using film posters:

Finally, start evaluating your Preliminary task. Use the questions below as guidance:

1. Discuss how your group came up with the idea for the script. How efficient was the discussion? What key decisions were made? Embed your script.

2. Reflect on the planning / storyboarding stage and upload the storyboard.
3. How efficient was the shoot? additionally, embed screengrabs demonstrating the required techniques from the brief.

Once the editing is finished, you will be evaluating that too.

Finally, make sure you add the relevant tasks to your assessment booklet with a brief comment self-assessing your posts and get a parental signature. I'll add a comment and countersign them next week.

Home learning due in 14.10.10

Please refer to the task set in class. You have a big task ahead of you so don't leave it to the last minute.
You have to research two Thriller subgenres, one has to be the "man-on-the-run" subgenre, the other one a subgenre of your choice (pick one you enjoy watching). You could also draw a list of different subgenres, identifying their conventions and some film examples. For the main task, consider the kind of plot devices, character types, settings, mise-en-scene and types of shot/ camerawork and lighting you'd expect to see. Illustrate with examples from films and screenshots, making sure you analyse them. The better you do this task, the more marks you can start building up for the research part of your coursework.

Additionally, you can start gathering ideas and inspiration for your own film opening. Log everything on your blog and remember to list your own viewings.