Sunday 1 January 2012

Conventions

The four conventions to creating a good thriller opening i believe are Mise en scene, camera movement, sounds and the editing.

Starting with Mise en scene because to me having the right location is an absolute must. Our thriller opening is mainly based in a forest. since we are going to be filming in a forest we will have to be careful during the filming process to make sure that the lighting is not too dark and not too bright. However since our thriller opening is very much trying to hide something we may want to go with lighting that is a little bit darker. We are going to engage the audience right from the start as a man walks through a woods dressed in a suit. This contrast will immediately make the audience wonder why is he wearing a suit as well as making them ask themselves what he has to do in a forest. Since the plot in our Thriller opening is not going to be clear to the viewer we can use this to our advantage. Another thing we thought would work well in setting like this would be to keep the face of the main hidden as this will add to the sense of mystery about the whole opening. The Picture below is very effective as the light is dimmed in the background on the man in the suit whereas the light is brighter on the woman at the front it leads to the audience making various conclusions. One may be that the woman seen is a so called 'good guy' and the man in the background is the enemy. Mise en scene is so very important because small things like this if used correctly can help us to make a very effective thriller opening.




Next i want to show how camera movement will help greatly during out thriller opening. The most commonly used shots during the first few minutes of the thriller are panning shots and tracking shots. these types of shots are so important when it comes to showing characters without revealing too much. For example a great way of doing this would be to have a character walking then a camera tracks him for 3-4 seconds as he walks past the camera. This is a way of building suspense and using a few of these shots will certainly help in the suspense build up. this is what we are going to use for out thriller opening. The man walk past the camera in a suit the camera is focused only of the body of the person and does not reveal the face of the person. as he walks away the camera is still not revealing the face only showing the back pf the man in the suit. Thus making the audience wonder who he is. making the pan shot as smooth as possible will be the key.


Getting the right types of sounds will be very important during the making of our thriller opening. During the very beginning of the thriller opening the main character will simply be walking however it is so important to get sounds that fit well with the certain scene. we want the music to be calm to start of with then as the main realises that he is not alone the music intensity has to rise and this will urge the audience to see that something significant may be a bout to happen. However something that we may want to consider would be to use silence to effect. This was used effectively in the film 'saving private Ryan' when he main is shell shocked and the audience can only see not hear as this will make them feel uncomfortable.





Once all filming is complete the editing will need to be done accurately. Since we are producing a thriller opening it would be sensible to have a lot of jump cuts. this will be very effective as this will tie in with the camera movement. something we are going to do is to have the pan shot of the main walking past the camera then a jump cut to show a a zoom on the mans shoes while he is walking. Another reason for using jum cuts is that they help set the tone. Having a multiple jump cuts in quick succesion will add to the suspense building wich is key to a good thriller.at the end of out opening few minutes the main character will wake up in his bed there will be a jump cut from him walking to him suddenly waking up in his bed. this will lead to further suspicion.

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