Character Motifs

Scenario 1

The assassin who shoots the guest at the funeral could be an antihero, as the audience does not know whether the guest is being shot for a valid reason or not. However, the hero is not known at this stage in the story line as it is not revealed what has happened previously which is then shown in the film.

Scenario 2

It is hard to distinguish which part in the film this character plays or whether it is a MacGuffin and is leading us in the wrong direction. It starts the audience guessing but it is most likely that they will assume that the man in the womans bedroom is the antagonist, however this may not be true as this early in the story we do not know anything about any of the characters.

Meeting 6

Date: 28/01/09

All present

We discussed and learnt about character motifs and wrote profiles on the antagonist in a film and the protagonist
.

Plot Motifs

A Plot Motif is what is usually associated with a specific genre of film, in this case a thriller.
These include:
-Bad things happening to good people.
-Murder which is suggested not shown.
-An inciting event.
-Misleading suspicion.
-Secretive, Psychological gamesmanship.
-Entrapment.
-Personal fears and phobias.
-Being out of usual circumstances.
-Environmental disruption.
-Work.

Scenario 2

Our second scenario is of a dark room, with very low level lighting, the audience can just about make out a bedroom scene with a bed in the centre. Using a point of view shot the audience can see this (possibly with heavy breathing heard as it is a POV shot). Non diagetic tense music will be playing in the background to arouse tension.
The camera is going to be used as if seeing the scene from the first person, then with a second shot to show the second person in the room and it will show them hiding when the phone rings, suspicion will be high at this point as they will not know why there is someone crouching at the end of the bed and what they are planning on doing.
The tense music will suddenly stop when the phone on the bedside table lights up and starts to ring, the suspect who the POV shot was from will duck down behind the end of the bed. This is to shock the audience as they will be wondering what is going to happen because of the music and the darkness and then when the phone goes off it causes shock.

Scenario 1

The first scenario we came up with was to film at a graveyard this has an eerie atmosphere. We have followed the style of the film 'Memento' where you see the end of the film at the start. There many jump cuts of drugs being loaded into the coffin this creates confusion, the lighting is very dim so that its hard to see what is going on. The coffin is being carried to the grave and everyone is wearing black suits. The next shot is through the cross hair of a rifle, aiming at a specific person at funeral. Then the coffin is lowered into the grave, shot with a worms eye view, everything goes black and then we here the gun shot. There is silence for a few seconds before and after the gun shot. The rest of the film explains why the person was assassinated and why the coffin was filled with drugs.

Meeting 5

Date: 27/01/09

All present.

We discussed our possible scenarios.
We also researched into plot motifs and which of them we may be able to use in our thriller opening, including misleading suspition, personal fears and phobias and secretive, psychological gamesmanship.

Meeting 4

Date: 26/01/09

Chris absent due to Dentist.

We looked at representation in thrillers by watching the film 'Psycho' from this we noticed the unique ways in which Alfred Hitchcock created suspense and suspicion. 

Comparison of Se7en, One Hour Photo and The Day of the Jackal.

Date: 26/01/09

We saw three openings of thriller films and analysed mainly the camerawork, these openings were each very different, except the fact that they had long takes and were opening sequences.

Se7en started off with very low key lighting, just three of four lamps lighting up a dull room. There is then a close up of the man putting his glasses on the table, this gives the audience the idea of intelligence. The diagetic sound of a metronome, over the almost silence, gives a sense of time passing, tension and it also has the beat of a heartbeat. This scene is mostly made up of close ups and a few long takes. It the goes on to the title sequence where the font is made to look like handwriting, however it flashes and jumps. There are a lot of short cuts of photos and handwriting, and we also see that he shaves the tops of his fingertips off suggesting that he plans to commit, or has commited some kind of high end crime, at this point the audience is suspicious of this person and it gets them guessing from here.
However in One hour photo, the opening sequence is quite short with one very long take of a high tech camera, although it is not obvious what it is until it flashes. The silence over the shot of the camera and the slight zooming in makes the audience feel nervous, then the flash surprises them.
The oldest of these three films, The Day of the Jackal, also has quite a short opening sequence in which there is a lot of tracking, especially following what we suspect to be important people in their cars. The title of the film then suddenly appears over the top of the scene which could surprise the audience.

Comparison of Se7en, One Hour Photo and The Day of the Jackal

Date: 25/01/09

The 3 opening sequences we saw varied tremedously compared to each other, the only similarity that all of them had were that they were an opening sequence.

Se7en had a very long opening sequence, it contained a lot of significant clues as to what happens later on in the film, it leads you to believe that you are seeing a psychopath planning killings of assaults of some sort. There are a lot of hints as to what could or will happen in the story, you see the subject cutting his finger tips off and then seeing their fingers in bandages, this leads you to believe that the male character will be envolved in some means of high level crime and does not want to be detected. This opening sequence has a lot of relevance to the film and immediately throws the audience straight in to the story and starts them guessing.
One Hour Photo however has an opening sequence that simply relates to the title of the film which is all you would know when seeing it for the first time, it shows slides which have the title of the production and the name of the film on and then to a high tech camera that the camera focuses on for a very long shot, it doesn't look like a camera at first, but then startles the viewer when it flashes when taking the photo! This makes the audience uneasy at first but cautiously relieved when they realise its simply a camera. This contrasts with Se7en because it is misleading and although starts the audience guessing it still leaves a huge amount of possibilities for the storyline of the film to come.
The Day of the Jackal differs from both of these as it seems to have no relevance to the title of the film and so the opening sequence with the reporter/journalist/detective following the convoy of cars on his moped leaves you guessing wildly, the viewer can tell that there is some sort of authority involved but to what relevance they have to the story the audience does not know what. It also very much unlike the opening sequence from Se7en as it doesn't give us and clues and it is particularly short.

Comparison of Se7en, One Hour Photo and The Day of the Jackal.

Date: 25/01/09

In the opening sequence of "Se7en" i like how they used long duration shots at the beginning which gives us time to try and work out what is happening. They are quickly followed by shorter ones which distract the viewer and create a flickering effect like those of an olden day film . The increased the pace and makes it more intense as we are un-able to tell what is happening. I also liked the extreme close ups of the photos and objects. There was no way of telling the relevance of each object as the shots were so short. By doing this is made us feel confused as we did not know what was going to happen next. Through out the whole thing there there is a continuous diegetic beat of a metronome which could resemble a heart beat,or time ticking away, this adds to the suspense .As the scenes progresses the beat quickens and an eerie soundtrack is put over the top. Tension is created through the short glimpses of images that we see as we cannot tell what they are. When there is a close up of the hand writing a letter a over lay is used this gives the effect of time moving forward. The way in which the scenes have been edited together creates suspense as some of them flow into each other and we begin to understand what is going on but then we are completely thrown by something that doesn't connect.

The opening sequence of " One Hour Photo " is very different as very little happens, and what does happen is obvious because of the name of the film. The camera represents the photo and the beating sounds represents time. The credits wipe in to a eerie, beating sound and then fade out to a wiping sound. It is good how there is no images and only the sound but quickly cuts into the camera which does not look like how we would expect a camera to look. When it cuts the sound of the camera is put over the beating sound which is very tense,and also each time this happens the beating sound gets faster, each cut is very fast and happens as the camera takes the photo it has just taken a photo of him which creates a shock, the use of the flash disorientates the viewer.

The older film of "The day of the Jackal" is very different from the other two as tension is not created. The scene is set by following a moped into the town and then panning across people. No tension is felt but the viewer is lead into a false sense of security because there isn't anything happening.

Compilation of Questionnaire results

Date: 25/01/09Above is a compilation of questions 1, 2 and 3 to show the variation between our sample.

From these results you can see that 94.5% of our sample said that they like thrillers, that the average age of our sample was 29 and that the sample was split equally between male and female

Conclusion
From our sampling we found that a large variety of people enjoy watching thrillers. They age from between 16 and 57, equally between male and female. Generally the main aspect that our sample enjoy in a thriller is being kept in suspense, and feel that they are kept in suspense by not knowing what is going to happen next and when something does happen it is not what they had been expecting. They also like how it has a fast moving pace which gives them an occasional adrenalin rush. A number of people said that they like a film to have a good storyline or plot and a thriller is a good genre to find this in, as a lot of twists and complications can take place aswell, drawing the audience in to the story and making them think and guess about what is going to happen next. We found from collecting our data that some people that we asked did not fully understand what a thriller was, this meant that the information they gave us was not as reliable as it could have been.

Sophie's Questionnaire Results

Date: 25/01/09

Question 1) Do you like thrillers ?

1.Yes
2.Yes
3.Yes
4.Yes
5.Yes
6.Yes

Question 2) Age?

1.50
2.26
3.17
4.45
5.53
6.16

Question 3) Gender?

1. Male
2.Female
3.Female
4.Female
5. Male
6.Female

Question 4) In your opinion, what makes a good thriller?

1.An unexpected twist and lots of action
2.Cliffhangers, Unexpected shocks and a twist in the plot
3.Suppense, upbeat plot
4.Suppense, good storyline, edge of seat situation
5.Good action,believable characters realistic and unpredictable outcome
6.Darkness, chases, mystery, quick beginning and ending

Question 5) What is your favourite thirller?

1.Bourne Films
2.The Shining
3.The Shining
4.Dead Calm
5.Momento
6.Divinci Code

Question 6) Do you prefer to watch thriller rather than any other genre?

1.Yes
2.Yes
3.Yes
4.Yes
5.Yes
6.Sometimes depending on what mood i am in as sometime they take too much concerntration.

Question 7) What would you like to see in a thriller if making your own?

1.Fast paced and Exciting
2.Adrenalin rush
3.Intresting
4.Intense
5.Fast moving
6.Not knowing what is happening

Clarice's Questionnaire Results

Date: 25/01/09

Question One: Do you like thriller films?

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Some, yes
5. Yes
6. Yes

Question Two: Age?

1. 16
2. 16
3. 17
4. 57
5. 43
6. 36

Question Three: Gender?

1. Male
2. Male
3. Male
4. Female
5. Female
6. Female

Question Four: In your opinion, what makes a good thriller?

1. Exciting, keeps you on the edge of your seat.
2. Action, exciting.
3. Zombies with AK47's.
4. Enduces fear.
5. Suspense, good music.
6. Conflict, cliffhangers, action.

Question Five: What is your favourite thriller?

1. None.
2. None.
3. Muncher Munch.
4. Psycho.
5. None.
6. James Bond-Casino Royale.

Question Six: Do you prefer to watch thriller rather than any other genres?

1. No, prefer comedy.
2. No, prefer comedy.
3. No, prefer Family Guy.
4. No.
5. No, prefer comedy
6. Yes.

Question Seven: What would you like to see in a thriller if making your own?

1. Blood, death, car chases, cliffhangers.
2. Car chases, hot girls, killing.
3. "Thrilling shit"
4. Blood, something like Jaws.
5. Good plot, good acting.
6. Vehicle chases, tense music, fights.

Chris' Questionnaire Results

Date 25/01/09

Question 1) Do you like thriller films?

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No
4. Yes
5. Yes
6. Yes

Question 2) Age?

1. 17
2. 16
3. 17
4. 21
5. 19
6. 46

Question 3) Gender?

1. Male
2. Female
3. Female
4. Male
5. Male
6. Male

Question 4) In your opinion what makes a good thriller?

1. Intercourse, attractive girls, fast moving action scenes
2. Cliffhangers, suspense, chases
3. Good camera work, effects, efficient acting, original ideas
4. Good twist, action
5. Blood, gore
6. Action, strong plot, believable action
   

Question 5) What is your favourite thriller?

1. Mission Impossible 2
2. Die Hard
3. Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring
   
4. Taken
5. Quantem of Solace
6. -

Question 6) Do you prefer to watch thrillers rather than any other genre?

1. No prefer war films
2. Yes
3. No
4. No prefer gangster films
5. No
6. No

Question 7) What would you like to see in a thriller if making your own?

1. Strong storyline, convincing acting
2. Mixture of horro comedy and action
3. Good plot, turn of events, things going wrong, conspiracy theme
4. Action, big names
5. Action, fighting
6. Murders, suspense
   

Meeting 3

Date: 21/01/09

All present

Scenario ideas exchanged

Basic outline of opening sequence

Research into codes

Meeting 2

Date: 19/01/09

Sophie absent due to illness

We completed our questionnaires and compiled them to see which results the most common which gave us an idea of where we need to be going with our thriller opening.

Meeting 1

Date: 14/01/09

All present

Phone numbers exchanged

Prior commitments

Research into thriller characteristics

A Thriller promotes intense excitement and suspense along with a high level of anticipation. The aim of a thriller is to leave it up to your mind to work out what is happening rather than showing you. This can leave a "Cliff Hanger".

Thrills can be felt as -
-Fear
-Tension
-Exhilaration
-Shock
-Pressure
-Extremes