Week 1 - Genre Research - 08/10/11

Researching the Genre's

Researching Horror/Thriller Genre

‘Horror Definition’

·        A genre which is meant to scare its readers and make the audience feel terror. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_fiction

·        Unsettling films designed to frighten, panic, cause dread, alarm, terrify, shock whilst also providing captivating entertainment in a fearsome experience. http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html

Codes and Conventions-

‘Thriller Definition’

·     

  

 High stakes, non-stop action, plot twists, exciting settings and an adrenalin packed climax. http://www.findmeanauthor.com/thriller_fiction_genre.htm

·        An exciting, suspenseful play or story, especially a mystery story that thrills the audience. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thriller

Horror and Thriller

Codes and Conventions:

·        Quick changes in camera angles – LS to CU quickly – pace is faster and picks up audience’s attention more

·        Close-ups of key subjects/events – shows importance/relevance to the storyline

·        Wide shots – establish surroundings, but normally surroundings are in darkness and even though audience are being shown a wide shot, they can’t always see the background clearly

Editing:

·        Quick cuts – make the pace fast

·        High angles – show that characters are in danger, suspense for audience

·        Low angles – empower the characters, heroic, excites audience

Mise-en-place:

·        Dark lighting - mystery, hard to make out scenery

·        Dark coloured props and background – eeriness, sets the mood and tone to very suspicious, creepy

Sound:

·        Music that creates tension – sets the mood of the scene, audience can guess what might happen from the music, puts the audience on edge, sets the scene

·        Short, sharp sounds to exaggerate movements/actions – draws audience’s attention to the action more, makes it important

Taken Opening Brief Analysis

·        Eerie music when credits are showing – suggests genre

·        Credits moving slowly and fading once shown - genre

·        Video – echoing sounds with music (piano) playing loudly over the top

·        Flash back editing – shows the character misses her

·        Dark lighting – harsh, suggests he’s unhappy

·        Man is main character – something to do with young girl, relation (picture frame)

·        Genre – action/thriller – music at beginning suggests this, and then it cuts to calm

·        Title – appeared next to daughters picture which suggests she’s the one who’s taken

·        Mise en scene – business man – suit in the background

First 3 Minutes of Films- what happens:  

  ·       Saw V –one character gets murdered through one of Jigsaws traps.

·        Law Abiding Citizen – equilibrium at start of a normal family (wife, husband and daughter), then 2 ‘villains’ arrive and murder the wife and kidnap/murder the daughter in front of the husband.

·        The Messengers – shows the background of the film through a flashback/memory (picture in black and white suggests its old), all 3 characters get murdered but are not actually shown, and neither is the murderer.

·        Scream – man gets a phone call from a supposed wrong number which turns out to be the ‘villain’, he then rushes home to save his girlfriend before she gets killed.

WHY HAVE I DONE THIS?

I chose to find out the definition, codes and conventions of both Horror and Thriller genre because those are the genre's my coursework will be based around and I wanted to make sure I am using all the codes and conventions in my film, and sticking to the definition of what a Horror and Thriller film actually are. I briefly analysed the opening of the film 'Taken' because it matches with the genre's I have chosen to use and I wanted to see what a successful film opening looked like, and how it matched with the codes and conventions, and how to analyse it..so I am well prepared for analysing my own film opening. Finally, I chose a selection of films to watch the openings of and then wrote down the actions of what happened in each of them to give me some storyline inspiration for what I could have my film about and what would happen in the first 2 minutes of one.