Thrille Genre Timeline

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Thriller's watched in class

To grasp more interest and knowledge on Thriller films, we watched extracts from 5 different type thriller films. I took notes and here is what i picked out as research.

Psycho (1960)

• Black and White (one of the first famous thriller films)
• Seeing an image (shadow) through the shower curtain.
• Weather is dreary, this sets a creepy mood.
• Some scenes are slow paced, others are fast.
• Slow mysterious music before she enters the shower.
• Ironic that she is so happy to be in the shower she exaggerates her happy mood.
• The fast pacing music while she is being stabbed and the excessive number of times she is stabbed
• Close up of her hand sliding down the tiles as she dies.
• When the camera zooms on the plughole as we watch the water and her blood drain through it, then zooming into her eye and spiralling out
• Anonymous killer comes from nowhere we just see a black outline of the killer an his knife. (mystery)

Kill Bill (2003)

•   The opening scene with the hankechief wiping blood from her with 'Bill' written on it and the voice over, we never actually get to see bill so it is a mystery, also the main character keeps her name anonymous with bleeps over when she says her name.
• The cartoon japanese scene is very different and is also in some ways thrilling.
• The time it shows 4 years before and 13 hours later etc, keep us in the know of what is going on. 
• Waking up in a hospital close up of her face.
• Her narrative voice add's effect.
• In the final chapter it goes black and white in the building and then someone turns the lights off, it gives the effect of it getting darker and darker (in an evil way)
• When she walks in and see's everyone we get a pause and character update from the main character so we know who certain people are.
• The final fight between the bride and O-ren Ishi pacey music in the background.

Collateral (2004)

• Fast pace music and scene changes and action means it is extremely tension building.
• It is mainly set at night so you have to look deeper into the film. The night adds a lot of suspense
• The use of torches that focus on the action.
• Multiple gun shots, a pause then one more to finish that scene off.
• Close up on faces to show emotion.
• Busy street and traffic make it more manic.
• Stereotypical characters help you understand why certain things happen.

 Breif case scene, Gun action.

Perfume (2006)

• Typical main character (psychotic man) for a thriller.
• classic example of thriller is he victimizes females who are innocent and kills them.
• The camera sets focus on the action and not what is going on in the background.
• Dimmed lighting and a lot of redness in the film representing evil.
• Set in olden days where these occurances are not exactly expected or common.
• The strange ways in which he gets the perfume from the women's scent keeps the audience intregued and is also quite mysterious.
•  Classic beautiful red head with pale skin (using traditional old/english woman)

Here is a clip from the film.

The Dark Knight (2008)

• The overall character set out is enough to make a thriller film, the jokers face immediately brings out some evil along with batmans mask.
• The voice of the joker is quite mysterious.
• The main character (Batman) is a hero, typical kind of thriller storyline.
• Clown masks at the beginning are creepy and a lot of people have a fear of clowns so elements of fear are drawn into the film.
• Fast pace action and music.
• Night time scenes including a lot of action.
  

Thriller Research

Inception

'Your mind is the scene of the crime'.

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Inception (2010) written and directed by Christopher Nolan is an action / mystery / sci-fi type thriller, so it includes a hybrid of many genres together. The main character Dom Cobb is a thief in ways beyond thought possible, stealing and finding valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. He begins to loose everything that means most to him due to him becoming an international fugitive. He is faced with an offer that promises his life back but he must accomplish the impossible inception. Cobb and his team have the task of not stealing an idea but planting one but in there way is a dangerous enemy who can predict their every move, so no amount of planning or expertise can protect them but Cobb being the only man who could have seen it coming.

The film includes the sound track "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" Written by Charles Dumont and Michel Vaucaire, if you listen to the song you can feel the suspense with the orchestra getting louder and more dramatic. It is a French song so it brings culture to the film too.

The official trailer for Inception

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2012

'The end is just the beginning.'

2012 (2009) written by Roland Emmerich and Harald Kloser, directed by Roland Emmerich is an action/ drama/ adventure/ sci-fi type thriller film and is based on what is believed going to be a true story, it looks into the future. Adrian Helmsley a geophysicist officially visits India’s Dr. Satnam Turutani and his wife and son. He is lead to the worlds deepest copper mine to find that the earths core is heating like never before and above what everyone had expected. To present it to the president of the United States he collects as much evidence as he can to show that the world is coming to an end. His expectation of it being hit on the leading media was crushed and he is told they will not be publicizing this disaster. They are intent on saving wealthy families that are able to shed out a billion Euros per family on four mammoth arks. Well if the world is going to come to an end on 21 December 2012 then how can arks and its wealthy inhabitants survive? 
The film is made thrilling at the beginning because the new discovery leads you to wanting to know more and they use fast pace and deperate characters. Later on everything begins to get better and the world starts to cave in, this for me is the most thrilling part and after i had watched it lead me to wonder, will this really happen?
 The official trailer for 2012

The Number 23

A number is just a number. Or is it?

One of my favourite thriller films so I decided I would research it and then post it on my blog.

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The Number 23 (2007) written by Fernley Phillips and directed by Joel Schumacher is a drama/mystery type thriller. The main character Walter Sparrow becomes obsessed with the number 23 after his wife Agatha Sparrow buys him a gift on his birthday while he is late to pick her up as he had been bitten by a dog. The gift was a book about the mysteries around the number 23. When Walter begins so have an obsession with the book and the number 23 the book becomes a symbol in the film along with the actual number 23. With the obsession of the number 23 he links it to almost every important date and time relevant to his life, he then goes to find the author and discovers something very interesting that leaves Walter paranoid. 

The opening line of the film is Walter saying "A week ago, the only thing I thought was out of the ordinary was that it was my birthday" where as it ends with Walter saying "To die there in the street would have been easy. But it wouldn't have been justice, at least not the justice fathers teach their sons about. I'll be sentenced in a week or so. My lawyer says the judge will look kindly upon me for turning myself in. Maybe it's not the happiest of endings, but it's the right one. Some day I'll be up for parole, and we can go on living our lives. It's only a matter of time. Of course, time is just a counting system - numbers with meaning attached to them - isn't it?" So we see the opening line is very normal and then after all of the thrilling actions and storyline everything has changed and it also ends with a rhetorical question which is a clever way to end a thriller film.

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The official trailer for The Number 23

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Film Reviews:  http://www.rottentomatoes.com

Thriller Directors

Christopher Nolan, Joel Schumacher and Roland Emmerich

I did some research on famous thriller directors, I found out about how they all had individual styles and what films they had all directed. I got some definitions from different sources of what a thriller actually was and I then picked 

three films to look at and researched them.

Christopher Nolan – Inception (2010), Joel Schumacher – The Number 23 (2007) and

Roland Emmerich – 2012 (2009)

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Christopher Nolan directed the films:

Following – 1998, Insomnia – 2002, Batman Begins – 2005, The Prestige – 2006, 
The Dark Knight – 2008, Inception – 2010

He uses a trademark of beginning his movies and introducing his main characters with a close up of their 
hands performing an action and he usually starts films with a flashback or a scene from the end of the
movie. He uses British or non American actors in American roles. To end his films he ends with a character 
giving a philosophical monologue that sums up the film of usually the main characters 

thoughts and feelings on all occurrences in the film. 

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Joel Schumacher directed the fimls: 

Batman Forever – 1995, A Time to Kill – 1996, Batman and Robin – 1997, Bad Company – 2002,

Phonebooth – 2003, The Number 23 – 2007 

He has a habit of using seedy grocery stores in some of his scenes; his characters are often people who take matters in 

there own hands for example: Batman Forever. Halloween is involved in a few of his film scenes and he once 
said he was under pressure from toy companies and Warner Brothers management to deliver a 
 family-friendly film and admits he went too far in that direction
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Roland Emmerich directed the films:
Moon 44 – 1990, Independence Day –1996, Godzilla – 1998, The Day after Tomorrow - 2004

2012 - 2009

He usually includes huge disasters in his films; many times he features the number 44
in his films in reference to his film Moon 44. He often features an insertor zoom-in shot of a villain's eyes widening 
when meeting demise. In most of his films he uses extreme telephoto lenses with very deep focus which 
definesthings and sharpens the image.To create the obvious vibration in his films he often uses a teacup and saucer 
that will rattle in that particular scene.

What is a Thriller?

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A thriller is a certain genre of a range of books, films and television programmes they are often found in 

hybrids genre along side with action, horror and sci-fi. It is the type of film with a lot of mystery and

there is always something keeping the audience on the edge of their seats. It must contain a lot of suspense 

and complex story lines. A typical thriller would include action packed scenes, lighting is often low with 

very effective suspending music to go with what is happening, fast and lively if there is a lot of action 

and slow and mysterious for the more suspense building scenes with less action and talk. The lighting, 

occurrences and sounds all come together along with all the different camera angles and the main part, 

editing.  Thriller genre is also popular in music and theatre, this genre is all round popular with most

people of most ages and almost every thriller film is as enjoyable as the next.

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres. 

Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better 
equipped villains. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)

Thriller Sub Genres
- Supernatural Thriller
- Action Thriller
- Sci-Fi Thriller
- Psychological Thriller
- Crime Thriller