What does a title sequence look like? Conventions?

Audience Research 1

This video shows the answers to the questions we asked about Thriller movies in general. This video shows that people usually expect thrillers to usually be set in a forest or in a warehouse, include a detective, a murderer and a victim, start happy and eventually get worse and they expect Thrillers to psychological so you might have to think about the movie and the movie might have clever twists and well organized murders. These answers may influence our decisions in terms of character selection, the genders of the characters where it is set and what movies to take inspiration from.

Audience Research 2

This chart shows the results of the question What gender are you? The results of this graph show that more male people tend to watch thriller movies then women. This will affect our movie by making it suitable for both genders but slightly more suitable for men.

This chart shows the results of the question What is your age group? The results of this graph show what audiences thriller movies attract. This will affect our movie by making it suitable for 15 year olds and over so we don't make our target audience more narrow.

This chart shows the results of the question What is your employment status? This shows that more UN-employed people watch thriller movies than other people do.

This chart shows the results of the question Where do you live? This shows that more people who live in the UK watch thriller movies than people outside of the UK. This affects our movie because this means all of the duologue and titles are in English.

This chart shows the results of the question Where do you expect a thriller to be set? This shows us that more people expect at least part of the movie to be set in a Forrest. This affects our movie by suggesting different choices on where some of the movie should be set.

This chart shows the results of the question what characters do you expect to see in a thriller movie? This shows us that people expect a murderer and a detective in a thriller movie. This will affect our movie by suggesting some characters we should put in it.

This chart shows the results of the question What type of colours do you expect to see in a Thriller movies? This shows us that people expect dark colours in thriller movies. This will affect our movie by making us change the colours and being aware if they are dark so we meet popular demand.

This chart shows the results of the question What gender do you expect to see as the lead role? This tells us that we should cast male lead roles if we want to follow demand and convention.

This chart shows the results of the question What do you expect to feel whilst watching a thriller movie? This will affect our movie by changing the mood we will try to set. This will affect the Mise En Scene, Camerawork, Editing and Sound.

Conventions of your chosen Genre

Editing:
Most Thriller movies have cross cutting them. In thrillers cross cutting usually doubles up the shot, makes it slightly transparent so you can see both shots and sometimes plays in slightly different times to the other shot. This creates tension and suspense through the anticipation that this shot will be explained later in the story.

Sound:
Thriller Movies often have a score because most of the music released by artists will not have the effect the directors want. These scores usually contain high and low string instruments to create low drones with short often unexpected high pitch phrases. Some scores have electronic noises, for example seven, to create a more unnatural feel using different effects on a computer to make it a bit harder for the audience to listen to so the music will help to build tension and suspense.

Typical characters:
In the movie Seven the audience is shown a extreme close up of a person cutting skin off of their fingers. The audience finds out later in the film that the person cutting the skin of off their fingers is the antagonist in the film and he does this so the detectives won't find his finger prints at the scene of where he committed the murders. The typical characters that you can find in nearly all thrillers is a protagonist faced with a problem such as a detective on a case and a psychopath who chases and murders people who is usually the antagonist.

Themes:
Typical themes of a thriller are an antagonist trying to chase and murder people. This antagonist is usually very organised and has planned all of the things he is going to do. The antagonist usually commits these murders for a ransom, heist, revenge, to prove a point or for their own strange interests. The protagonist is usually a detective or someone who enforces the law. This person usually has to work out/detect who committed the crimes.




Setting, Lighting and Colour:
In a thriller movie, there are often occurrences of crime. When this happens the setting is most likely to be an isolated place where safety cannot be found easily. These settings do not have much colour, have low key lighting and are generally spooky places where not many people would go at night.

Props:
The main props used in thriller movies are weapons. Some other props are used to portray different things. For example chains and ropes could signify constriction and can sometimes show constriction and the inability to move because someone put you in that situation. Some props show what the person is like. For example if someone is smoking it could show that they are the antagonist in the film.

Camera Work:
The camera work in thriller films is different to other genres in the fact that at the start of the films there is usually a murder scene of some sort, and the camera work shows what the people are doing through close ups and mid shots sometimes keeping the identity of the characters in the scene anonymous to create suspense. These characters are usually identified later on in the film.

What must a title sequence contain to be successful?
- Set the mood of the film
- Reveals small elements of the story that will be explained later on in the movie
-  Names people such as the directors, the producers, composer, casting and main actors / actresses
What makes a successful opening sequence for this genre?
- Set the mood of the film
- Reveals small elements of the story that will be explained later on in the movie
- Shows part of the antagonist without revealing their identity
- show a murder or a disposal of a body that has been murdered

Examples 
Three examples of movies where (apart from editing) all of these conventions take place are The Usual Suspects, Zodiac and Seven.

Location research

Appropriate settings for a Thriller
Desolate Church

Lonely Graveyard

Old abandoned Jails

All of these settings would be a good setting for a thriller because they are all isolated, spooky and do not have many places to run and/or hide. I took the first two photos at all Saints church in Carshalton and I took the last photo at the east side of Carshalton park. If a scene was filmed here at night with low key lighting, fog and with the appropriate camera work these could potentially be good places for Thriler movies to be set.

Your Genre 2

Fallen Analysis

Mise en Scene
- This opening sequence is set in a prison to show that the main character in this scene has committed a crime. this helps to set the tone of the film which is a creepy thriller movie.
- The lighting in this scene is all low key to show that this is most likely not going to be a happy joy filled film.
- The person in prison is wearing prison cloths like the other prisoners. This shows he has commited a crime and he is the antagonist.

Camera work
- There are different shots emphasising different anti/stereotypes in this scene. The main shots I saw were firstly a close up of the man's feet moving with the music. This shows he does not care about his execution any more because he is dancing on death row. I also saw a long shot of him moving to the music. This shows the same thing.

Sound
- The song time is on my side by the Rolling Stones is used to go against the stereotype of thriller movies giving the opening a not to tense feeling.
- This is later broken going back to the stereotype of long drones to create tension.
Editing

- The main use of editing I saw in this was the fast cuts to show the nature of the music and the slow motion shots of the prisoner passing other cells. The cuts emphasise the rhythm and tempo of the piece by cutting to the beat in the music. The slow motion shots are used to create tension because they give an uneasy sense of time passing.
Questions asked
- What happens to the prisoner?
- Does he escape?
- Does he find the person he said he was going to find?
What do we learn
- This prisoner has committed a crime
- The prisoner is on death row just about to be executed for his crimes

Your genre 1

Silence of the Lambs

Mise en Scene
This scene starts in a forest with not much light because it is either dawn or dusk. This counts as low key lighting. This helps to set the tone of the film which is very tense because you think something is going to happen.









In the forest the character runs into fog. This could suggest that something or someone is in the fog and the fog also gives a hardly visible environment so the someone or something could ambush them.






Camera work

At the start of this scene when the character runs into the fog the camera uses a tracking shot to emphasise the running and it might suggest to the audience that the main character is being chased even though we find out that the main character is not being chased. The shot starts at one point and tracks the character through the forest for a short period of time

Sound
- Sound was used to emphasise her running. There was hyperbolic breathing and hyperbolic footsteps which could create tension for the audience.
- At the start of this scene there is minor music which sounds like it is building up to something although we find out it doesn't at this point. In the middle of the scene there is major music when she is runing towards the FBI building which shows that nothing scary is going to happern in this location.
Editing
- At the start of this scene there was a pan to an establish shot to show the audience where all of the scene was taking place until the next establishing shot. The next establishing shot was also in this scene. The shot showed an FBI building.

- Also there is an eye line match when the main character looks at the pictures and newspaper articles on the wall to show her facial expressions so you can infer what she is feeling whilst she is looking at the photos on the wall.

Questions asked
- Why was she running?
- Who were the people in the photos?
- Who killed the people in the photos at the end of the scene?
What we learn
- She works for the FBI?
- She is working on cracking a crime case to see who murdered the people?

What titles?

Hard Rock Medical
In this opening sequence the characters names come up first, then the creators of the opening sequence and then the title of the movie/show. This opening scene was interesting because it left unanswered questions, did not reveal too much of the story, had fast cuts, introduced the main characters and had good visual effects with very interesting graphic matches for example the eye to the cell, the veins to the tree roots and the drawing in the book to the rock face.

The title sequence appeared as follows:
- Actress
- Actress
- Actress
- Actress
- Actress
- Actress
- Actress
- Actress
- Actress
- Actor
- Actor
- Actor
- Creators
- Title

The makers of this opening sequence were very creative with this opening sequence. Using techniques such as time lapsing, graphic matching and smooth transitions to get from one place to another.
- These first two pictures show the start of the time lapse and the end of the time lapse to show that time has passed.

- These next two pictures show a graphic match being used to make transitions smooth and interesting.

- These next two pictures show the transition of a waterfall to water falling from a tap into a sink.

- These next nine pictures show transitions through the use of the transition looking like it was drawn in a book and then the place or event coming out of the book, or vice versa.

Brick

Brick Opening Analysis

Wallander

The Sixth Sense

The Sixth Sense Analysis

Memento

Memento opening sequence

Sound:
Music is used in this opening sequence to create tension and suspicion. The music in this opening sequence is a slow piece of music with long drones so it doesn't draw too much attention.

Editing:
The main pieces of editing in this sequence are the rewind shot, the black and white shots and the slow zoom in. the rewind shot just shows the scene from the end to the beginning.


Some of the shots are in black and white. This shows the audience that this has happened in the past and it shows the audience that it is a different story line.

There is a slow zoom in this scene. The shot starts here.

And ends here.

This zoom shows the importance of this place and it also suggests to the audience that some form of action is going to happen.

Mise En Scene:
The main use of Mise En Scene is the use of low key lighting in the scene where Teddy is killed.

This use of low key lighting suggests someone is going to die in this scene.

Camera work:
A point of view shot is used in this scene.

 This shot shows the audience what the main character in this scene is seeing. This shows the audience that they should support the character who is killing the other character and it also makes the audience more empathetic with the main character because you are looking at what the main character is looking at.

Another piece of camera work in this scene is the use of angles when the shots are being taken.

These shots show the amount of power each of these characters have in this situation. The shot from the low angle shows that the person with the gun has the most power in this scene and the shot from the high angle shows that the person on the floor doesn't have as much power as the person with the gun.
Questions Asked:
- Why does Leonard have memory problems?
- How did he get to the hotel room?
- What happened before this murder took place?
- Why did Teddy kill Leonard's wife?

Preliminary task

What went well

-The continuity editing in the process of opening the door smoothly through the cut.

Could be better if...
If we did not film the clock because in one shot it is quarter to 10 and a couple of shots later it is 5 to 10.