The first one we watched was the opening scene and credits to 'Pulp Fiction', the classic film directed by Quentin Tarantino.
This opening scene uses a lot of the typical conventions that are used in thrillers. For instance, the man has a gun and they are talking about robbing banks and the coffee shop.
We focused more on the opening credits of this clip and the features of it included:
- Names of actors appearing one by one.
- Name of Director Producers etc.
- Name of film in big lettering.
We also watched the opening scene from 'Run Lola Run' directed by Tom Twyker.
This thriller's opening scene starts with the ticking of a clock, creating tension, then it cuts to a huge crowd of people and the camera is weaving in and out of the crowd in a high angle shot. This is when the opening credits start. The credits are in a cartoon and show cartoon Lola running through some sort of tunnel, while the names of the filmmakers appearing above her head. This cartoon feature shows us that Run Lola Run is going to be quite a quirky kind of film as it is not a typical convention used in films. After the cartoon sequence, the actors names are shown below their faces. The pictures are taken in the format of police identification photos, this shows there is going to be crime involved in this film. The opening scene starts with a flashback of two people having a drug exchange which is a typical feature used in a thriller.
The last opening sequence we watch was 'Blue Velvet' directed by David Lynch.
The sequence opens with the names of the director and producer with a blue velvet background, while tension building music plays so we know it's a thriller. It then cuts to a beautiful suburban neighborhood, it looks a bit to good to be true which builds some tension as it makes you feel uneasy as you would never actually see a place like that in real life. Throughout the opening, lots of little hints are dropped that something is going to happen for instance a gun on the TV and the broken tap spurting out water. At the end of the scene when all the tension has been built, a man falls to the floor dead which is kind of what you were expecting it's just when it was going to happen. All of this happens with nice music playing in the background which adds to the uneasiness of the scene.
To summarise, the main features that are used in these thrillers are:
- Music (creates tension).
- Mise on scene.
- Camera angles e.g high angles.
- Lighting.
- Opening credits.
- Narratives.
At the end of the lesson we also watched the trailer for 'Homefront'. This was because we needed to tell the difference between a opening scene and a trailer. A trailer is a collection of clips from a film edited together to advertise the film, and an opening sequence is the beginning of a film. Now that I have watched both, I can now tell the two apart and know that I am NOT doing a trailer.
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