Thriller Genre & Sub-Genres

Thriller: One that thrills, especially a sensational or suspenseful book, story, play, or movie. (From The Dictionary of the English Language)

Charles Derry was a very famous thriller theorist. He produced the first book that analysed the popular genre of suspense thriller. His research led him to the popular theorist Michael Ballint. Ballint studied the concept of "thrill". He wanted to know why some people liked putting themselves into dangerous situations and others completely avoided them.
As Derry continued to conduct his research he found that it could be split further into six different sub-genres.

1.) Thriller of murderous passions= This is often a love triangle and includes the murder of one member. This is usually has a motive such as passion or greed.

2.) The Political Thriller= This usually has the assassination of a political figure or someone associated with the Government.

3.) The Thriller of Acquired Identity= This is when the protagonist has taken on the identity of another character. This often has implications which in most cases is murder.

4.) Psychosomatic Thriller= In this type of thriller, the protagonist is always the victim and is usually suffering from psychotic effects of trauma.

5.) Moral Confrontation= This is your basic good versus evil. It shows a clash between them and allows us to see their differences. It leads the audience to question who will triumph.

6.) Innocent on the Run= This is pretty self explanatory. This is usually when the victim finds themselves on the run from the villian and the police.

Despite there being six sub-genres, all of these still split up further into hybrids!

Alfred Hitchcock

• Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on the 13 August 1899 in Leytonstone, London, England, and UK.
• In 1956 he became an American citizen while keeping his British citizenship.
• He is often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker of all time.
• He often described his childhood as being very lonely and sheltered, due to his obesity.
• The idea of being harshly treated or wrongfully accused is frequently reflected in Hitchcock's films.
• By the end of the 1930s, Hitchcock had become one of the most famous filmmakers in England.
• By 1950, Hitchcock had filmed in many areas of the United States.
• One of the most famous movies he made in the US was Vertigo.
• He followed Vertigo with three more successful films. All are also recognized as among his very best films: North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963).
• After completing Psycho, Hitchcock moved to Universal, where he made the rest of his films.
• Hitchcock died from kidney failure in his Bel Air, Los Angeles, California home at the age of 80.
• Hitchcock's body was cremated and his ashes were scattered over the Pacific.

Quotes:

“Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.” – Alfred Hitchcock

“I was an uncommonly unattractive young man.” – Alfred Hitchcock

“Cary Grant is the only actor I ever loved in my whole life.” – Alfred Hitchcock

"Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else." – The Telegraph

Thriller Moodboard

Some of the emotions and feelings that I wanted my mood board to convey were:

• Fear
• Voyeurism
• Paranoia
• Worry
• Nightmares
• Bad past experiences
• Troubled children
• Curiousness

Analysis of "The Birds" by Alfred Hitchcock

The clip starts off with a long shot of the actress in her surrounding area. This sets the scene for the audience and establishes the area. It then cuts to a mid shot of the woman knocking on the door and her entering into the house. This, however, is from a different angle inside the house but it is still a mid shot. The camera pans her movements as she explores the kitchen. When the actress stops walking, the camera stops moving too. The characters facial expressions make it look like she is fixated on a particular object and gives us a sense that she thinks something is wrong. The camera then zooms in to a close up of her face. This leads to an enigma for the audience as they are left questioning why she is reacting this way? And what does she think is wrong?
As the actress enters into the hallway, we go from a mid shot to a long shot which allows us to fully see her reactions and analyse her body language. When she enters the room, it cuts from a long shot straight into a mid shot. This sudden change in shots allows us to see her facial expressions as she looks into the room. We are then given a point of view shot as she scans the room to see what has happened. We are shown that there is a broken window with a dead bird in it and the ornaments and shelves have all fall down. This again leads the audience to question what has happened and why. The camera momentarily focuses back on the actress in a close up and shows her looking at the floor. It then cuts to a close up of the bloody feet and speedily back to the actress. Following this we see the dead body. It progresses from a long shot of the body, to a close up and then an extreme close up of the face. This leads to questions such as who is this man? And what happened to him? We see the character rapidly turning around and running away. Her body language here shows that she is frightened and shocked by the whole situation and doesn’t know what else to do.
Throughout the whole clip we constantly hear diegetic sound from the movements that the character makes such as closing and opening the door.

Analysis of Continuity Project

Analysis of Continuity Project:
This video focuses on including the conventions of the thriller genre in order to create a title sequence which uses continuity successfully. I used techniques such as red herrings, dramatic irony and non-diegetic sounds to build up suspense and tension.
The video contains all the shots I have learnt about in order to convey a meaning to the story. The clip starts off with a mid shot of the character which allows us to establish that she is the main person as she is the first shown. Next there is an over the shoulder shot to allow the audience to see what the character is seeing and enabling it to set the scene for them. Following this is the shots where we are introduced to the second character. In order to show the relationship between the two, I have used the 180 degree rule. I had to make sure that the camera was equally spread apart from the two characters in order for the positioning of the audience to work and for it not to be awkward for them with the camera angles changing. Then we see a two shot showing how the relationship between the two characters has changed. It was especially hard to shoot this shot as I had to capture it from outside the window and the umbrella and the light was reflecting onto it and the characters face making it hard to see her.
At this point of the clip, we are able to establish who the antagonist is and who the protagonist is. The next series of shots are close ups and extreme close ups. The close up of the antagonists face and the weapon illustrate her true intentions and feelings. The extreme close up of the protagonists face shows fear and confusion which tells us that she was not expecting the attack.
I felt that ending the shots off with the image of the weapon would leave the audience with an enigma and would make them ask questions such as why is she attacking her? and has she done anything to be attacked for? which would prompt them to want to continue watching in order to find out what happens.
If I was to shoot this whole section again, I would hope for the weather to be better to make it easier to take the pictures or I would have to find a way to take the pictures I want and for my reflection not to be showing. I could do this by changing the angle or the position I am standing in. I would also retake the pictures in the classroom and improve the mise-en-scene so that only the things that need to be in the picture are in it.

Different Narrative Theories In Film

When looking at a narrative we look at the basic conventions which are:
- Genre
- Character
- Form
- Time

Roland Barthes:
Barthes came up with narrative codes. These codes allowed him to define a story and thoroughly analyse the meaning of it. He suggested that one way of unravelling the narrative was to look at a story from one view point to gain one insight as to what it could mean and to then look at it from another view point to gain a different perspective.
These codes could then be defined further into different groups:

- Action and Enigma Codes= This uses unanswered questions ( What will happen next? Who is he/she? ) and the anticipation of an action's resolutions to create suspense in a narrative.
- Symbols and Signs
- Points of Cultural Reference
- Simple description/ reproduction

Tzvetan Todorov:
Todorov focused mainly on narrative structures. He suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium (when all is how it should be), there is then a disruption to the equilibrium, next there is a recognition to identify that a change has happened, an attempt to correct the damage of the disruption then takes place and finally there is a revival of a new equilibrium. Problems are solved so that order can be restored in the world of fiction.

An example that fits into Todorovs findings is Mission Impossible.

Vladimir Propp:
Propp looked at hundreds of folk tales and identified that there are eight main character roles and thirty-one functions of character types. The eight character roles are:

- The Villain(s)
- The Hero
- The Donor= prepares the hero or gives the hero a magical object
- The Helper= that aids the hero
- The Princess= the one who is sought for; the heroes reward; the object for villain's schemes
- Her Father= person that awards the hero
- The Dispatcher= person that sends the hero on his way
- False Hero= person that takes credit for heroes work and tries to marry Princess

An example of film that fits into Propp's findings is Shrek.

Claude Levi-Strauss:
Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms of binary opposites. Binary opposites are sets of opposite values which constantly create conflict to drive the narrative. An example of opposites could be Good vs Evil but Levi-Strauss was not interested in the order of which events occurred in the plot but was more interested in the deeper arrangements of themes. For instance, if we take Science-Fiction, we can identify a series of oppositions which are created by the narrative:

- Earth and Space
- Good and Evil
- Humans and Aliens
- Known and Unknown
- Normal and Strange

Opposites can also be visual (light/darkness), conceptual (love/hate) or do to with the soundtrack.

Narrative Image:
Narrative Image is what the audience thinks of the movie before they see it. This is all down to marketing and is the films identity and how it is branded. It comes directly from publicity surrounding a film ( posters, trailers, video releases). Marketing promotes the films genre signifier's in order for the audience to familiarise themselves with the movie and to recognise conventions of the movie. This broadens the films potential appeal.
Narrative image also centres around originality and difference. It has to make the audience ask questions and intrigue them into wanting to know the answers to the questions. This is the narrative enigma- the mystery surrounding the film.
In some cases, the narrative image is misleading in order to widen and appeal to a larger audience. The audience go and see the film expecting the traditional conventions in the genre but are shocked by unexpected breaks in the convention that may have put them off watching the movie if they knew about them beforehand.

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