JP - Genre Analysis

1. Our chosen genre is Thriller. There are numerous sub genres for this, which are:

· Action Thriller - e.g. Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum, 2002)

· Conspiracy Thriller - e.g. JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991)

· Crime Thriller - e.g. Inside Man (Spike Lee, 2006)

· Disaster thriller - e.g. Poseidon (Wolfgang Peterson, 2006)

· Drama thriller - e.g. The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006)

· Horror thriller - e.g. 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle,2002)

· Erotic thriller - e.g. Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992)

· Legal thriller - e.g. Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy,2007)

· Political thriller - e.g. Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005)

· Psychological thriller – e.g. The Beach (Danny Boyle, 2000)

· Medical thriller - e.g. Awake (Joby Harold,2007)

· Spy thriller - e.g. Mission Impossible (Brian De Palma,1996)

· Techno-thriller -e.g. The Hunt for Red October (John McTiernan,1990)

· Religious thriller –e.g. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown, 2003)

2. For our film we are following the crime thriller sub genre and here are some films that can help us to obtain our complete idea:

Inside Man (Spike Lee, 2006) – The Inside Man is a very clever film and although our film will not be a heist like this it has some good techniques that we can work from, the voiceover style of the man talking about what happened before it has happened in the film, having the end at the start. This can be seen in throughout the Inside Man Trailer.

Taken (Pierre Morel, 2008) – The film Taken is more of an action thriller however it is quite a dark film with a tone that we would like, it is shown in theTaken Trailer. The music in the trailer is the same kind of effect that we want to have in our opening sequence. The music together with the fast cutting rate gives the clip a montage edit that we hope to achieve in our opening sequence.

Phone Booth (Joel Schumacher, 2002) – I like this film because of the simplicity of the location and how effective it is. I feel this film has inspired our film sequence because in the Phone Booth Trailer there is a high cutting rate in and out of the titles which is what we intend to do. Also this has helped us develop the idea of putting a phone conversation into our sequence.

3. A Typical Narrative of a Thriller is to have the protagonist and the antagonist having their feud throughout the film for example Batman: Dark Knight with ‘Batman’ and the ‘Joker’. The narrative would generally end with the protagonist winning. To create enigma or suspense in our opening sequence we could employ this by revealing the antagonist to the audience. We could also use other conventions of thrillers, e.g. action and a fast cutting rate.
4. For this type of film there are generally the following types of characters: Protagonist, Antagonist, Police/Detective (with one main policeman), a girlfriend. In our film we so far only have the ideas involving the criminal and the police however as we develop our idea we may introduce more characters.

5. Typical locations of a thriller films are in urban settings e.g. ‘Die Hard’ in an office building in LA. They are generally in major cities and involve money. They are made here because of the high population and all of the resources in a city, banks, etc. So as most films involve money and heists it is the ideal location. However we plan to take it out of the urban setting and have the majority of filming in a woodland area on a gloomy windy day which will give it a kind of chilling edge that will give the film darkness and help build suspense.

6. Classic iconography in a thriller would most likely be weapons, normally guns, used most commonly in "action thriller" films. A high tempo would be associated with this genre; a victim is often involved also. In action thrillers fighting is generally present e.g. ‘Taken’ he uses his own skills in combat more than guns.7. In this type of thriller people are often well dressed in suits etc. E.g. in the Inside Man, this gives a very confident and composed tone of a character, it helps the viewer see what kind of character he is. However in other films costume is completely different and the villain may wear a hooded top and look very anti-social.

8. In different thrillers lighting and colour can be used in different ways, however it is always vital in the effectiveness of the film. Villains are generally lit with low key lighting to represent their secretiveness with silhouettes, etc. In many films colour is very important because of the graphics involved in a high action scene with explosions etc, where it has to look as realistic as possible. Particular colours will connote different things:

Red – blood, danger

Black – dark, death, evil

White – light, good, happy

Orange – energy, enthusiasm

Blue – peace

Pink – feminine

9. Fonts for the opening credits and titles are very important for the tone of a film. Here are some examples of suitable fonts for a thriller: