Camera Work in Thriller Films - Billie

Bird's Eye:
These kinds of shots are used in thriller films to make the object or character being looked down on seem completely vulnerable and powerless

Close ups:

Close ups in thriller films are used to show the characters reactions. This shot shows off the most emotion from the character's, seeing the character's emotions persuades the audience to feel this way too. They can also capture importance and detail in a scene.

Canted angles:

Canted angles add a lot of tension to shots, and could simplify a supernatural being, for example, pushing or moving the camera. This is also a great was to get a different angle of an incident across to the audience. Another great use of a canted angle is to use it as a POV shot from a victim making to feel as though the audience is seeing what the victim is seeing.

Establishing Shot:

Establishing shots are simply to establish the area or place that the film is going to be set. This could be to show how deserted and scary a town might be.

Iconography in Thriller Films - Billie

Confined Spaces:
One thing that is often used in thriller films is confined spaces. This gives the feeling of being trapped and not being able to escape from anything. The use of a small space will create a feeling of tension to the audience as they may think that the characters in the film are in more danger. In opposition to this sometimes large spaces are used like cities, this will persuade the audience to fear that the antagonist in the film could cause danger on a much larger scale.
Panic Room is s film set in a very claustrophobic place.



Knifes:
Another icon of thriller films is knifes. Knifes are a typical symbol of thriller films because the connote pain, blood, death and brutality. A good representation of this would be the famous knife, shower scene in Hitchcock's film 'Psycho'. Knifes are often used to show that someone is going to get killed or seriously injured therefore keeping the audience engaged.

Shadows:
Shadows add mystery to a thriller film. The use of s shadows builds up fear in an audience which is why they are so commonly associated with the thriller genre. Shadows insinuate the idea that the protagonist is being watched by another human or an animal or monster, you can usually guess what it might be from a shadow but you don't know who/what it is which again will keep an audience engaged. The protagonist is usually oblivious to the shadow and the fact that they are being followed/watched they just tend to know something is wrong, this will make the audience feel tense through out the film as they will not know when something might happen to the protagonist.

Street Lamps:
Street lights are used in thriller films to emphasise the fact that the protagonist is in almost complete darkness surrounding them except from the spotlight of the street lamp. This further extenuates the fact that the protagonist is alone in the dark which creates fear for the audience as they don't know what could happen or what might emerge from the darkness thus creating a tense atmosphere.

Conventional Storylines of Thriller Films - Billie

Todorov's theory of the thriller genre, Equilibrium, Disruption, Resolution. This is the most common way narratives and story lines are set out in thriller films. The equilibrium is the start of the film when everything is balanced and nothing bad has yet happened to the characters. The disruption is when something bad happens to the characters that will disrupt the equilibrium. This could be anything from a murder to a stalker, as long as it disrupts the balance of the storyline. The resolution is the outcome of the disruption, this could be the protagonists escaping from the antagonists. The film could end there or there may be a new equilibrium, this is when the protagonists have a 'good' and balanced storyline again. Usually things are almost back to normal if this happens. There will then be a restored order and this is the conclusion to the storyline and generally the ending to the film.

A film a with conventional story line is The Girl on the Train. This is a story of Rachel Watson's life, she gets on the train everyday to New York for work. She passes a house where she sees her 'perfect' couple, this couple live on the same street as her ex husband and his new wife. One day when she passes the house she sees Megan (the girl from the couple) cheating on her significant other, this fills her with rage. She wakes up the next day with a terrible hangover, and is covered in bruises and wounds, she can't help but think that something bad has happened. TV reports show that Megan is missing, Rachel becomes invested in the case trying to find out what happened to Megan and what she herself was doing the night Megan went missing.

Conventional Titles of Thriller Films - Billie

Most titles of horror films have their credits done over a black screen with non-diegetic music playing in the background to set the scene and mood, the sometimes have little snippets if film between the writing to show the genre of the film and what it might be about. This could be done to convey the unknown and to not give too much away about the film but allow the fact that is a thriller film to be known, for example, American Horror Story.




It is also common for thriller films to have a short event happen before the title sequence plays to show what the film might be about or what genre the film will be for example Pretty Little Liars.



Another convention of titles is that they mostly show their most famous actors in their title sequences to grab an audiences attention and to keep them engaged in watching the film. This is called star power as most people will watch a film just because their favourite actor o actress is in it.

Special Effects Make Up

Script, for Unlucky For Some

Conventional settings of a thriller film

Some typical settings of thriller films are:

• Mental Asylums
• Abandoned places
• Forests or Woods
• Cities
• Isolated Buildings
• Graveyards

Conventional Characters of Thriller Films

• Resourceful heroes who must try and take down the villains plans
• Spies
• Soldiers
• Stalkers
• Men associated with danger
• Innocent citizens who get dragged into the danger
• Psychotic characters

These types of characters are recognised by the audience making them recognise the genre of the film and connect to it. The characters often have unknown pasts making them more intriguing to the audience as this makes them want to find out more. 

Films similar to ours

Gone Girl, David Fincher (2014)
Gone Girl is a film based on a novel written by Gillian Flynn. This film is about a lady who disappears on her fifth anniversary and her husband is thought to be behind her desertion.




The Girl On The Train, Tate Taylor (2016)
The story of Rachel Watson's life post-divorce. Everyday she takes the train to work and the train goes by her old house that she lived in with her husband, attempting to ignore her pain she focuses on watching a couple that live a few houses down, Megan and Scott Hipwell. When a missing report for Megan comes to light Rachel finds herself caught up in trying to find where Megan is and where she her self was on the night Megan went missing.



Pretty Little Liars, I. Marlene King(2010-2017)
Pretty Little Liars is a TV show that follows the lives of four girls, Aria Montgomary, Emily Fields, Hanna Marin and Spencer Hastings, whose clique falls apart after the disappearance of their leader Alison DiLaurentis. One year later the friends are reunited when they begin to receive threatening messages from an unknown figure 'A'. 'A' threatens to reveal some of heir darkest secrets only Alison knew. They think it s Alison until a body is found and they realise that someone else is panning to ruin their perfect lives.

History of the Thriller - Billie

History of the thriller 1920 now from billiemae

Treatment for first two minutes

Title: Unlucky For Some

Duration: 2 mins

Audience: Young adults aged 15-25. The interests of this age group are going to gigs, the cinema and spending time with friends. They often prefer watching horror and thriller because they are thrill seekers that enjoy being scared.

Certificate: 15

Distributor: Warner Brothers

Synopsis:  The first shot in the film will be of four girls Alice, Emma, Kirsty and Billie walking down a street on their way home from college on a cold winter night. Emma will walk down another street to the other three and seconds after they leave her they will hear am loud scream. The three girls will turn around and run in the direction Emma went, they will then find their best friend lying on the ground with stab wounds. There will be a high angle shot of Alice, Billie and Kirsty all around Emma crying and frantically trying to call the emergency services. As this is happening the shot will fade to black and a title sequence will start, at the end there will be a black screen that will say 'one year later...' this will then fade back into the next year where the Billie, Kirsty and Alice will be walking back to where their best friend died, the killer has still not been found, they want to lay down some flowers in respect and memory of Emma. As the three girls decide to walk away from the area all of their phones go off and they have all received a text from an unknown number that says the same thing 'I know who it was', this frightens the girls but then they decide that it is probably just someone from college trying to mess with them. Rather than getting too worried the girls decide it is better to just ignore it and they all continue with their journey home.

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Treatment: Full Film

Title: Unlucky For Some

Duration: 90mins

Audience: Young adults aged 15-25. The interests of this age group are going to gigs, the cinema and spending time with friends. They often prefer watching horror and thriller because they are thrill seekers that enjoy being scared.

Certificate: 15

Distributor: Warner Brothers

Synopsis: Four best friends, Emma, Alice, Kirsty and Billie are walking home from college on a cold winter night, they are walking along laughing when they get a text ‘im always watching’, they just ignore it and laugh it off to continue with their walk home. When they leave Emma to walk the opposite way to her house the other three girls hear a loud scream. The three girls run back around the corner where they find their best friends lying on the ground with stab wounds, there is no sight of any other person just them and Emma. The three girls are all kneeling around their friend in tears, panicking and trying to call the emergency services. The film fast forwards to a year later, the killer of their best friend has still not been found. The three girls decide to go to the area where Emma died to remember their best friend and lay down some flowers in memory of her. When the girls decide to walk away and go home all of their phones receive a text at the same time with a text that is from an unknown number, they all get the same text that says 'I know who it was'. They decide to ignore it thinking it would be someone from college trying to mess with them, and carry on with their journeys home.
Over the course of the next few weeks the three girls receive many texts from the unknown number, some the same for them all and some different. They begin to become frightened and worried that someone may actually be out to get them just like they were out to get Emma. They think about calling the police but ultimately decide not to because they still are unsure on if it is just someone playing a prank on them. The day after they receive a text that says 'it was me, I killed Emma', they decide to call the police as they want to know who did this to their best friend, they were terrified.

After almost another year of fear, worry and upset, the police finally managed to track down the number the texts were coming from and the location of the mobile phone, this made the girls even more worried but also happy that they were finally going to find out who did this to their best friend. The three girls and the police went to find the location the phone was at. The location was hours away, the girls just wanted to know who murdered their best friend. They finally got to the location of the phone, there was nobody there just a mobile phone. The police looked on the phone and the only thing that was on there were messages sent to the girls and a picture of Emma, Alice, Kirsty and Billie walking home from college just minutes before Emma's life was taken, this photograph had a caption saying 'it is not over yet'. 

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