The name of our thriller is.....

The name of our thriller is COUNTERPLAY, the dictionary definition of Counterplay is

A threat or offensive position in chess intended to counter an opponent's advantage in another part of the board.

Counterplay is also a synonym for avenging. This is effective to the audience as it makes them wonder about what might happen after the opening sequence and how the revenge might take place. Counter play suggests that something will be retaliated, it also makes the audience think about whether it will be positive or negative and who it might involve.

Revenge also connotes that something will happen to the antagonist. That revenge will be taken against him for what you see in the first opening two minutes of our thriller.

 The word play connotes a game which could be considered as fun, but it also gives it a macabre menacing feel to it because life, and what you see in our thriller, is not a game.

The word ‘play’ in the title is also ironic, this is because its suggesting a game, however, as it is a thriller the audience will know that the word is juxtaposed as the film is dark rather than fun like a game. On the other hand the revenge at the end of the film could be seen as a reward which you usually get at the end of game.

The fact that it has cross cuts to a game of chess links to the name because it is  a chess move and the cross cuts will create tension.                                                                                                                                                                                This was decided as a whole group.

 

Explanation of planning of our Thriller opening

Explanation of planning

We had a list of all of the tasks we would need to complete and then shared them out between us. Most of them we decided to complete as a group so that we would all have input and a decision in the opening of our video. The tasks we did individually we made sure we conferred with each other and sometimes other members of our class to ask them what fonts they liked and whether they would come and see our film.

The tasks completed individually were

Location and Mise en scene- Ali Hunt

Detailed mind map of ideas and storyboard- Amy Roberts

Costume planning- Alice Heffer

The rest of the task were mainly completed as a group or we each did a part and then it was checked by someone else and they made amendments until we were all happy with how they looked and sounded.

 

Plot Synopsis of our Thriller opening scene

Plot synopsis

Our film will start with a young teenage girl leaving a party and being followed down a dark alley by an slightly older suspicous looking man. We will have cross cuts to create tension of men playing chess in a dark room. When the male catches up with her he abuses her and when she returns home to her family she breaks down and tells her father about what happened and then he becomes the protagonist and hunts down the antagonist, the young girl’s abuser, to get revenge for what he did to his daughter.

This was done as a whole group.

How is sound used to create tension in Thrillers?

Sound is often used to create tension in thriller films, the film I will be analysing the sound from is the opening clip to Sin city and how it creates tension and raises suspense.
The use of the close up shot of the gun (2 minutes 18) and the diegetic sound of the gunshot establishes the genre because they are both common features of film noir and crime thrillers. The use of the gun also supports the Mise en scene and mood of film noirs and thrillers. A gun can be seen to symbolise justice and victory or could symbolise war and unrest.

This also links to the use of pathetic fallacy and the diegetic sound of the rain. It foreshadows danger and the rain and diegetic thunder set a depressing and dark tone and mood which are common features of film noir and compliment the genre. The non-diegetic sound of the dripping drainpipe and the wind create a feeling of dread and doom and make the audience tense and anxious to see what is going to happen. This successfully creates tension because dripping water is an uneasy sound and will put the audience on edge.

The whispering of the characters sets an uneasy tone because they are alone on a rooftop so why would they need to be whispering? It creates tension because the audience are listening in closer because they want to know what it going to happen. This is effective at drawing the audience in and placing them on tenterhooks because they are unsure of what is going to happen, and they may feel like they don't want to know but at the same time they're listening closer which makes them tense which is the idea of a thriller opening.

The non-diegetic use of smooth jazz (starting at 13 seconds) as the background track reinforces the film noir genre. The non-diegetic sound of the birds seems a little out of place because they are on a dark rooftop in the middle of a city at night. They show they’re in a city by the landscape above the rooftop they are standing on but they also show it with the use of the non-diegetic sound of the cars which suggest traffic (4 seconds) on the ground below. It also sets a sense of claustrophobia because it suggests they are trapped in a city, the audio code helps to set the scene and genre and create a sense of claustrophobia and tension.

 Tension is also created with the sound of the footsteps (15 seconds) at the start of the scene because we don’t know who is approaching on the rooftop as his face is half hidden in shadow, it creates a sense of mystery and secrecy which again is typical of a film noir.

The dialogue is male dominated and he seems to have an emotionless tone, (43 seconds) even after he’s killed her (2 minutes 22) he doesn’t seem to show any emotion which suggests he could be the antihero because we know nothing about him except from the fact he has just killed a woman on a rooftop in the middle of a city on a dark night. The characters are established a little through their dialogue. The male dominance is also shown with the male character narrating over the top of the scene which is normally used to show a characters feelings or emotions but in this case his tone is blank and he just narrates the events and tells us how he is feeling but with little to no sentiment in his voice.

Analysing the sound from this opening clip has allowed me to study a successful audio code and learn effective methods of creating tension and raising suspense, all of these I will need to do in my thriller opening so studying this clip has allowed me to look at techniques I could use in my own thriller opening.

How are Motifs used in Thriller films?

A motif is a dominant or recurring idea or theme.

There are 3 main motifs or themes in the thriller Inception.

The first motif and reoccurring theme in Inception is that of the totems. The characters use totems to allow them to know if they are in a dream world or whether they are in reality, such as the totem of the main characters wife. Her totem is a spinning top and if she spins it and it doesn't fall over then she would know she was in a dream, if it fell over while spinning then she would know she was in reality. The spinning top could be seen as a metaphor for reality and that when it doesn't fall over it makes reality questionable. This is a really effective motif because personally it intrigued me into the film and even made me question my own reality a few times.



Another reoccurring motif in inception is "the kick music" the song is A slow down version of Edith Piaf’s song Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien the English translation of this song title it "I don't regret anything" This is could be seen as antithesis because, the main character, Cobb spends most of the film regretting the implantation  of an idea in his wife's mind(inception) and the constant motif of the music which is saying "I regret nothing" reminds him of what he did and could be there to show the inner turmoil he is feeling. Another thing that Cobb regrets is not calling out to his children before he was forced to become a fugitive and this is shown as another thing he is regretting.

  Another motif in Inception is the open window, out of which Cobb watched his wife commit suicide on the night of their anniversary.  This window is shown in the third layer of the dream sequence and it shows that Cobb is slowly loosing his mind like his wife lost hers. it could also be down to the fact that he was the one who planted the idea in her head that her reality wasn't real and caused her to question everything and kill herself to go back to her children and what she believed would be reality.     Each of these motifs link to the main theme of Inception which is questioning reality and making the watcher wonder if what they know is actually real.


Motifs are often small little things in films that some audiences may not notice unless they are actually looking for them. Analysing this film and the motifs within have allowed me to think about the possibility of using a motif in the opening of my thriller film because I have seen how effective they can be.

Analysis of Thriller title sequences and fonts

American Horror Story Murder House title sequence


American Horror Story Murder House title sequence



The 2 openings I have chosen to analyse are American Horror Story Murder house (season one) and  the film Se7en. They are similar in many aspects of which I will explore below.

In both of the opening titles the fonts are distinct and unique in their own ways, both texts are overlaid over the clips which makes it the main focus of the clips.

The font in Se7en is very jagged and this connotes that it has been scratched into the screen with a knife or a sharp object. which links to the genre of psychological thriller and when it cuts and flickers it creates an air of suspense amongst the audience and this establishes a dark tone and mood.
 
The font of American Horror Story is bold and in capitals and overlaid which suggests they want you to be concentrating on the actors, directors and crew members names rather than the sequence going on behind, which I must say is rather creepy and strange. As with the opening to Se7en the names flicker and cut around which establishes the genre of a psychological thriller and sets a dark sombre mood.
 


The jagged font used in se7en suggest the genre. It suggests that it's going to be a thriller and the jagged font with the way it cuts and jumps around suggest it's going to be psychological.

Both opening sequences have rather disturbing scenes going on behind their texts, but because the text is overlaid you can tell they want you to read the texts.

I think that the way when the names of the cast and crew come up in the American Horror story opening and the screen behind is just black is effective because of the contrast of the white text against the black background because it could connote the difference between good and evil with the white text symbolising the good, but the way it flickers and cuts around makes it more sinister than that.

Both fonts are entirely unique and not used in any other show or film and have been specially crafted for their specific genre and both set a dark tone for their films with the bold white of the American Horror Story, white is often a symbol of purity and safety. For anyone who has seen American Horror Story they will know that their is nothing safe and pure about the Murder house they're living in, this colour could be used to shock the audience or it could be so that the text can be read against the dark background clips. 

Studying these fonts and their different connotations have made me consider the sort of font I will use in my thriller opening, different fonts create a different feel to different films and must be considered carefully because they could give off the wrong idea and ruin the aesthetic of your film.