The first image shows which genre people tend to like:
The next image shows which opening majority of people like:
The final graph shows which techniques an audience would like to find being used in a psychological thriller:
Using the research I did on what an audience looks for and enjoy in particular when it comes to watching a film, or a psychological thriller, I have found it easier to see which elements would be benefitial to include in my opening sequence. I see, from the second graph that more people enjoy a symbolic opening to a thriller in comparison to a narrative one, which is something me and my group can work on.
Psychological thrillers, or just thrillers in general, often place an innocent victim (an average, responsible person) into a strange, life-threatening or terrorizing situation, in a case of mistaken identity, misidentification or wrongful accusation.
Also, directors tend to use woman who are often subject to misogynistic abuse, threatening humiliation, or murder. They would then explore the darker sides of human nature through the situation, including sexuality and voyeurism, guilt and punishment, or paranoia and obsession. They let the viewer know that some horrible event would happen - creating unbearable suspense while viewers waited for the inevitable.
This genre often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre in addition to the typical traits of the thriller genre. Occasionally this genre will border into the also wide-ranging horror genre. The Elements that are related to the mind or processes of the mind; they are mental rather than physical in nature.
Here is an example of the beginning of a synopsis for a psychological thriller I found on the internet: It’s 2008 in a beachfront Mediterranean home overlooking the bay in Laguna Beach, California. Under the Southern California sun, wealthy widow and art collector Paloma Zubiondo believes she is safe and protected. She hides in philanthropy and discipline, surrounded by rare books and the Spanish Colonial art collection she has been carefully building for years. The phone rings in Paloma’s fortress and everything changes.
This first name that springs to mind when thinking about psychological thrillers is the late Alfred Hitchcock. He was a British film director and producer, and was regarded as the master of thrillers
After becoming a success in England, Alfred decided to move to America to broaden his horizons and it was over the length of over half a century that he gained a reputation for himself as a for himself a distinctive and recognisable director. He carefully framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative film editing.
The end of Hitchcock's films often have twist endings and thrilling plots including violence, murder, and crime. On the other hand, he also made many movies that were meant only to serve extremely complicated psychological examinations of the characters. Hitchcock's films also borrow many themes from psychoanalysis and feature strong sexual undertones Through his distinct way of film-making, he became a cultural icon.
"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 Daily Telegraph
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American director, who also has a distinctive style, which has been dubbed "lynchian” He is also a television director, visual artist, musician, occasional actor, and is renowned for his surrealist films. The violence he incorporates into his films tend to disturb, offend or mystify" their audiences, making them all the more effective.
In the course of his career, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for best director and a nomination for best screenplay as well as many other awards in various countries.
One of the key themes that they noted was the usage of dreams and dreamlike imagery within his works, something they related to the "surrealist ethos" of relying "on the subconscious to provide visual drive".
Lynch also tends to feature his leading female actors in multiple or "split" roles, so that many of his female characters have multiple, fractured identities.
Screaming is used in some situations depending on what type of thriller it is. For a psychological thriller, it is not used too often but may happen sometimes.
Dark creepy music, with dramatic changes in dynamics and pace to create suspense and make people feel uneasy.
There is often a crow crowing, which may foreshadow an up coming death/ deaths.
In an action/thriller film, there is normally deep droning music to create suspense, and also there is normally and gradual build up of something about to happen e,g. if a train was about to come the sound of the train wouldn’t just start straight away, the sound of it would start very faintly and gradually get louder.
Mainly in horror/thriller films, if the killer does speak, it tends to be a very deep low voice, with a constant creepy, angry tone mixed into it, to make the audience uneasy and more scared.
In any thriller or sub-genre related to thriller films, the music being used would usually be deep, eerie and have a droning effect to it or, it would be a song being used which would have been taken from a rock or heavy metal band, loads of speedy guitar solo’s to match the action and make the scene more interesting for the audience.
For example, here are some infamous pieces of music associated with sub-genre's of thrillers:
After researching Psychological thrillers, I have found that it is a popular sub-genre of the thriller's, horror's and mysteries, however, it is more reliant on the characters mental state rather than their physical attributes. A crucial element of a psychological thriller is suspense. This can be created by the characters and their actions, which could either be done by playing deceptive mind games or them trying to mentally destroy each other. Sometimes the suspense comes from within one character who is resolving conflicts within their own mind, and is usually done so that the character can understand something that has happened to them.
There is a long history behind thrillers, nearly as long as cinema itself and the first thriller directors took a few techniques from a hugely popular serial literature of the time.
One of the earliest thrillers was Harold Lloyd's comic 'Safety Last' (1923), which was about an all american boy performing a daredevil stunt on the side of a skyscraper. Another of the first thrillers was the haunting German film M (1931) directed by the great Fritz Lang, which was about a criminal deviant - a child killer. The film's story was based on the life of serial killer Peter Kurten (known as the 'Vampire of Dusseldorf').
No list of suspense or thriller films can be complete without mention of English film-maker/director Alfred Hitchcock. He helped to shape the modern-day thriller genre, beginning with his early silent film The Lodger (1926), a suspenseful Jack-the-Ripper story, followed by his next thriller Blackmail (1929), his first sound film (but also released in a silent version).
Three common techniques used in psychological thrillers are a stream of consciousness in which word usage, descriptions, or visuals are used to describe an individuals, first-person narrative which is in first person and is narrated by one or more of the characters, and finally back-story, which is the the history behind the character to help the audience understand their motivations and perceptions more.
Psychological thrillers are slightly more challenging than most mainstream movies. This may be because they often reverse the traditional 'thriller' balance of plot and character. A standard thriller emphasises plot; psychlogical thrillers however, emphasise character equally or more. Also, they are often analysed from a pschological point of view.
The main theme of 'Identity' involves mistaken identity, stolen identity, dual identity, doppelgangers, confused identity and amnesia. The theme of 'Perception and Reality' can give us an insight of the narrative from the perspective of mor than one characters. A character having a different perspective of what is and what isn't real compared to the norm is often used to establish in the film. These are all sub conventions of a psychological thriller, some more are:
Clever and unusual plots making the audience think in depth, often back to front by using flashbacks avoiding the typical structure of films. (Such as action) Twists used at the end to make the audience doubt themselves
often end on a cliffhanger , not always a resolution
question reality
unusual heros, different from most films where hero is stereotypically big, strong, handsome etc..
unusual dark themes
focus on one psychological dimension
typical narrative structure not used
parallel edits, use of flashbacks
characters in conflict with their own mind due to psychologically related problems/handicaps
2 characters preying on each others minds
Danger is on a mental level rather than physical
Mysterious
This particular sub-genre have emerged and evolved over the past years, in many different types of media including, film, literature, radio and books. Although these types of media are different, there has been a consistent trend of conventions used within them. For example:
The Mind- Which is where you will discover a persons personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. This is often used to help characters reach understandings about themselves that they must first battle with their own mind and create a narrative conflict to do so.
Purpose or Existence- This is when a character/characters try to discover the reason for their existence, which is often shown and resolved through the narrative's conflict.
Reality – The quality of being real. When the characters try to determine what is true and what isn't, within the narrative.
Perception – An unreliable narrator is often used to alter the interpretation of the world around them through senses. They sometimes misperceive characters.
Identity – This is when the characters are confused about who they are and try to discover their true identity.
Death – Characters often either fear or have a fascination with death in this genre, however, it is less gorey and more psychological.
This is another one of the short films that although, wasn't my favourite, had an effective way of keeping the main point of the 'initiation' a mystery until the end of the clip. There is a nervous and uncomfortable uncertainty created by the film makers, which is typical in the given situation, however, the comedic twist at the end is a light hearted and unexpected end to the clip.
In my opening sequence, the element of uncertainty will be highly important, because I want to create a certain atmosphere without giving too much of the story away, yet enough to keep an audience wanting to see more. The dress sense of the characters, and also the build, indicate that they are an elite group, also reminding the audience of a dangerous, mafia type gang. You wouldn't think that they would be doing something as innocent as flower pressing. Also, the voice of the main character himself, and the things he says like 'the first time is always the hardest' whilst putting gloves on are often elements found in murder films.
The close up of props that are used can be incorporated in my opening sequence, because props often create more tension because the audience will not know why or what they are there for.
Out of the 12 short films we watched, I had a few favourites, including '2.20' and 'Inanimate', but I also enjoyed 'Saloon', a clip showing indian men receiving different treatments in a hair salon.
What I found particularly interesting about this short film was that it portrayed the usual conventions of a salon, but using a play on words for the title, they made a casual trip to the barbers for an indian man seem more like an experience. The title 'Saloon', which is also the name of the barber's, reminds an audience of cowboys, where there is a serious atmosphere. It is interesting to see how a simple trip to a barber in india, which has all of the usual grooming e.g. hair cutting and shaving, is made to feel more manly than it really is, when usually, activities such as going to a salon, are associated with women.
The music used is the short film is continuous, and the male voice along with the fast paced music goes with the action happening in the salon. It is a slightly fast paced clip, which uses a lot of still shots, ranging from medium shots to close ups. These are used to show what different men around the salon are doing. The men seem very engrossed in trying to look their best, not talking to each other but getting on with things. Also, the props used are not hi-tech equipment we would find in salons today, but a traditional indian way of doing things is shown, which matches the context. For example, a brush is used to apply the shaving cream and spread it around the men's face.
Parts of this short film that I may incorporate in my opening sequence are the use of music used to create a certain atmosphere, the weird, quiet, out of the box meaning behind what is actually being done, and the different camera angles used to make the clip more interesting to watch visually.
Taking into account that the opening sequence must not give to much information away but essentially 'set the scene', we have formed an idea based on our chosen genre of film; a thriller. Thriller's usually contain a lot of flash imagery, a key substance in our opening.
We are going to start our sequence by showing a quick shot of a detatched, old looking house, in what looks like the middle of nowhere, followed by a P.O.V shot. The P.O.V shot will follow our lead male character, a psychopath, creeping down a narrow hallway with a ajar door at the end of it, only to end with him hearing door bang behind him and turn around. There will be heavy breathing and suspenseful music in the background; a way to engage the audience into feeling like they are there themselves. The sequence will include 6 flashbacks, one showing the psychopath cutting a doll's hair, and then doing the same to a real girl.
None of the characters features will be shown, as we want to focus the attention on their actions rather than the characters themselves. We may use a split screen, showing the doll and the girl on either side, having the male character first cutting their hair, then burning them, then throwing acid at them, however, this is yet to be decided upon.
As the flashbacks happen, the titles will be also appear on screen, left long enough for the name to be read, then changed again. The feeling of the opening sequence should leave the audience slightly uncomfortable, whislt wanting to know more because of the way it ends.
If our opening sequence was to be a full length feature film then it would have to include a full plot, including an opening, middle, and ending. After much discussion, my group and I have decided that our film would have been about a teenage girl named Andrea, aged 15, who had been abducted whilst she was walking home from school, alone.
The story would follow on to show how she was then taken to her kidnappers house in a busy street in coventry. The house looked very average, but was in fact sound insulated and used a torture dungeon. He took Andrea there to be tortured and raped, whilst she had no clue as to where she was or why. The anonymous man would frequently brand Andrea with red hot metal, burn her with acidic substances, and also cut locks of her hair off and store them in jars *The face of the man is never to be shown, so that the audience can feel the same uncomfortable and terrifying uneasiness that the girl would*
After many failed attempts, she finally grasps a chance to escape, with the culprit who had been putting her through so much turmoil, hot on her heels. He finds her, but grabbing anything in her sight, she reaches for something lethal; a sharp rock, and ends up killing the man. In shock, she turns his body over so she doesn't have to see his face, and her eyes well up with tears as she ceases to see locks of her hair falling out of his pockets.
Help arrives, and after several trials, she is not charged with the mans murder, however, due to all of the trauma, Andrea ends up in a mental asylum, not ever being able to come to terms with what had happened to her. The film would end portraying the girl as a paranoid adult, living an uneasy, unhappy life, concluding in her finally giving up and brutally killing herself in the same way as she believed her killer would have. First cutting her hair off completely, then branding herself with her killers initials, before finally walking into a blazing fire, where the film will end as the audience watch her literally walk into her own death.
The film would be more of a psychological thriller rather than a horror, as the plot is less about the kidnapper himself, but more about the effect he has on his victim and how it oozes into every inch of her nature, driving her to her own death.
