Research:Editing

what is editing and why its important

Editing simply means selecting scenes which you would like the show in your film. When editing, filmmakers can add some fictional characters in the scene, change the image quality, add text or even remove a scene. 

types of edits
 

straight cut: a straight cut is when the camera moves from one shot to another without causing confusion. this is mostly done during a face to face conversation between two characters or when there is a change of scenes. during horror or thriller there are usually straight cuts which are done at a fast pace to either build tension, surprise or shock the audience.

fade to black: people who constantly watch action thriller or horror movies will notice that after a scene which built tension in the audience,  it is mostly followed by a black screen known as "fade to black", which is used to calm the audience after experiencing an horrifying scene. leaves audience confused


wipe cut: a wipe cut is the idea of a shot replacing another with the transition being visible the audience. this is done by bring the new shot from the right side of the screen which is mostly seen a vertical line passing through while removing and replacing the precedent scene.


dissolve: when two images blends together to form one image, this is know as dissolve. this technique was well used in the movie "psycho" where the antagonist's face dissolved almost showing his skull, which create a bit of fear to the audience as his face was distorted, and which also connotes his death. 


reaction shot: this shot shows the character's reaction to an occurring circumstance in the film. an example of a reaction shot is again in the movie "psycho", where there were several jump cut  the female victim's reaction from her facial expression which indicated that she is
frightened of who she was seeing in front of her; and another reaction from her was trying to protect herself by raising her hand up to stop the antagonist from stabbing her.


Montage: Montage is the process of editing a film by removing or adding a scene which may be meaningless or symbolic. The layout of comics are good representation of montage because it shows  step by step what is happening and also be seen as the passage of time.

180 degree rule: the 180 degree rule allows the  viewer to distinguish characters or objects  which are on the their right and left side. the camera should always stay on one side of the imaginary line to not confuse the user. the image bellow is an of what happens when the 180 degree rule isn't followed. the first three images on the side shows the audience that the character In red is located on the right side and the one in blue on the left side, but once camera crossed the imaginary line, the characters became on opposite sides.

shot reverse shot: this type of shot is mostly used during a conversation between characters. shot reverse shot will show characters in opposite directions, which will make the audience think that they are talking one another or looking at an object opposite them. this is clarified  by the use of the over the shoulder shot which shows a character on the opposite direction from another character's shoulder or a medium shot of a character looking at a symbolic object in the film, with the 180 degree rule applied. 

jump cut: a jump cut is a transition from one scene to another but due to it being an extreme camera movement it is easily seen by the eye. A jump cut occurs in a scene showing different types of camera shot of a character or object with changes in every new camera shot.




Trailers and use of edits:Trailers are one of the main things which sells a new film once released, so therefore it has to be well edited so that it can catch the attention of the audience from the first sight. one of the best thriller trailer would have to be from the movie "Buried", which built tension and made the audience anxious through fast pace shots of a man buried alive in a coffin. this made the audience curious in finding out the ending, so they would go and watch in the cinema.


conclusion: in my thriller I would mostly use fade to black, dissolve and reaction shot. because they are conventional in thriller and would be suitable for my sub genre in which I want to keep my audience at the edge of their seat.

Research: questionnaire

Questionnaire

What is the importance of primary research?

Primary research are informations collected through questionnaires, surveys, internet forums or interviews, this allows the researcher to get know their target audience better. the primary information i collected allowed me to  understand who my target audience are and what are their preferences, i now know who would watch my thriller, why and how it would impact them and what i should include to make it even better. so the importance of primary research is that it gives you broad understanding of your target audience through the information gathered and gives you an idea of what would be suitable for them.
Who did you ask why?

for my questionnaire i asked 30 people in total, 15 males and 15 females aged 12 and above. I tried to get different views from different age groups so that i can make a good judgement of what genre, theme and audience i want my thriller to be for and to get the right response.

Example of your questionnaire uploaded

conclusion

The research has helped me with useful information about my target audience and on deciding what sub genre, theme, iconography and characters i should include to meet their expectation.

Research: narrative themes- Miss Begum

Narrative themes

What are themes? Why are they important to identify for the audience?
Themes can be seen as subject which recurs in a movie, this could either death, greed, violence or money. They are important because they give the audience an insight of what to expect and makes clear of what is happening in a scene and why.

Themes and genre- discuss how themes are dependent on genres and why
each genres have themes which themes which are expected from it, and those themes can only be well demonstrated through that particular genre. for example you would not expect a theme of supernatural in a romantic comedy because it does not suit the genre, so therefore themes depend on genres in order to make sense to the audience.

common themes in thrillers and why(examples)
some common themes of thrillers are:

• death
• violence 
• vengeance 
• mystery
• obsession  
• trust 
• crime 
• love 
• money
• friendship
• greed 

These are common thriller themes because there is always tension, suspense and plot twist in the film just like the audience anticipated.

impact of themes on audiences
People who can relate to the theme in a film would not be really be impacted but will only learn and anticipate the outcome, whereas others who may be sensitive will more engaged and easily influenced.
conclusion
i would use the theme of crime and mystery in my thriller because i would like to engage the audience as much i can with a few puzzling scenes to get them thinking and trying to predict the ending through their judgement according to what is happening in the film.

Research: Narrative theory

What is narrative and why is it important to audience?
Narrative is telling a story to the audience through structured elements such as characters who act in a certain way according to the story line or object that are symbolic and creates meaning in the story. Narrative is important to the audience because it gives them an understanding of the story.


Creating meaning through text

Genre: elements such as lighting, color, and sound in a movie can allow the audience to identify the genre of a movie. If the genre was thriller, you would expect the movie to have low-key lighting which creates a dark mood, eerie sounds to frighten the audience or make them feel uncomfortable.


Characters: characters can be identified through facial expression, relationship, physic, body language or their appearance in the film. Characters are the most important elements in the film as they are the one telling the story, engaging and creating a connection with the audience. The above factor allows the audience to make assumption of the role of the characters even when it has not been specified in film.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
Structure: every movie follows a structure in oder to get their message across to the audience. there should be a clear order of event and its cause, with a suitable setting which corresponds to the story line as well as the genre of the film. characters should be able to create connections or relate to audience in order to get the right response such thrill, fear or sadness from the audience.



Propp: propp's theory of narrative is divided into three parts which he believe are key when directing a film. The first part of his theory is equilibrium, which means that everything needs to be calm or peaceful at the start of the film. It is then followed by disequilibrium which is when the villain of the film is introduced and there a disruption. The last part is known as new equilibrium. This is when the villain is unmasked, the hero is recognised.


Todorov: todorov is the second theorist who's theory is similar to prop's but with a few added idea of how a film should be narrated. his theory starts with equilibrium when everything is calm in a film, then there is a disruption caused by the villain, followed by an attempt of recognition and repairing the situation but he/she is denied and a last return or restoration which is also a new equilibrium.


Aristotle: Aristotle believes in evoking emotion through themes, in other word he values more how the audience feels and react when watching a movie.


Barthes: Barthes is the last theorist who I would say is more unique because looks at iconography and culture and how it can be symbolic. His theory consists of symbolic-connotation, semic- denotation and culture.


Narrative structure thrillers tend to take: in my opinion most thrillers follows propp, todorov and aristotle theory because, the structure of their theory tends to create the atmosphere which is essential in a thriller. in term of structure, propps and todorov's narrative theory would be the most common one used in almost every classic thrillers. thrillers would usually start with an equilibrium where the hero or the villain haven't been introduced to the audience, and this is done to engage the audience by making them want to guess the roles of characters where they will become attentive to small details such as facial expression, body language or relationship between characters. it's then followed up by a disruption or disequilibrium which where things starts to go wrong and the characters roles are specified and an emotional attachment between the characters and the viewer is created, where the audience would start to feel the same way as the character certain circumstances and would not want any harm to come to them. the movie is ended with a new equilibrium or as i like to say a new beginning where everything is back to a normal state.


Conclusion
in my thriller i would be using aristotle and Barthes theory because i would like to create a connection between the audience and the main character who i would say is would be seen as an protagonist and antagonist due to his confusing acts which tends to scare the audience but also makes the audience feel sympathetic toward him. i also want to meaning, tension and drama through character and iconography.

Research: What is a Thriller? - Miss B

What are genres?

genres are classification of any type or form of art into a category. for example the movie "se7en" will be classify as a thriller or to be more precise a psychological thriller because the main story is centred upon a mental antagonist who murders his victims by the sins they have committed another example for genres is the book "Romeo and Juliet" which is categorised in tragedy literature genre.

What is the thriller genre?

a thriller is a type of genre that can either be a film or book that which gives the audience a suspense feeling as  well as keeping them on the edge of their seat with excitement and built tension because they may know more than the characters and expect something bad to happen during the film. most thrillers tends to have a lot of red herrings making the audience believe they know plot what will happen next in the film. but  in a blink of an eye there will always be a sudden plot twist creating suspense making it insupportable of the audience.

Examples of credible thriller films:

• Psycho (1960) a horror-thriller 
• the usual suspect (1995)
• the third man (1949)
• reservoir dogs (1992)
• se7en (1995)
• the french connection (1971)
• shutter island (2010)

this are examples of thriller movies because each of them contains
Sub-genres of thrillers:
A sub-genre gives precise description of each genre category. every genres are broken down into small sub-genres, for example a main film genre is could be a "thriller", the genre itself does not given enough information about a film so therefore there are sub-genres such action thriller, psychological thriller, sci-fi thriller and religious thriller. the sub-genres let know what to expect when watching the film.
Some examples of sub-genres in thriller are as follows:

• Crime Thriller
• Action Thriller
• psychological thriller 
• sci-fi thriller
• religious thriller 
• conspiracy thriller
• Eco-thriller
• forensic thriller
• legal thriller
• medical thriller
• political thriller
• supernatural thriller 

What are the common conventions of thrillers?
Thrillers needs to follow conventions in order to get the right response from the audience. an example of a thriller conventions is eerie sounds. eerie sounds is a an unpleasant type of sound which makes the audience feel frightened or disturbed, and its also used to build tension during a movie. another convention of thriller is exotic location. most thriller movies would be set in the wood which is seen as a mysterious and dangerous place holding a lot of surprises for audience.


Some examples of conventions:

• A psychotic character
• Low-key lighting
• Eerie sound
• mirrors
• obtrusive editing 
• flashbacks
• exotic locations
• hero, heroine and villain

Common thriller themes:

• death
• crime
• violence
• murder

Audience response to thrillers:












Conclude: