The Thrill of it all

We were given a hand out at the start of our research on thrillers called "the thrill of it all" which was a starter in our continuous research on thrillers. After reading the sheet I highlighted some key points which I thought I would add to our blog:

1. The first important point was a quote from Alfred Hitchcock. He once said "There's no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it".

This relates directly to our thriller openings, there is nothing scary about just blood and screaming. What we really need to do is to work out a way of indicating what is going to happen so you leave the audience on the edge of they're seat waiting for it to happen like a "ticking bomb".

2. Another point is that in every thriller film there is only certain amount of time you can sustain being stressed for so in every thriller film there is always some light relief, a comic one liner or something to lighten the mood.

I'm not sure if this is particularly relevant as we are only doing a short opening which will be hopefully full of tension and this is talking about a whole movie. Yet its good to know that thrillers so have brief moments of comic relief that gives the audience a brief chance to relax.

3. Characters you like and want the best for are put in difficult, uncomfortable and potentially life threatening situations. For example in The eye, it is set on a plane, no one as at there most relaxed when the are on a flight and most people do feel slightly anxious "does anyone like sitting next to a stranger on the plane?" points out Wes Craven.

So placing the hero or heroine (person you are rooting for to survive) in an uncomfortable place where it is common to feel anxiety. Some ideas could be; a lift, empty street, empty house, alternatively a crowed place filled with people but no one recognizable.

4. Thrillers is closely related to the horror genre although thrillers are more to create tension and horrors are just purely to gross out. Although horrors do make you jumpy and keep you on the edge of your seat. As that is what we are trying to achieve, so we could put in a few horror camera techniques e.g. shooting from behind, bring the camera from far to close really quick, making the camera which makes you jump.

5. Why would someone want to work in the thriller genre? "because beyond an emotional response, I want to get a physical one. Tension while watching and then utter exhaustion afterwards. It is as simple as that." This was a statement by Park-Chan-wook (highly acclaimed Korean director).

This is our objective, to make people nervous, tense, on the edge of their seat and be affected physically by what they see on screen.

This sheet was provided in class it was photocopied from a statement written by Alan Jones.