Highest rated thrillers on Rotten Tomatoes

1.) Citizen Kane
2.) The Third Man
3.) Laura
4.) Gravity
5.) Repulsion
6.) North By Northwest
7.) Rear Window
8.) The Maltese Falcon
9.) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
10.) Rashomon

The majority of the films on this list are pre-1950's classics. This works in my favour as it would be easier to be inspired by their techniques as most were made on a limited budget. Also I find the suspense in classic thriller movies to be more effective, in turn this makes making my thriller easier as I can more efficiently produce a higher quality thriller at the end of production.

Highest rated thrillers on IMDb

1.) Pulp Fiction
2.) Drishyam
3.) 1
4.) Inception
5.) The Zohar
6.) Waar
7.) Na Maloom Afraad
8.) Baby
9.) Usual Suspects
10.) Se7en

I agree mostly with this list, however most of them I have not watched, specifically 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Yet from the ones I have watched I can implement features from them that define them as thrillers, this will in turn make my opening sequence more a thriller so I can hit the mark criteria accurately.

My 4 favourite thriller films of all time

I am going to list 4 of my all time favourite thriller movies and explain how I am going to incorporate parts of them films into my own.

1.) Pulp Fiction - I really enjoy the comical elements in Pulp Fiction, however I am not going to include any in mine as I am not going down that specific path.
2.) Inception - I really like the confusion caused by Inception, I believe it keeps the audience interested. I have implemented the mysterious object in her hand to replicate this.
3.) Se7en - Se7en has a lot of elements that I wished to include into my opening sequence however due to budget issues and lack of a professional actor this was impossible. However I based the tone of my thriller heavily upon this.
4.) The Usual Suspects - I knew from the beginning that it would be hard to include any features of this film into mine, the acting is incredible and the twist at the end really surprised me during my first viewing.

Different sub genres of thrillers

Common sub genres are psychological thrillers, crime thrillers, erotic thrillers and mystery thrillers.
Another common sub genre of thriller is the spy genre which deals with fictional espionage. 
Alfred Hitchcock created some of the most iconic thriller movies to date and he was a bug influence on the way thrillers are made today.
The different genres of horror often overlap with the thriller genre. 
Thrillers tend to be psychological, threatening, mysterious and at times involve larger-scale situations such as espionage and terrorism.

Thriller Research - Conventions of a Thriller

Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewers mood, giving them a sense of dread and anticipation as they do not know what will happen to the protagonist next.
A thriller provides a sudden rush of excitement that drives the main narrative through to the end.
I believe this knowledge will help me improve my short film as I know I need to create tension in order to progress the story and to ensure the viewer does not get bored watching.

11/02/2015 Double Lesson Progress

In today's double lesson I have been improving and altering my individual questions for my evaluation. I have made significant progress however it is not perfect at the moment but I still have to the 14th of March until the final deadline. I strongly believe I have the time and perseverance to completely dedicate myself to completely everything within the given time and achieving a good grade.

Q7.) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

There have been several things I have learnt since working on the preliminary task, one of which is how to correctly edit transitions. For the preliminary task we used a basic fade in/fade out which subtly blends one shot into the next, however this is very basic and easy to do, so for my thriller opening I decided to try something new.

This is my timeline in Sony Vegas, here we can see that my opening sequence timeline is a lot more complex than the one for my preliminary task.

Hence, using Sony Vegas, I explored different features to gain a better understanding of how to transition shots. I discovered an effective transition that does not seem out of place. Little things such as this transforms an otherwise average piece of film into a completely new and interesting film.

Q6.) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have answered this question in the form of audio over images using Sony Vegas.

Q4.) Who would be the audience for your media product? DRAFT

For this question I am going to film myself talking as the director about who may watch my film and what type of person will enjoy it most.

‘Who watches thrillers? Who might watch your film? Try to come up with demographic descriptions of your audience. Can you find facts and figures about relevant audiences?’

This is quite a difficult question to answer, you may watch a thriller movie because you feel that your own life is too uneventful to fulfil your high octane needs, so you may feel the need to get deeply involved in an imaginary world where espionage and kidnappings happen around every street corner. But then again, everyone can watch a Thriller and enjoy the whole journey, which is why I believe it is such an approachable genre for independent film makers, as it is a lot easier to create a dark and formidable world than it is to create a comedy as I believe it is a lot harder for an actor to be genuinely funny. But the type of person who watches a thriller varies, I believe the overall type of person who generally enjoys the average thriller more than the next person is someone who lives for the thrill and excitement, which is true for pretty much everyone.

[FADE TO BLACK]

I am hoping that die hard thriller lovers and people just getting started watching thrillers will enjoy ‘Junk’ equally. I have included concrete thriller conventions whilst also taking my own new spin on slightly more obscure conventions, for example in the movie Silence of the Lambs, there is a scene where the character of Clarice Starling is inside Buffalo Bill’s house searching for evidence and I took inspiration from this scene to make the scene in ‘Junk’ where my character of the girl is searching for the ringing phone. However, I hope everyone who has a love for low-budget thrillers watches ‘Junk’

[FADE TO BLACK]

The best demographic description of my audience is ‘young adult to middle-aged men, seeking raw excitement’ I completely believe that when big companies get their claws into a potentially good film, no matter how much money they pump into the production of the film, the shock value and rawness is lost due to greed of appealing to most demographics, however independent movies tend to please one specific demographic, which helps them make a better film as they aim to satisfy a niche market. It could be argued that someone who loves comedy films won’t enjoy my low budget thriller as much as they would a Hollywood thriller, however low budget thrillers aren’t made for people who love comedies.

[FADE TO BLACK]

Thank you everyone for watching ‘Junk’ and I hope you enjoyed it.

[FADE TO BLACK]

Q3.) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

To answer this question I thought I was use something basic but add a spin to it. I have made a PowerPoint presentation and then created a Slide Share account and uploaded the presentation so I could embed it straight into my blog. Enjoy.

Q3.) from Matt Hawes

Colour Correction

I used After Effects to colour correct my final piece. Firstly I created an adjustment layer and applied all the effects to that layer as it gives you more freedom. I used curves to make the blacks more pronounced and also lowered the white to make the image overall more dark and creepy, fitting with the tone of a thriller. I then heightened the blue levels to give a subtle film look. Look below for a before and after colour correction. Overall the colour correction is an effective way to make your low budget movie look and feel more professional.

After - Notice the subtle hint of blue in the image.

Before - Bland and unimaginative.

Q1.) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I answered this question in the form of directors commentary over 'Junk'. I added freeze frames to keep key parts of the film visible whilst I am talking about it.

JUNK - FINAL CUT

I have changed several things since my final draft edit, I have removed unnecessary sound effects and also changed all the titles so they appear more uniform throughout. This have given my film a new layer of professionalism and I am very happy with the final result. Enjoy.

Q5.) How did you attract/address your audience?

 How did you attract/address your audience?

I used XMind 6 to create a mind map answering this particular question. The software was difficult to use at first but with practiced I managed to understand the learning curve.

Q2.) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Changes to Final Draft

To improve my final cut I shortened the establishing shots as I believe they dragged out too long. Also I tweaked the audio and added a few new sound effects to really achieve the look and feel I was hoping for. It was really difficult editing my final cut and it has been an experience I hope I will embark upon again in the near future. I have included pictures of my timeline in Sony Vegas so you can get an idea of all the layers of video and sound etc.

JUNK - 2ND DRAFT CUT

I have since added better and more titles to my opening. Also I added and tweaked the audio to achieve the levels and quality I wanted. Also instead of individually adjusting the contrast and levels to achieve the look of that particular shot, I rendered the whole video out and adjusted the levels of the entire film to get a more even look throughout. However I have also changed the name since the last upload as I believe 'Junk' is simpler and more effective. Please enjoy my draft cut of 'Junk'.

Idea for Thriller

During the Christmas holidays I thought I would get in the holiday spirit by watching The Silence of the Lambs. Whilst watching I noticed an extremely effective editing technique in which the protagonist appaears to run through/past the camera. It would be hard to coreograph a similar shot however I will try.

Actor Planning

Actor Planning

Initally I wanted my brother, Jonathan, to be the main actor but he refused as he was camera shy. Secondaly I approached my Dad to see if he would be interested. He was quite skeptical at first but relucatantley agreed eventually, however after a few shots I realised he was not suitable because he looked too old for the character I had in mind and he was not an amazing actor. 

After that I thought I would not be able to find an effective actor so I thought if I told my Dad exactly what shots I wanted and how I wanted them to be filmed then I could act and he could film. That went well but shortly after filming my teacher informed me that this technique would not work as I was meant to be behind the camera and I could in no way prove I had control over the shots (which is completely understandable). So I rescheduled to film mid-January 2015. That meant I had a couple weeks to sort out an appropiate actor and change the story to fit the new actor. 

Eventually my friend Ben agreed to be my protagonist, however on the day of filming he did not show up and he let me down so I sacked him. Fourtanatley my friend Connor agreed to shoot and he did show up.

So after all the mishaps and reshoots I finally have all my footage nessecary to edit. So let the editing begin.