Clip Analysis..

During one of our lessons we were given the task of analysing thriller clips from films and discovering what it is that makes them give the audience a thrilling sensation. I believe that it is the emotional build up of tension, mystery, anxiety and suspense which is the expectation of something going to happen without knowing what or when. This occurs in all sub-genres of thrillers, which are crime thrillers, psychological thrillers, horror thrillers, supernatural thrillers, espionage and sci-fi. The clips that we analysed were from the films 28 Days Later, The Shining, Arlington Road, Collateral and What Lies Beneath. We analysed the lighting, the use of camera (movement, angle and distance), music, editing, setting and characters. My favourite out of the films was a psychological thriller, The Shining because unlike most pupils in my class it was my first time watching it so I truly felt the suspenseful moments and could write down an accurate assumption of what the suspenseful moments were, this will help me when planning with my group and deciding which suspenseful moments we could slightly change and use when making our thriller. Within the clip from The Shining the camera tracks a small adventurous boy on a bike at worms eye view, already this is tension building because he has dominance and the audience has no idea where the boy is going, all you are told is that the boy is in a hallway of a hotel we can tell this from the repetitive bright coloured carpet and the swift passing of many doors. Also, to add tension the sounds during the clip range from diagetic sounds of the boys bike wheels screeching which adds reality to the situation and then non-diagetic sounds of high speed to low speed and low pitch to high pitch specifically when the camera makes a jump cut to the two pale female characters behind a door, The tension and anxiety builds up from the over the shoulder shot of the boy slowly approaching the door and shocks the audience at an unexpected moment whereas if the boy physically opened the door the audience would be more prepared to find someone behind the door. I also think that because the boy is so young it makes you feel protective over him because you assume he won’t be able to get himself out of the trouble that he may get himself into. As an extra we noted down which specific parts of each clip made it suspenseful, I think for The Shining It was the violins used, the emphasis of the room number and the use of a jump shot.