Past Student Work

Mise en Scene – the opening sequence for this thriller was set at the antagonists house, you can see this is set inside a house as the scene in which the girls are is the kitchen, and when the antagonists wakes up you can see its set in some sort of bedroom. The props used in this thriller was a knife, we don’t see the victim stabbed with the knife but get the impression of this being the weapon as we see the blood covered knife wrapped in cloth in the bedroom, the costume used are quite dressy clothing so you would presume that they were ready to go out to a party of some sort, and they were ready and having pictures taken. The lighting during the handheld tracking shots would be classed as ambient lighting as it’s the natural light from outside but inside the house the lighting was all artificial.

Camerawork –medium shot was used when in the kitchen, to show that the girls were all ready to go out and taking pictures, this was to introduce the girls to the sequence. A tracking movement was used at the beginning of the sequence to show where the protagonist lives and where the scene of the crime took place. A close up was used when we see the victims face just as she’s being stabbed, we don’t see the stabbing but we see the expression in her face and the reaction before we actually see what’s happened.

Editing – cuts were used a lot throughout the sequence this grabs the audience’s attention as it cuts from scene to scene so the audience can know what’s going on and where. Dissolve transitions were also used throughout this sequence this was to make it seem to the audience that it was a memory. The short shot duration was used throughout the whole scene to show a matter of urgency and suspense to keep the audience intrigued as to what’s going on and to be able to make sense as to what the thriller is trying to show.

Sound – throughout the sequence this group used both diegetic and non diegetic sound, the background diegetic music was used to build the suspense and to intrigue the audience and to catch their attention. Diegetic sound is used in all the scenes where the camera is from the point of view of the antagonist, the diegetic sound is the heavy breathing and an almost panicky effect to show his reaction to what he’s done and what’s going on.

What was good?

The use of camera techniques and transition were good throughout this sequence they went well with the genre of the thriller and fit in well throughout the scenes. The use of diegetic and non diegetic sound suited the different point of the sequence that it was added to, and they characters used were all fairly good actors.

What needs improvement?

Improvement for the thriller would have been to make sure the different locations suited each other more, for example inside the house was actually the halls of a university, where as when it showed the outside of the house it was just a normal family home. Also the continuity of the scenes would be something to improve on as in certain parts of the thriller you could tell was quite jumpy.

What makes it a Psychological thriller?

The conventions throughout this past thriller work that make it a psychological thriller are things such as the several enigmas created throughout the sequence for example, who is watching the girls? who is the person breathing in the bedroom? who stabbed the girl? why was the girl stabbed?