FILM OPENING - CODES AND CONVENTIONS

FILM OPENING

In this post, I will list the codes and conventions of film openings, and also provide information related to them on the film I analysed.

• Production Logo/Distribution Logo
• Begin with establishing shot
• Title of the movie
• Stars shown often
• Genre conventions
• Inter-textual references
• Cast/Credit info

Production Logo/Distribution Logo;

In The Other Guys, a production or distribution logo isn’t actually included in the opening of the film unlike other films. Being an action film, the film intends to be exciting and to interest viewers. The lack of logos at the start can also overwhelm viewers, leaving them very surprised when action initiates instantly upon starting the film, as they may have expected the logos first. An example of a production logo is pictured below.

Establishing Shot;

The establishing shot unveils the setting or context of the scene/entire film, the establishing shot in The Other Guys is the extreme long shot of New York. This shot helped the consumers grasp the idea that this film will be based in that setting, and also help them infer that this will be serious, as New York which can be stereotyped as a major and wealthy city.

Title of the Movie;

The title of the movie appears in the latter stages of the opening, with the action being extreme for the viewer’s eyes and then the title of the film is shown to unveil the film formally. It comes up for around ten seconds at the beginning of the movie before it starts then suddenly disappears.

Stars shown Often;

The actual main protagonists of the film aren’t introduced until later on in the film, with the main police officers being at the forefront of the action in the opening. The main police officers are involved in a massive pursuit of a criminal car, consisting of amazing action.

Genre Conventions;

As the film is an action, it should or even consists of the inevitable conventions of the action genre. These consist of good/bad, weapons, danger, high speed chases, danger, heroes, explosions etc.

Inter-textual References;

As this film is an individual film with no prequels or sequels, there were no inter-textual references in the opening.

Cast/Credit Info;

The cast and credit info is revealed throughout the opening, mostly in the corners so people can focus on the action too. Main characters, producers etc. are the most notable/memorable ones included.

TOP 10 THRILLERS OF 2016

TOP 10 THRILLERS 2016

Whilst researching the best thrillers of all time, a website showed up with the Top 10 Best Thrillers of 2016 therefore I felt like I should put it up and show my audience the results.

1. Blair Witch (2016)

R | 89 min | Horror, Thriller

After discovering a video showing what he believes to be his vanished sister Heather, James and a group of friends head to the forest believed to be inhabited by the Blair Witch.

Director: Adam Wingard | Stars: James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid,Brandon Scott

2. Snowden (2016)

R | 134 min | Action, Biography, Drama

The NSA's illegal surveillance techniques are leaked to the public by one of the agency's employees, Edward Snowden, in the form of thousands of classified documents distributed to the press.

Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo,Zachary Quinto

3. ARQ (2016)

Trapped in a lab and stuck in a time loop, a disoriented couple fends off masked raiders while harboring a new energy source that could save humanity.

Director: Tony Elliott | Stars: Robbie Amell, Rachael Taylor, Shaun Benson, Gray Powell

4. 31 (2016)

R | 102 min | Horror, Thriller

Five carnival workers are kidnapped and held hostage in an abandoned, Hell-like compound where they are forced to participate in a violent game, the goal of which is to survive twelve hours against a gang of sadistic clowns.

Director: Rob Zombie | Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Richard Brake, Jeff Daniel Phillips,Sheri Moon Zombie

5. Don't Breathe (2016)

R | 88 min | Crime, Horror, Thriller

Hoping to walk away with a massive fortune, a trio of thieves break into the house of a blind man who isn't as helpless as he seems.

Director: Fede Alvarez | Stars: Stephen Lang, Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette, Daniel Zovatto

6. Nocturnal Animals (2016)

R | 115 min | Drama, Thriller

An art gallery owner is haunted by her ex-husband's novel, a violent thriller she interprets as a veiled threat and a symbolic revenge tale.

Director: Tom Ford | Stars: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson

7. The Shallows (2016)

PG-13 | 86 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller

A mere 200 yards from shore, surfer Nancy is attacked by a great white shark, with her short journey to safety becoming the ultimate contest of wills.

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra | Stars: Blake Lively, Óscar Jaenada, Angelo Josue Lozano Corzo, Brett Cullen

8. I.T. (2016)

95 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

Mike Regan has everything he could ever want, a beautiful family and a top of the line smart house. The company he owns is on the verge of changing flight leasing forever. 

Director: John Moore | Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Jason Barry, Karen Moskow, Kai Ryssdal

9. Deepwater Horizon (2016)

PG-13 | 107 min | Action, Drama, Thriller

A story set on the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which exploded during April 2010 and created the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Director: Peter Berg | Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, Douglas M. Griffin, James DuMont

10. The Girl on the Train (2016)

R | 112 min | Mystery, Thriller 

A divorcee becomes entangled in a missing persons investigation that promises to send shockwaves throughout her life.

Director: Tate Taylor | Stars: Haley Bennett, Emily Blunt, Justin Theroux, Rebecca Ferguson

POPULAR DIRECTORS AND PERSONAL FAVOURITES

POPULAR DIRECTORS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS GENRE

Director Guillermo del Toro once described suspense as being about the withholding of information: either a character knows something the audience doesn’t know, or the audience knows something the character doesn’t. 

The best thrillers leave us scanning the screen with anticipation. They invite us to guess what happens next, but then delight in thwarting expectations. We can all name the great thriller filmmakers of the past - Alfred Hitchcock, Carol Reed, Brian De Palma - but what about the current crop of directors? Here’s my pick of the filmmakers who’ve made some great modern thrillers over the past six years - that is, between the year 2010 and the present.

Lynne Ramsay - We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lynne Ramsay is a Scottish film director, writer, producer, and cinematographer. Ramsay’s We Need To Talk About Kevin may be the most effective psychological thriller of recent years. About the difficult relationship between a mother (Tilda Swinton) and her distant, possibly sociopathic son (Ezra Miller), Ramsay’s film is masterfully told from beginning to end - which is impressive, given that the source novel by Lionel Shriver is told via a series of letters. Ramsay takes the raw material from the book and crafts something cinematic and highly disturbing: a study of guilt, sorrow and recrimination. 

Anton Corbijn - The American, A Most Wanted Man -  Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard is a Dutch photographer, music video director, and film director. Corbijn’s direction remains gripping because he doesn’t give us huge action scenes to puncture the tension. We can sense the capacity for violence coiled up beneath the hitman’s calm exterior, and Corbijn makes sure we only see rare flashes of that toughness - right up until the superbly-staged climax.

David Fincher - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl - David Andrew Leo Fincher is an American director and producer, notably for films, television series, and music videos. Based on Gillian Flynn’s novel (and adapted by the author herself), Gone Girl is both a gripping thriller and a thoroughly twisted relationship drama. Fincher’s mastery of the genre is all here: his millimetre-perfect composition, seamless touches of CGI and subtle yet effective uses of colour and shadow. While not a straight-up masterpiece like the period thriller Zodiac, Gone Girl is still a glossy, smart and blackly funny yarn in the Hitchcock tradition. If there’s one master of the modern thriller currently working, it has to be Fincher.



Denis Villeneuve - Sicario, Prisoners - Here’s one of those directors who can pack an overwhelming sense of dread in a single image: in Sicario, his searing drug-war thriller from last year, it was the sight of tiny specks of dust falling in the light scything through a window. That single shot proved to be the calm before the storm, as Villeneuve unleashed a salvo of blood-curdling events: an attempted FBI raid on a building gone horribly awry. And this, I think, is the brilliance of Villeneuve’s direction, and why he’s so good at directing thrillers like Sicario or 2013’s superb Prisoners - he understands the rhythm of storytelling, and how scenes of quiet can generate almost unbearable tension.

Another case in point: the highway sequence in Sicario, where Emily Blunt’s FBI agent is stuck in a traffic jam outside one of the most violent cities in the world. Villeneueve makes us feel the stifling heat and the claustrophobia; something nasty’s going to happen, we know that - but it’s the sense of anticipation which makes for such an unforgettable scene.

Prisoners hews closely to the template of a modern mystery thriller, but it’s once again enriched by Villeneuve’s expert pacing and the performances he gets out of his actors. Hugh Jackman’s seldom been better as a father on the hunt for his missing child, while Jake Gyllenhaal mesmerises as a cop scarred by his own private traumas.

MY OWN PERSONAL FAVOURITES : 

FAVOURITE DIRECTORS : 

I can sometimes be a bit picky with choosing to watch the right film however when something catches my eye... Bring it on. I only have two favourite directors in the whole entire world, one of them is : Jaume Collet-Serra, he is a Spanish film director and producer. He is known for directing the horror remake House of Wax, the psychological thriller Orphan, and the action-thrillers Unknown, Non-Stop, and Run All Night and obviously the best 2016 Horror-Thriller... THE SHALLOWS ! It is an energetic thriller.



My second favourite director is Adam Wingard, he is an American film director, editor, cinematographer, and screenwriter. He is notable for his works in the horror genre, especially the films You're Next, The Guest, and BLAIR WITCH ! I love the movie blair witch therefore that is why he is my favourite.To Wingard, the method to his madness was to achieve reality in the moment, something he never tried before Blair Witch. 

THRILLER FAVOURITES : Wikipedias page of what it is and what they think about it.

Shutter Island

Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio team up for a fourth time for this adaptation of Shutter Island, a novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River). The film opens in 1954 as World War II veteran and current federal marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner, Chuck (Mark Ruffalo), ferry to Shutter Island, a water-bound mental hospital housing the criminally insane. They have been asked to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer), a patient admitted to the asylum after she murdered her three children. As Teddy quizzes Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), the head of the institution, he begins to suspect that the authorities in charge might not be giving him the whole truth, and that a terrible fate may befall all the patients in the spooky Ward C -- a unit devoted to the most heinous of the hospital's inmates. Complicating matters further, Teddy has a secret of his own -- the arsonist who murdered his wife is incarcerated on Shutter Island. Driven to confront his wife's killer, and stranded on the island because of a hurricane, Teddy must unravel the secrets of the eerie place before succumbing to his own madness. Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer, Michelle Williams, Patricia Clarkson, and Jackie Earle Haley round out the supporting cast. 

The Black Swan (2010)

A psychological thriller set in the world of New York City ballet, BLACK SWAN stars Natalie Portman as Nina, a featured dancer who finds herself locked in a web of competitive intrigue with a new rival at the company (Mila Kunis). A Fox Searchlight Pictures release by visionary director Darren Aronofsky (THE WRESTLER), BLACK SWAN takes a thrilling and at times terrifying journey through the psyche of a young ballerina whose starring role as the duplicitous swan queen turns out to be a part for which she becomes frighteningly perfect. BLACK SWAN follows the story of Nina (Portman), a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely consumed with dance. She lives with her retired ballerina mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) who zealously supports her daughter,s professional ambition. When artistic director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily (Kunis), who impresses Leroy as well. Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play both the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, who represents guile and sensuality. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side with a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.

Sinister : 

Sinister is a story made of darkness: mysterious loud bangs in the attic, distant moans from the dead, vulnerable children, an egomaniac crime writer and his long-suffering wife, who is plenty fed up even before she discovers he has moved his family into the same house where horrifying murders took place. It is an undeniably scary movie, with performances adding enough human interest to give depth to the basic building blocks of horror. Ethan Hawke plays an introverted, driven man who wrote a best-selling, true-crime book some years ago and is convinced a book about those ghastly hangings will be another success — especially since one member of the doomed family is still missing. I totally love it and would not mind watching it again and again and again.

WHAT IS A THRILLER ??

Thriller Genre

Thriller Film is a genre that revolves around great predictions and great suspense. The aim for these thrillers is to keep the audience alert and on the edge of their seats with obviously a bit of shock and fright (emotional and physical aim). The protagonist in these films is set against a problem – an escape, a mission, a crime, or a mystery. No matter what sub-genre a Thriller film falls into, it will emphasise the danger that the protagonist would or could face in the film. The tension with the main problem is built on throughout (beginning to end) the film and leads to a highly difficult climax which is either bad or good.

Examples of Thriller Films: (These are considered to be in the TOP 100 BEST THRILLER FILMS WEBSITE)

Inception - 

A thief, who steals corporate secrets through the use of technology, is given the task of planting an idea into the mind of a CEO. This is a good example of a physiological thriller because it is one of the smartest films to ever come out of the last decade. This film has everything going for it and thus is a perfect film. A fresh and intelligent script, amazing stunts, actions, over-the-top adventures and most importantly mind-boggling and mind-bending thrills that will keep you engaged throughout.

The departed - 

An undercover cope and a mole in the police attempt to identify each other whilst entering an Irish gang in South Boston. This is a good example of a crime thriller because it has a long of generic conventions needed for it to be a thriller movie overall.

Gravity - 

A medical engineer and an astronaut work together to survive after an accident leaves them floating around in space. This is a good example of a Science - fiction thriller because it gives us many accurate details about space and it very realistic. No wonder it is in one of the top 100 best thriller films.

Sub-Genres of Thriller:

Action Thriller : An Action Thriller uses physical action to create suspense within the film. Like a traditional Action film, this sub-genre will often have continuous motion and action including physical stunts, chases, fights, battles, and races. Often, these scenes will contribute to the overall sense of danger that the protagonist is or will be facing.

Examples: Die Hard, Kill Bill, The Bourne Identity.

Crime Thriller : Crime Thriller film is a sub-genre that includes the suspenseful aspects of a thriller with a crime film plot. This sub-genre's plot usually focuses on a serial killer, murderer, robbery, kidnapping or manhunt. As opposed to the usual and traditional crime films, the storyline  of a crime thriller focuses both around the criminal (antagonist) and the protagonist. Crime Thrillers use both action and psychological aspects to build tension and suspense.

Examples: The Usual Suspects, The Fugitive.

Film-Noir : Film Noir is not simply a sub-genre, but rather a term for a type of crime-drama or thriller that was popular throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Film-Noir is characterised by a black-and-white style with stark lighting effects. The main character is usually a cynical hero. Film-Noir relies on a narrative voice and various flashbacks to explain the intricate plot.

Examples: Sunset Boulevard, The Maltese Falcon, Sweet Smell of Success.

Psychological Thriller : A psychological thriller incorporates elements of drama and mystery in the film. The suspense in this sub-genre comes from the mind, rather than from a psychical threat. The protagonists in Psychological Thrillers usually relies on their mental resources to solve the situation, so their brain and thinking is very important. Because of their nature, many Psychological Thrillers could cross over into the Horror genre.

Examples: Memento,Taxi Driver.

Science Fiction Thriller : Science Fiction Thriller include hypothetical, science-based themes into the plot of the film. Traditionally, a Science Fiction film will have heroes, villains, unexplored locations, fantastical quests, and advanced technology. These elements can be used in a Science Fiction Thriller to create anticipation and edginess. Often, this sub-genre will explore the “future-gone-bad” theme, including plots that revolve around alien invasions, dystopian scenarios, and super-diseases.

Examples: Aliens, Inception, District 9.

Religious Thriller : Religious Thriller film include religious themes, including religious questions, ceremonies, and its objects. Some films can revolve around a specific location like a church, many Religious Thrillers include supernatural and paranormal experiences not relating and relating to a certain religion. Exorcisms, demon possession, and church cover-ups are typical themes of Religious Thrillers.

Examples: The Devil’s Advocate, The Ninth Gate, The Da Vinci Code.

Codes And Conventions

MIRRORS : Within thriller films mirrors are used to portray the reflections of a persons soul and their inner self. Mirrors can also foreshadow the darkness within certain characters expressing inside emotions they may not want to reveal.

LIGHTING : Low key lighting: 

• Created by the use of a back light - mainly used in thriller films. 

• Used to represent a dark atmospheres which can be seen as scary or mysterious. 

• Dramatic effect as lighting reflects onto the characters and the atmosphere.

SHADOWS : An example of a successful use of shadows is from the thriller film ‘Nosferatu’. Shadows and silhouettes create mystery and a dark atmosphere for the audience. They are often used to hide the identity of someone or something and leave the audience guessing. Silhouettes give a clearer look of the outline of the the hidden object or person while the shadow distorts the object or person causing it to look awkward and confuse the audience.
Weapons are used a lot in thriller films, especially in action thrillers. These are usually used to assert authority in the films and create tension at certain points.

SOUND: The use of sound within the thriller genre is an important element, as different musical themes within a film can produce different moods that affect the audience in different ways. For example in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ the music is high pitched, adding suspense and tension to the film, whereas more action thriller films use loud and jumpy fast paced music to make the audience feel excited, and to emphasise the fast pace of the film.

CAMERA ANGLES : Thriller films include the use of camera angles to show different facial expressions and body language. By using a wide range of camera angles this can help capture every emotion present within a film, making the audience feel like they are observing alongside during the duration of the film. 

CHARACTERS/PLOT/LOCATION USED IN THRILLERS : 

Protagonist - Usually has a problem or is sent on a mission, or to solve a mystery. This is the main character in the film.

Antagonist - The enemy of the protagonist and he/she is responsible for danger and obstacles of the protagonist.

Main storyline - Follows the protagonist before, during and after encountering the antagonist (All through-out the film).

Main plot - Has to be solved by which will make viewer of film pay more attention to the film and want to watch it all.

Realistic characters & action - Makes the experience more realistic to the audience. 

Climax/High level of anticipation - Keeps the audience on the edge of their seats and makes them want to watch all of it all the way along.