Analysing An Opening

The Usual Suspects

I have chosen to analyse the opening of 'The Usual Suspects', directed by Bryan Singer and starring Kevin Spacey. I felt that this opening was the most exciting and stylish of the thriller beginnings we looked at as a class.

The opening shot is of fire, already this gives us the idea of danger. Next we see a man that is looking half dead, in front of a blazing fire behind him. I felt that the fire was reminiscent of the gates of hell, further setting the scene and giving a sense of danger and evil. There is also the ominous sound of running water.

We are already intrigued as to what is going on, when the fire is lit a trail sets ablaze to be stopped by some water being poured down. Next the viewer sees the dark, scary silhouette of someone. The man walks slowly, showing he is in power here, he isn't afraid of the fire. I associated the figure with the devil, the man seems to be in power of the fire, further reinforced when he lights the lighter, the darkness shrouds his hand and the fire looks to be produced from him. His power is once again reinforced when we learn his name, Kaiser. Kaiser being the German word for Emperor. Once again in the way that Kaiser hold his gun we see the power and attitude he has.

The two guns shots ringing out shows  how far away from anyone else these two men are, this makes it seem eerie and away from the rest of the world.

What really makes this opening effective is the music. The strings and low noises build a sense of tension. There is a clicking sound as well, it sounds like some sort of creeping, adding to the sense that this is far away and there aren't many people around. Just after we first see Kaiser there is a sound of a bell, much like a church bell. This adds to the religious aspect of the gates of hell and made me think of the day of judgement.

I would like to add that I really thought that the part prior to this, the opening credits, where also very effective. The camera is panning over silent waters, the waves slowly start to increase building the tension. The close shot of the matches breaks this silence and stillness which is really exciting for the viewer.

1408: Thiller??

I watched another film called 1408 (2007) Directed by Mikael Hafstrom.

the film is about a writer who writes books about haunted places. he is writing a book about haunted hotels and finds out about a hotel room in New York in the Dolphin hotel by an anonymous letter saying "don't stay in 1408".

he does his research and finds out that the room is evil and every single person who has stayed in the room has commited suiside or died.  so, fearlessly he persuades the extremally reluctant  hotel manager for him to spend a night in the room. at first he is fine but wierd things start to happen. the clock changes, windows open and he see's ghosts of the people who have died. he then trips out really badly and starts to see things including things about his terrifying past and that. it all get a bit over the top from this point and gets a bit confusing and finally ends on a cliff hanger that i didn't understand...

anyway, there werre elements of a phychological thriller film in it. it was all to do with the main character's mental conflict with the hotel room. however there were also elements ofthe  horror genre in the film as it was full of fear and it included a central villian, the room itself.

thriller or horror

?

Film Review: 'The Orphanage"

Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona (Pan's Labyrinth)

I saw this film in Spain under the name 'El Orfanato' as it is a Spanish film with English subtitles. It's a spooky supernatural thriller about a woman, Laura, desperate to find her ill, missing son. 

Laura persuades her husband to buy the abandoned orphanage for disabled children that she grew up in. Simon, her son, has HIV and is also an orphan. When he comes to the house he makes 5 imaginary friends. Soon, strange noises are made in the house, a weird woman is seen wandering the grounds of the house and Simon is lead on a strange treasure hunt made by his imaginary friends. Laura wants to re-open the orphanage to a select few children who are ill just like her son. During the 'open day' at the orphanage, Laura notices her son is missing. After months of Simon missing, Laura still wants to find her son and dedicates her life researching te house, orphans and the mysterious woman she saw sneaking around the house. She eventually realises that Simon's freinds are ghosts of the children who used to live in the orphanage....

Any more will spoil the film!

i really enjoyed the film and got so carried away with the intense storyline, i didn't even get distracted by the subtitles despite at the start i was contemplating wether or not to watch the film beacause of them. it's full of jumpy scenes and is actually quite scary. you really had to pay attention to the dialogue as its a film you will not understand unless you really listen (or in my case read!).

It is well worth watching, brilliantly casted, and an all round cleverly written thriller film!

Building a Thriller - Story

To make our Thriller effective and exciting we must look at what is achievable for 4 teenagers and the situations we can represent.
Thriller is a wide genre, so we have an advantage. I think that as teenagers we can best portray a crime, medical or supernatural thriller.
Location and the characters, two things I previously talked about, impact heavily on our scope for stories and narrative.
I would be most interested in doing a supernatural thriller, I think it will be easiest to achieve and look stylish and be effective. We could use our lack of professional camera equipment to our advantage, if we could effectively use shaky camera work, our production could be really interesting. Supernatural narratives usually incorporate a wide open space or a very small space so filming shouldn't be a problem.

I think a criminal drama would be easily achieved, we could take inspiration from the hundreds of stories in tabloids every week and adapt a convincing and thrilling story from elements of different stories. Each of our production crew lives in the city so we have locations we can use too.

This is the same for medical thrillers, there are constant horror stories in tabloids so inspiration should come easily. Location may be a big problem for a medical thriller but it doesn't have to happen in a hospital or doctors surgery. We would need to be smart to work out how this could be done.

As we are only doing the opening of a thriller film we have a slightly easier job, we do not need to think up a whole narrative with twists but we need to incorporate some elements of a whole thriller film so our opening is exciting and thrilling.

To prepare to start writing I will be picking up tabloids and looking at the stories. I will also start to make some ideas so we have something to do when we first go back. If the whole group brings ideas we should be in a good position to start working out our thriller.

Building a Thriller - Characters

To make our Thriller effective and exciting we must look at what is achievable for 4 teenagers and the characters we can play.

Obviously as teenagers we might find it hard to play adult characters, so we as a company are faced with a dilemma... Do we play characters our own age or characters older than ourselves?

Naturalistically, anyone in our company can play a character anywhere from 13-18 years of age. An example of a thriller involving a child/teenager is sixth sense. We know it is possible to have a convincing thriller with young people in. But the majority of thriller characters are 25+ so we might be in a position where we have to break some connotations of the genre. 

We could also bring in actors that are older or younger than us, to play a convincing adult or child character. The problems we might face are arranging and filming with adults who may have to work or actually getting them in the first place. Children may play about or not understand what is happening.

The best bet is to act ourselves. Being at a school that teaches theatre and having 3 actors in the group we are in a good position. We have a large choice of actors who as our friends should be wiling to help us.

Building a Thriller - Location

To make our Thriller effective and exciting we must look at what is achievable for 4 teenagers and the equipment that we are using. 

We are at quite an advantage as we are filming with HD cameras, meaning that quality will not be compromised if we need to film in a badly lighted or difficult place.

Being in London we have a wide range of locations we can use. We have a metropolis city and also quiet suburbs. London is also filled with open green spaces and wooded areas.

Thrillers are usually located in the inner city or places far out in the country. London is good as it has gritty areas that look dangerous and also very official locations. This would lend itself to either criminal or police dramas. It is also possible to do a political drama, as we have the official looking buildings and streets.

London has good links to the countryside and also has desolate urban areas, meaning we can easily get to a empty location to do a scene.

We might face problems such as obstructing the public or not being able to gain access to certain locations.  We can overcome this by contacting people, asking the college or filming at night. 

We may find that filming at night lends it self better to the mood of our thriller

Overall I can't foresee any big problems with location.

Alfred Hitchcock - "The Master of Suspense"

Sir Alfred Hitchcock (1899 to 1980) was and still is one of the most famous film directors of all time. He was nicknamed the 'master of suspense' and labelled the master of the thriller genre. 

he started making films in England in the 1920's and then after making a name for himself moved to Hollywood in 1939 due to the 'technical superiority" in a Hollywood studio compared to a British one. 

The 50's was seen to be Alfred's high point of his career. It was a period in which his art reached its full maturity with such superior thriller as Stangers on a Train (1951), Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960).

Psycho is probably Hitchcock's most notorious film and is still terrifying after 40 plus years. Hitchcock's murder set-pieces are so potent, they can frighten even a viewer who has seen it before. It was nominated for four Oscars in 1961 and won two.