History of thrillers

I've been looking into the history of thrillers as i've decided it's a useful thing to know and it's very interesting to see how thrillers have developed over the years. The really old ones seemed unrealistic as technology has improved alot now, but back then I realise that it would have looked very real and shocked viewers.


The lodger is one of the first thrillers, made by Alfred Hitchcock in 1926. This is about a landlady who suspects her new lodger is the madman killing women in London.

In the 1950's was when Hitchcock started adding technicolour to his thrillers, as the time changes you can see the development. Strangers on a train, made in 1951 is about a psychotic socialite who confronts a tennis star on how two complete strangers can get away with a murder, a theory that he plans to follow through.

Thrillers now, borrow themes and elements from those in the past, but to avoid repetition, tend to add in aspects of horrors genres, such as sadistic violence/gore etc. This is why often, some people mistake thrillers for horrors. The ward is a modern thriller made in 2010 centered on an institutionalised young woman who becomes terrorised by a ghost, with a big twist at the end.



As you can see by watching these thriller opening sequences, thrillers and technology used to make them has developed and evolved very much. I think the old thrillers are very classic and interesting to watch. In 'The lodger' you can see that it's shot in a sepia tone and the characters almost have a glowing outline around them. The characters' makeup looks very subtly gothic, making the film more ominous. The opening of 'Strangers on a train' is very ambiguous and shoots from a high angle only allowing the viewer to see feet walking, this causes curiosity for the viewer and keeps them interested. 'The ward' is very different from the previous two opening sequences and shows a more modern approach to thriller movies. The shattered glass could connote to the reader that the protagonist herself is broken into pieces. This opening sequence, unlike the other two, is shot in colour, reinforcing the difference between old and new thrillers.

Analysing an extract from a TV drama

In lesson, we analysed the sound from an extract from a TV drama. We then had to link it to sexuality. These are my notes...

I have learnt that Ambient sound is background sound and can be split into two:
-Foley
-Natural

Foley sound is sound that is artificial and put in for effect, and Natural sound is real sound that is captured within the scene.

I also learnt that parallel sound is sound that fits the mood or current action and contrapuntal sound is sound that contrasts with the mood or action.

This lesson has improved my knowledge on sound and how it effects the viewer. Not only will this help me in the exam, but it will also help with making my thriller opening sequence.

Analysing the survey results

So far we've got 39 responses to our survey. This is just an analysis of the results we have so far, overall I think we are aiming to get atleast 80-100 responses, so that we can judge it fairly and see what is best for our audience. Most of our results so far are very helpful, however there are a few that we won't include due to them being inappropriate.

The first question is 'What is your gender?'
I think this is a good question to ask as we can see the different opinions of male and female and from that we can decide what to include. From this question, we found out that 38% of the people that filled out this survey were male and 64% were female. From this we know that most of the people viewing our work are female, however we only have 39 responses at the moment, so that may change.

The second question is 'How old are you?'
Our categories for this question are very varied which perhaps may make it unreliable but from this question, we could see that the most popular age group were 16-30 and the least popular age group are the under 16's. This tells us that because the majority of our audience are 16+. The results are unexpected because all different age groups are showing interest in our work and sharing their opinion.

The third question is 'What do you enjoy most about thrillers?'
This question will help us alot because it helps us understand what people like to see in thrillers and what most people would like us to include. The answers varied from gore, blood and violence, to the twists at the the end and the psycological plot twists. However the answer 'suspense' came up alot, so we will take that into consideration when making our thriller opening title sequence. It was very interesting to know peoples opinions and asking this question has really helped.

The fourth question is 'What is your favourite type of sub-genre of thriller?'This is an important question to ask when doing a survey on thrillers as the genre 'thriller' can be so wide ranged. There are many sub-genres in the thriller genre and each of them are considerably different. The answers from this question, told us that psycological thrillers and crime thrillers are preferred out of the people that view our work. I think it would be good to take this into consideration and add aspects of psycological thrillers and crime thrillers into our opening title sequence. The least popular was an erotic thriller, so I don't think we should make that as it wouldn't be very successful and would satisfy the minority. I think we could have improved this question by including a text box, so the person filling out the survey could specify what other sub-genre is their favourite.

The fifth question is 'Based on your answer for the previous question, what is it about that sub-genre that you like so much?' 
This question is good as it allows us to see what features of that sub-genre they like, and from that we can include it in our opening title sequence. A you can see some answers are inappropriate and won't taken into consideration. These are just a few answers that people have written. An interesting answer we received was 'It makes you think about things and it's not just blood and gore.' Answers like this are good because it helps our group understand that we should have a good storyline/plot to our film rather than focusing on making it violent. Alot of people also answer 'mystery.' I think we should include something really interesting in our opening title sequence to cause the reader curiosity.

The last question is 'Finally, what do you expect from the opening of a thriller?'
This is one of the most important questions in the survey, in my opinion, because it asks the person filling out the survey, upfront what they would expect from an opening of a thriller, which helps us massively, as it tells us what our audience expects to see. Some answers from this contrasted each other, some people answered that they would like to know instantly what's going on, whereas other people answered that they would like to be confused at the beginning, as it's then a surprise when you realise later on in the film. An answer that came up quite a bit was 'dark eerie music.' This has helped me and my group, so far understand that the majority of people like the music to be chilling, and some sort of confusion or plot we don't know about at the beginning as it makes the viewer curious and want to watch on.

In summary, although the survey is ongoing, so the most popular answers could change, it has helped our group out alot on what to include, what people do and don't like and what makes a successful thriller. It also gave us an insight into the differences between male and females' opinions.

Hannah's further research on codes and conventions of a thriller..

Although I have done research on the conventions of a thriller, I have learnt alot from looking through Hannah's research of codes and conventions of a thriller, and I think both our research combined will really help us both and our group. It's good that we both researched similar things as we have learnt from eachothers research, and if one of us had missed out some information, the other would know it. This has personally helped me understand the features that give thrillers extra effect. For example, the use of low-key lighting , mirrors and obtrusive editing help the audience understand that the film is a thriller. I think it's very interesting how Hannah has written about why special effects such as these are included, I learnt that mirrors are usually used to 'portray the reflection of ones' soul and inner self' this is a very clever thought and I wouldn't have thought of it before reading this. She has also written about the common mise-en-scene in thrillers, they are usually shot in dark, eerie places, to create tension and anxiety. If I could give Hannah any advice on her researching, it would be to focus more on editing and sound used in typical thriller.

Our draft survey

 Together, we all came up with questions for our survey and made a draft. These were some of the questions. Obviously they need to be changed and improved but this is our first attempt. It was Finley's job to make the survey for our group. We realise that a few questions need to be altered, for example, the first two questions can be changed from text boxes, to a tick box, this would be more beneficial is it would make our results more accurate, this is because some people may fill it in wrong or put an invalid answer, whereas if it's a tick box, they only have a choice of two. For the first attempt, I am happy with the pilot survey as it helps us decide the best questions to use in the actual thing.

The survey is very important as it allows us to hear about our audiences opinions on thriller movies, and what they expect from them. This also gives us an idea of what to include and who our audience will be.

Evaluating Finley's analysis of the mark scheme...

Evaluation of mark scheme
Here Finley has clearly stated that our group are aiming for a level 4. We know from looking at the mark scheme that it won't be easy and there will be alot to include. Finley talks about how it is important to know the mark scheme well, as we can then plan what we need to have done, and I agree with this and hope that our group have read through and know the level 4 band. From analysing the mark scheme closely, I know that to get into the level 4 band, we have to show variety in all four technical areas; Mise-En-Scene, Camera, Editing, Sound. We also have to have excellent understanding of the forms and conventions used in the production and what should be included in a typical opening of a thriller movie.

Evaluation of Finley's analysis of 'The beach'

Finleys analysis vlog

Firstly Finley speaks about the themes of the film, which gives me an idea of what it's about, and then he goes onto say that the opening foreshadows the rest of the film and creates a sense of danger, which I know makes the viewer want to watch on. From his analysis I learnt that the titles are blurred, and this makes the film seem unpredictable and mysterious which is a good thing to have in an opening title sequence. He analyses this opening sequence in great depth which has helped me understand why certain camera shots are used, for example, a long shot, used to signify the isolation of the character. Because he has made a vlog whilst watching the opening sequence, he gets to include everything that he notices and thinks is relevant which makes it very detailed. However I found it quite hard to hear due to the sound quality. Overall I think Finley's analysis of 'The beach' is very good and the fact that he has included many opinions on the film aswell make it better. The analysis vlog was succesfull but if I could give him any advice it would be to explain more about the editing used because editing is one of the main parts of analysing an opening sequence and It will help our group out alot for future references.