Character Influences

Looking at antagonistic characters from Thriller and Horror films allows us to assess which kind of antagonist would be most affective in our own Psychological Thriller opening.

Damien is the main antagonist in 'The Omen'. He is the son of Satan, but is adopted by an American Ambassador to Britain and his wife. Strange and sinister things begin to happen to the family when Damien turns five, as his Nanny hangs herself at his birthday party. A series of events such as this happen throughout the film which leads Damien's father to believe he is the Antichrist, but before he can kill Damien, his father is caught by the police and killed. 

 Richard Donner who directed The Omen thought very carefully before choosing the antagonist for the film. Using children as antagonists is usually very effective, as seeing something which is supposed to be good and pure representing evil is very unsettling and scary. Damien's complexion is pasty white, in stark contrast with his jet black hair. This creates a sinister look and adds to the creepy  'knowing' expression which is always on his face.

 Damien is a successful antagonist as he succeeds in shocking and scaring the audience, his age being one of his most unsettling characteristics.

The Joker is the antagonist in 2008's 'The Dark Knight', and he was portrayed by Heath Ledger.

 The joker is a primary example of how makeup can be used to create identity within a character. The Joker's look is based on clown makeup with a sinister twist. Blacked out eyes and scars on either side of the mouth accentuate the evil nature of the character. The joker's costume is also used to shape the character. He wears a Purple suit with a green waistcoat on blue shirt, adding to the 'clown' connotations.

Max Cady is the antagonist in Cape Fear (1991) who is played by Robert De Niro. Cady is a criminal who was sent to prison for fourteen years for the rape of a teenage girl. He finds out while in prison that his lawyer for the case witheld important information from the judge which may have prevented him going in to prison. Cady then decides to go after the lawyer and his family for revenge.
One of the most imortant factors in Cady's appearance are his tattoos, of which he has many. Most of them are to do with religion, with many bible quotes written all over his body. At various points in the film certain characers remark on his tattoos, for example one character says "I don't know whether to look at him or read him!" To some people, tattoos have negative connotations to do with crime, so these along with his evil character gives people the impression that Max Cady is not a good person.

The characters in Black Swan (2010) are interesting because both the protagonist and antagonist are played by Natalie Portman. She is a ballerina who starts out being like Odette, the pure and good White Swan from Swan Lake, but through the course of the film loses her mind and becomes like Odette, the evil Black Swan. I like the idea of using contact lenses and makeup (left) to differenciate between one side of a character and another. This is something we will definitely think about using in our thriller.

Pitch/Brief

Textual Analysis of Cape Fear

The first thing we see is calm water. Although the water seems calming, the music creates a sinister feel to the opening. We are then shown the reflection of an eagle in the water along with the credits of Robert De Niro, this could be interpreted as the eagle representing the fact his character is a predator in the film. The font used for the credits is in an italic, jagged font, which relates to the harsh tones of the soundtrack. We are then shown two different eyes. The first eye looking straight into the camera with a calmness, which we assume is the antagonist. It then switches to a flickering eye which appears nervous, making the audience assume it is the victim. An unclear dark figure then appears in the water. We interpreted the use of the unclarity of this shadow resembles the way in which De Niro's character sees the world, he sees it in a different way to the rest of the world. We then linked this with the use of the calm water to represent the fact although he sees the world in a unconventional way, he believed how he sees it, is the correct way. Text reading "Cape Fear" then appears on the screen asif appearing from beneath the water. This could show the storyline of film includes water and secrets emerging from unexpected places.

Research on Psychological Thrillers

Pyschological thrillers have been said to be one of the most consistent genres for those looking for entertaining films with a twist. In pyschological thrillers, the characters do not rely on physical strength to overcome their enemies, unlike in a typical action thriller. The characters rely more on their minds. The suspense in the films often comes from two or more characters messing with one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by trying to demolish the other's mental well being.
For the audience to completely understand the character, they are given an insight into the history behind the start of the main story plot. By doing this, it allows the audience to empathise with the character's motivations and how their past has shaped how they are now.

They are a few key themes used throughout psychological thrillers. The first being reality, characters have to often try to determine the line between reality and fantasy. An example of a film which uses this theme is The Matrix. Another theme which is often used is perception. For example, a person's own interpretation of the world around them through their senses, characters often misperceive the world around them.

Questionnaire

BBFC Research

We are thinking of aiming our thriller towards the teenage/student audience as they statistically go to the cinema more. To help us with the rating we have looked into the rating process of the BBFC.
BBFC stands for The British Board of Film Classification. The British Board of Film Classification is an independent, non-governmental body which has
exercised responsibilities over cinema for more than ninety years, and over video since 1985. They use 7 ratings to catergorise films into audience type. Below are brief outlines of each rating. We will analyse the 15 rating in more detail as this is our target rating.

The first is U, meaning 'universal', and suitable for all. Usually aimed at children and should include a positive message.

A prime example of U rated films would be Disney and Pixar, such as...
- Up
- Princess & the Frog
- Nanny McPhee
- Toy Story
- Alvin and the Chipmunks

PG stands for Parental Guidance meaning general viewing but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. PG films are suitable for children around 8 years or over.
Parents should consider whether the film may contain scenes that may upset younger children. Examples of PG rated films are...
- Aliens in the Attic
- Leap Year
- Madagascar

The next rating is 12/12A.
12: The material is suitable only for those aged 12 and over. Works classified at these categories may upset children under 12 or contain material which many parents will find unsuitable for them.
12A: Children under 12 may go to see this film at the cinema, but only when accompanied by an adult.
Examples of 12/12A...
- Avatar
- Forrest Gump
- G.I Joe

No-one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema or buy/rent a film of this rating. A 15 usually contains some strong language, violence and sexual references which are more explicit than what would be seen in a 12.
Examples of 15s:
-The Shawshank Redemption
-The Godfather
-Black swan

No-one younger than 18 may see an ‘18’ film in a cinema or buy/rent a film of this rating. An 18 contains images which viewers may find offensive or scenes which are too graphic. Most films in this category contain strong language and violence.

Examples of 18s:

-Fight club
-Pulp fiction
-The Silence of the Lambs

Importance of Title Sequences

The specifications of this course require that we include titles in our project. It is important to have titles as they speak about the movie itself before it even begins. They can range from plain backgrounds to creative animations and effects. Since the beginning of film making, text has been used to show information to the audience in silent films. Since then, they have evolved to add effect to the opening sequences. One way in which this is achieved is through the font. The choice of font can decipher what genre the film is.
One film in which uses the opening title sequence effectively to show the genre of the film is Mission Impossible 2. The opening scene is of Tom Cruise climbing a mountain. The text can be viewed as clinacalm, reflecting the fact Tom Cruise's character is seen as the perfect spy, creating an enigma. The first bit of imformation given is the "Paramount Pictures presents..", informing the audience it is a high budget film. It then goes on to list the actors in the film, emphasising the high budget of the film.

Demographic and Psychographic profiling

When starting our thriller we need to think about our target audience. This can be done by using demographic and psychographic
Demographic profiling is a method of audience research that puts people into six groups based on their job status. Producers used this to gain an insight into the type of people they can persuade them to see. However this method doesnt show much else except their job. For example a show like Skins would be placed in the E category which includes students.

Pyschographic profiling goes into more depth as it looks at the behaviour and personality triats of people. It helps when thinking about a person's viewing and spending habits.The picture below shows what we think our target group would be as we are aiming for it to be shown to teenagers.

Poster Evaluation: Inception

Analysing promotional posters from successful thriller films allows us to gain an insight into what a good poster will entail. Posters play a key role in the decision cinemagoers make with regards to going to see the film or not. They allow us, along with trailers, to paint a picture of what we expect the film to be like, (for instance, if you didn't like the poster and trailer of a film, you are unlikely to want to go and see it) so it's important to get the advertising aspect right.

The poster for Inception paints a successful pictue of what cinemagoers would expect of a psychological thriller such as this.

The photographic aspect of the poster is the most important component, and this is made clear by the man standing in the water being positioned directly in the center. The audience instantly know that this man is an important main character. In the background, there is imagery of a big city which is completely flooded with water. This makes the sub-genre of 'psychological thriller' clear to the audience along with the name of the film and the tagline.

At the top of the poster, movie star Leonardo Di Caprio's name is written in large, upper case lettering. By doing this the producers have another selling point, giving audiences another reason to go and see the film, as fans of Leonardo's will want to make the effort to go and see his latest project. Below this, there is a tagline of 'Your mind is the scene of the crime', further cementing the idea of a psychological theme to the audience. Taglines are designed to be slightly cryptic and create an enigma in peoples' minds about a film, causing people to go to the cinema to have their questions answered. The name of the film which is below the main part of the photo is red, in contrast with the blue-tint of the rest of the photo, which ensures it jumps out at the audience. Towards the bottom of the poster just under the title, there is text which reads 'from the director of The Dark Knight'. This is yet another selling point for the film as people who enjoyed The Dark Knight might want to go to see it because they liked the way he or she directed it.

All in all, this poster for Inception successfully portrays the basic structure of the film, leaving the audience with unanswered questions and an interest in the story, as well as many other selling points. When we design our film poster we will have this in mind and try to deliver our ideas in an interesting and creative way.

Learning from other openings

As part of our preparation we were shown a few of the thriller openings from other years, from these we picked up on how to make our thriller seem more realistic and what to look out for.

One main thing we learned from watching them was in terms of mise-en-scene we need to think about continuity and props. For example if we are filming over a couple of days we need to use the same costumes and props. Also in a few of the thrillers the props that were used were not realistic so it lost the effect of the thriller.This was shown by one group using a butter knife and another using a water pistol as a gun.

Another thing we realised was that a few of the ideas have been done before, like the pictures of the victim on the wall or the use of masks. In one the victim was being followed  in the forest and realistically, they would have heard the antagonist behind them (leaves crunching etc.), but in the film they didn't hear, which made everything seem quite unrealistic amd unbelievable.

Codes and Conventions

Moodboard

The images I have chosen for the moodboard are from mostly physcological and action thrillers. For our own thriller opening we are planning to do a physcological one.
The main image on the moodboard is a black and white picture of a screaming girl from the film Physco by Alfred Hitchcock. I chose this image as it shows her quite vulnerable, this was added to by Hitchcock by his idea of putting her in the shower. The image above this is from 1408, a movie based inside a hotel room. The man is pictured with very stressful body language as in the film things are happening inside the room to stop him from leaving.
The two pictures on the right using guns are from Taken and Reservoir Dogs, I think these images represent action thrillers as they show violence which could represent revenge.