Genre research

The reason why we choose to make a thriller movie as our main genre is because this particular type of genre can have a variety of moods on our audience for example uncertainty, suspense, and a sense of terror. This will make it a good film because it will engage the audiences attention from start to finish.

I have also noticed that most thriller films use cliffhangers such as 'The Italian Job' to have this gripping effect also. Another clever method of using restrictive narrative on the viewers and having fight or chase scenes is also common in this type of genre, another example is the Jason Bourne trilogy.

Some of the main sub genres of this genre include crime (Ocean's 11), paranoid(Klute 1971), supernatural (The Skeleton Key), erotic (Eye's Wide Shut), legal, (The Runaway Jury) political (Seven Days in May 1962) and psychological thriller (Shutter Island) with tension and excitment being the main elements of the film. Which we hope to base our production on. Common on our pyschological thriller would hope to contain elements such as, stalking, paranoia, false accusation and some action.

We hope to keep our audience on the edge of thier seats as most thrillers do as it builds towards a dramatic climax, with the main threat being un-seen or abstract. The main character in thrillers is mainly in a unknowing dangerous situation. Much like the 'Saw' trilogy.

A 'prototype' of the first ever thriller genre first came in the film 'Homer's Odyssey'

The earliest account of a thriller film came in as a silent movie, 'The lodger' (1926) by Alfred Handcock and early British suspense thrillers 'The Man who Knew Too Much' (1934) with sub genres of romance, chase and spy. Eventually creating the first pyschological thriller in 1941, Suspicion.

Looking at more prsent thrillers such as, 'The Last House on the Left' (2009)and 'Eden Lake' (2008) do borrow these similiar ideas however we seem to have more terror, brutallity, gore and a mixed horror genre. Also the action in thrillers have gotten more extreme in the past ten years such as 'Unknown' (2011)

Noteable Directors for mastering the thriller genre include:
Tony Scott (Unstoppable 2010)
Christopher Nolan (Inception 2010)
Steven Allan Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977)

Finally the lighting in thriller films tends to be dark throughout the majority of the feature to create a tense, heart pounding mood for the audience. With the vast amount having extra non-diagetic material and a complicated narrative to keep the audience guessing.

"By definition, if a thriller doesn't thrill, it's not doing its job" - James Patterson (2006.)

Likewise to our upcoming film.