Suspense and Shock

Summary of Children of men - Children of men is a 2006 British-American science fiction film loosely adapted from P. D. James's 1992 novel The Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. In 2027, two decades of human infertility have left society on the brink of collapse. Illegal immigrants seek sanctuary in England, where the last functioning government imposes oppressive immigration laws onrefugees. Clive Owen plays civil servant Theo Faron, who must help a pregnant West African refugee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) escape the chaos.


An example of Shock is - 'Imagine a scene in a film similar to this (classroom, students, teacher). The camera reveals that there is a bomb under the table to the audience but we students are aware of it.


Summary of Sabotage (1936) - Sabotage, also released as The Woman Alone, is a 1936 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It is based on Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent. It should not be confused with Hitchcock's film Secret Agent released the same year, or his 1942 film Saboteur.


An example of Suspense is - 'Now imagine the same scene except that instead of the camera revealing the bomb under the table, it without any warning explodes and kills all present'.

Chuck Jones - The rules

The Rules - Chuck Jones

• The Roadrunner cannot harm or upset the coyote except by going 'MEEP, MEEP'.
• No outside force can harm the coyote, only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products.
• The coyote could stop anytime - if he were not a fanatic.
• No dialogue ever, except 'MEEP, MEEP'
• The roadrunner must stay on the road - otherwise, logically, he would not be called the roadrunner.
• All action must be confined to the natural environment of the 2 characters. The southwest American desert.
• All materials, tools, weapons or mechanical convenincies must be obtained from Acme corporation.
• Wherever possible, make gravity the coyote's greatest enemy.
• The coyote is always more humilated by his failures than harmed.

Do films follow rules?

• Some film makers will claim that there are no rules or that rules are there to be broken.
• However, most would agree that there are certain conventions that mainstream films observe in order for them to be acceptable to the mass audience.

Thriller Conventions:

• Young naive character
• Resourceful character
• Antaganist/Villan
• Suspense
• High tech gadgets
• Mysterious phonecall
• Fast pace action scene
• Flash back
• Hero mostly wins
• Cant kill children
• Hero always meets a girl
• Mystery that needs to be solved
• Curious character
• False hero
• Reason for conflict
• McGuffin

Normal opening to a Thriller

Scene setting - Normality - Isolated - Vulnerable

Point of view shot - Camera moving - Element of mystery

Introduction of discordant non - digetic music

Viewer anticipates what will happen

People scared - (Vulnerable people audience identify with)

Element of mystery.

MacGuffin

A MacGuffin is a plot element that catches the viewers attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction. The aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are willing to do and sacrifice anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is. In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot. Common examples are money, victory, glory, survival, a source of power, a potential threat, or it may simply be something entirely unexplained.

'We have a name in the studio and we call it 'MaGuffin' it is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is always the necklace and in spy stories its always the papers.' - Alfred Hitchcock

The Thriller - Alfred Hitchcock

The aspects of the thriller - Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock was the master of suspense whose films came to be the benchmark for 'Psychological' thrillers.
Hitchcock was knows as the master of suspense.

"The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them"
"There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it"
"Always make the audience suffer as much as possible"
- Alfred Hitchcock

"Under the strong influence of Alfred Hitchcock often began with a crime and the accusation of an innocent bystander, were the accused to contact the authorities, no doubt the case could be promptly solved but instead the poor bystander runs from the law thus further jeopardising life and limb"
- Rick Altman

The Thriller

What is a Thriller?

• Physco
• The birds
• Paranormal activity
• Point break
• North by north west
• 127 hours
• Source code
• Saw

'Thriller is a very difficult genre to pin down because it covers such a wide range of films, Thrillers are films of suspense that are supposed to instil the terror into the audience' - Susan Hayward, Key concepts in Film Studies.

Different categories of thrillers:

• Spy Thrillers
• Political Thrillers
• Conspirisacy Thrillers
• Legal Thrillers
• Phycological Thrillers

"When you enjoy something you must never let the logic get too much into the way. Like the villans in the James Bond film whenever Bond breaks into the complex - 'Ah Mr Bond, welcome, come in, let me show you my entire evil plan and then put you in a death machine that doesn't work' " - Jerry Seinfield.

Film Language

Camera framing
Camera framing is what we actually see within the frame of the camera screen, we concentrate on how far the camera is from the subject and from what angle the shot is taken. There are different types of shots these are; Long shot, Close-up, Point-of-view shot and Mid shot. Different types of shots are used in combination to give you information about where and when something is happening.

Camera Movement
Camera movement is used in the same way that framing is used to enhance out involvement in the film action, as the way the camera is moved can be used to direct our attention to a particular viewpoint.
Camera movement includes:

• A panning shot - this is where the camera moves slowly across from side to side from a fixed axis
• A tilt shot - this is where the camera moves up and down from a fixed axis
• A crane shot - this is where the camera is mounted on a crane moves around at a distance above ground level
• A tracking shot - is where the camera follows the action
• A rolling shot - is where the camera moves diagonally, which makes the image askew