Focus Group Work

Focus Group

1. Do you think a red herring would work?
2. Because our thriller is only 2-3 minutes long, what should the main part of the thriller be?
3. Do you think it should be filmed at night or day?
4. What type of Thriller do you personally prefer?
5. Which idea of the 2 we have presented do you like the best?
6. Do you like the idea of a non-chronological order?

Feedback:

1. "Yeah I think it would work quite well, because most Thrillers that I have seen used it and it worked really well"
2. "Ermm... I don't know"
3. "I think the fist one should be filmed at night because its at a graveyard and it would make it more realistic"
4. "Personally, I like action"
5. "I think there both good, but I like the second one, I think it could really work well because its not obvious what will happen in the story. If the woman walks away after men attempting to attack her that's very surprising"
6. "Yeah I think that it could work well"

Analysis of Survey Monkey Results

Analysis of Survey Monkey Results

The first question I asked is whether people like Thrillers in general.
From my results obtained, 8 people answered my question. 2 people said that they do like Thrillers, 2 said that they do not like Thrillers and 4 said they like some Thrillers but not all of them. These results are quite neutral.

The second question I asked was what sub-genre of Thriller do you like best.
Looking at my results, I can see that 8 people answered this question. I can see that the most popular thrillers are action and crime/detective.

I then went on to ask how often people watch thrillers.
The results were rather surprising. Almost 50% of people said that they do not like Thrillers.

I also asked whether people liked the idea of a red herring in a Thriller.
From my results collected, I can see that 62.5% like the idea of a red herring and 37.5% do not like the idea of a red herring.

All the other questions asked where personal and people wrote their own opinions.

Survey Monkey Questions

Survey Monkey Questions

Here is my survey and the responses I was given. This is my primary research. This will help me and my group improve my thriller as we now know what makes a good thriller due to the questions we asked and the feedback we got. We now know that it would be appropriate to proceed with our initial idea as the questioned we asked where in reference to our Thriller.

James Bonds Thrillers

Thriller

Recipe for James Bonds Thrillers:

• A dashing, sexy and heroic secret agent.
• An eccentric villain of equal or greater strength.
• Various women Bond will make love to throughout his journeys.
• Exotic locations with faced paced scenes and plot devices.
• Exciting stunt-driven action, sometimes rather confusing and out of the blue.
• The John Barry classic music.
• A 'pop' song that will promote the film.
• An exciting jaw dropping opening action sequence.
• Gun Fights and car chase scenes.
• Final scene, commonly on an island where Bond perseveres and prevails to overcome his enemies against all the odds and triumphs.

The Manchurian Candidate New & Old Comparisons

The Manchurian Candidate Old & New

1962 & 2004

Manchurian Candidate is a political thriller novel about a son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party. However there's two version of this film,the first one was written in 1962, it was filmed in black and white and there was less scene with blood in it, most of the violence was suffocating people possibly because they hadn't discovered ways of making scene of false blood. The characters all fairly looked the same the men all have dark hair fairly tall.The background music is very predictable, there's less diegetic sound in the older version than the newest one made in 2004

The new version was released in 2004, it's significant because it shows how time has changed, first of all a black man is the front cover of this film which wouldn't of been acceptable in 1962, the actor Denzel Washington is one of the main character and he's black not only is he the only black person in the film but also a police officer in the film. In the original, there was a lot of background on Shaw's relationship with Jocelyn, and you actually developed sympathy for him; but mainly, Laurence Harvey was an outstanding actor. The heartfelt love between Raymond and Jocelyn was expanded upon much more, in addition to the warmth Raymond shared with her father, Senator Jordan. As a result, the girl's and her father's murders in the 1962 version was much more horrifying. In the remake, there's no underlying emotion when he kills them. As a result, we, as the audience, really don't care.

As you can see, the films have changed in different areas. The most recent one is more fast paced and current. It is more aggressive and gritty. Another change is that the most recent film is in colour. This is very helpful as the original film's black and white feature is not as appealing. more colour means more clarity. 

Overall, I believe the remake is much better than the original because there is more action, red herrings and cliffhangers.

Analysis On Past Student Thrillers

Past Student Thrillers Analysis

Finders Keepers

Good things about this film was that it was all that a thriller should contain, it had fast paced shots and scenes. It almost resembled an Alfred Hitchcock type of film. In the film they including a red herring when the man pulled out his phone, but we all thought dramatically and thought that it would be a gun because of the way he was clothed, this added more tense to the film because we question why he pulled out his phone and also who he called and why he called that person. The was a good chase scene which made me think about North by Northwest when Roger Thornhill was being pursued by the police. However as well as positives in a film, there are some negatives, the camera was rather unsteady at times and the title sequence could have been edited a lot better, but overall a very good Thriller indeed.

The Night Walker

Good things about this film was that it was a good thriller and included great use of diegetic and non diegetic sounds. This is effective as it can make the Thriller seem more realistic to you. There are also a variety of shots such as a Point of View shot which is seen when she is in the car and she looks in the car mirror to see the face of her killer. Overall, in my opinion it was a very basic and predictable thriller and could be argued that the plot is difficult to understand.

Hide & Seek

The film also had some positive such as the background music matches the film which makes it more scary. Opens really normal but we know something's threatening in the background. Good camera angle when the door shuts the door slams which makes the audience jumper. Its also super nature.
However the negatives were the acting wasn't really good and the lightings were a bit poor at the beginning.
Overall I think Finders Keeper was the best thriller because it was unexpected,different & had more action. It was exciting to watch and the sounds added great effects to the film. Having elements from Hitchcock's film really did make a big difference we could tell they had done their research and it made the film stand out from the rest. 

Thriller Analysis

Thriller Analysis

In my media class we watched 4 thrillers as you can see below. We watched these thrillers so that it will help us obtain ideas when we go and make our thrillers. Here is my analysis of the Student Thrillers that I watched:

Brick:

The opening scene to this film was very exciting. It was very tense and it's use of non diegetic music was deliberate and it helped the film to be very realistic. There are three key shots in the opening are; Where there is a full shot of the man staring at the dead woman, the shot of the woman's blonde hair lying in the sewage water, and the shot  of the woman's hand also lying in the sewage water. 

No Country For Old Men:

The opening for No Country for Old Men was another great opening, I think it was my favourite opening to a Thriller out of all the ones watched. It was very mysterious and caught my attention. It had no non diegetic music at all. The tone of the Narrator's voice is low and calm. It starts with a man being arrested handcuffed and taken to a police station. Good use of positioning is used as we see the Police officer on the phone and the handcuffed man behind him. The film begins to get even more surprising when the arrested man slowly and calmly walks towards the officer that arrested him and strangles him the handcuffs around his wrists.

Zodiac:

The opening scene for was very modern, it starts off with a teenage boy and girl driving to a quite area. Initially I assumed this to be the basic romance scene that teenagers often indulge in however I was quite wrong. The boy seems very calm but the girl seems very nervous and unsettled. Something was wrong, it was evident in the girls face expressions. Then a mysterious car arrives and suddenly the girl's mood changes, she is alert and worried and it makes us, the viewers wonder why. It then leads to death for the teenage boy and girl from the car that was anxiously parked behind them. This was a great start to a thriller and I would definetly continue watching as I would want to know the reason behind the dramatic killing.

 

A History of Violence:

The opening scene to this is very still and surreal.It seems so casual, two ordinary men exit and enter a car. There voices are low and husky which adds to the stillness of the opening scene. They then engage in a dramatic shootout.