Thursday 22 November 2012

Researching Your Chosen Genre - Lewis Todesco


The genre that we have chosen to do is psychological  thriller. This involves a very specific style of filming with lots of twists and turns in the plot during the film. It also usually has a lot of deaths, whether that be the death of animals or the death of people but the story is mainly based around the mystery of who is killing these people. Usually there is a massive twist at the end of the film where you find out a shocking truth that has been extremely obvious, yet well hidden throughout the film. Like most other films of this genre, a character that has been present throughout the film turns out to be someone they werent previously thought to be. That is certainly true of the plot outline of our film.
Name of film

At the start of the film there is a  shot of very pleasant couple going into a hospital. This creates a very light hearted feel to the film, which is very misleading to the audience. Most films of this genre tend to start the film off at a calm and relaxed place, but as you get more into the film you then start to realise it is not a very nice film at all. Close ups are used a lot in this genre of film, mainly to disorientate the audence and to not show them the whole environment to lead to more mystery and tension. This close up is used at the very start of the film to let the audience connect to the character and to familiarise themsleves with what is obviously going to be one of the main characters of the film. There is also a tendency to start to analyse the facial expressions and try to work out what may lie behind them.

Continuing on with the style of shots used, we can see here that there is a very low shot that does not show any distinct features or setting, putting the audience in the dark, not knowing where they are going. As you can see by the second screen shot, things start to turn strange and sinister very quickly as the same shot is used but this time a trail of blood is being left behind. The use of blood in these types of films is assential as it adds to the shock and horror of the film. Introducing blood to the audience makes them know that something is very wrong and usually that blood refert to death. The same feeling is aplied to these two shots as they are almost the same shots but blood has been introduced to shock the viewer.


 
Lighting is used in this genre of film to leave the audience in suspense and in the unknown, and also to confuse the viewer. Most of the time the contrast will be very strong so will either be extremely bright on a dark background or vice versa. As you can see in this screen shot, the light has been blurred to add to the sense of confusion and is also extremely bright in comparison to the background.

In our genre of film, mise-en-scene is used in mostly the same way. The setting usually tends to be a large house in a very secluded area as most of the time the victims don’t usually have a way of escaping very easily as they have nowhere to run to. This leads to more suspense in the film. The costume tends to be very unremarkable as they want the viewers to connect to the film more; this makes it easier to shock the viewers if they have related themselves with the characters and the life style.. There also tends to be a focus on the realtively wealthy upper middle classes as their deaths are more shocking than a working class death.





Sound plays a major role in building up suspense in this genre of film. Usually when something is about to happen the non-diegetic music will start quietly and will slowly build up to a climatic and screechy finish which is very unpleasant for the viewer, and when it is put together with shocking visuals on the screen, it has a huge impact on the audience. The sounds are usually the same in mostly all of the films in this genre; more emphasis is also made on injuries such as bones breaking etc. Other than that, most of the times the film has no background music and is manly just background diegetic music from the film, for example a radio or a TV. The use of silence adds to the impact of the music build up and also allows for more jumpy moments as the music can suddenly go from silent to very loud.



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