Opening sequence conventions - Reservoir dogs and Se7en

Thriller themes

The film I will choose to analyse themes in a thriller will be Unknown by which is a thriller action film with the main character being Liam Neeson.
The thriller themes will be the following:

• Violence
• Suspense
• mystery

Violence used in film can be when something or someone becomes the victim of physical assault which is intended to hurt, damage and even kill.
This can often be the characters intent in the film otherwise it is accidental.
The scene in which the violence is portrayed in the film can include the use of weapons such as knives, guns and even grenades whereas other violent scenes can contain just simple fist fights. There are many ways films use violence and they are almost always guaranteed to be over the top. In taken violence is used in many scenes throughout the film when the main character (Liam neeson) wakes up from a car crash to realise someone is impersonating him a the time and place of his stay in Berlin. Liam neeson uses violence during the film which helps him interrogate any potential threats or people who may help him find out who is impersonating him.

Suspense is also used in film as it is a great factor which allows for the audience to feel mixed emotions during the time they watch the film. Suspense is often used in this film as well in certain scenes where an enemy may be roaming the hallways with a gun to try an eliminate Liam Neeson as they work for the man who is impersonating him.  Suspense give a person mixed emotions whether they are good or bad for instance it can be a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what will happen. This could be from hearing steps in a hallway to chasing people in a scene all these elements combine together to make the scene feel thrilling.

Mystery is when something unexpected seems to happen and this is what makes the film seem so engaging.  It is because the audience do not know what will happen compared to suspense it is different as suspense in film people usually can determine what will happen whereas a mystery is unknown what will happen. A mystery film is when the circumstances of an issue  is not yet discovered. This is because it is difficult to explain and understand. What makes this convention so irresistible to watch is the fact that you as the viewer have no idea what may happen and it is the element of the unknown that excites us as the audience and makes a mystery such a good convention in the film. Mystery could have happened after Liam Neeson witnesses a man who pretends to him when he went to go meet his wife and realised something is wrong with his wife as she is not acting herself.

All these elements can be combined in a movie which makes it alot more thrilling to watch!
Using violence can excite the audience as a typical fight scene can distract viewers from the story incase the main storyline is slightly too overwhelming for the audience. The addition of a fight scene makes everything more interesting.

The same with mystery in a movie as it can create an enigma for people this means people wont know what will happen and this further excites the story for people.
In unknown an enigma can be when the main character finds out someone is pretending to be him.This can potentially be classified as an enigma as it is difficult to understand.

In my film the theme I would explore would be suspense simply because the layout of a theme which has suspense is so engaging for viewers and having experienced a suspenseful scene myself I understand the contrast of different emotions the audience feel when watching and how this attracts the viewers even more.

unit 3 thriller mood board

 THRILLER SHOTS
This screen grab from taken is a typical character from a thriller film behaves. In this scene There is suspense as the actor is waiting anxiously as an enemy comes towards him which Clearly represents a suspenseful scene. the audience can see in this clip that the main character is struggling to get to his objective. We see this through different angles of this scene.
Clearly if the character from this shot is trying to look down then he is trying to get a look at
something.

This is a scene of suspense from the movie where Lia
m neeson is essentially trying to locate an enemy and is moving around in a stealth motion as he does not want to be detected. If he gets detected then he will have to be in a situation where he is in trouble. All of these skills Liam neeson applies whilst trying to find his daughter is what makes the film so intense.
At 1:22 of the clip an enemy locates him and tries to shoot but he misses which makes the scene more engaging. to watch.

 TYPICAL THRILLER EDITING
In this part of the film we see editing at 0:21 where Liam neeson daydreams about all these memories  of his daughter and forgets what the people are saying to him. The flashback is edited so it seems like he is thinking of other things and this is done because we as the audience can see all these other memories that come back to him as they appear on screen.

In this scene at 0:35 we see the car racing scene swap multiple times to the boat evading which has Liam neesons daughter inside. The reason this is so entertaining to watch is because it shows how the boat is trying to evade at a slow speed whilst Liam neeson is driving at a very fast speed which shows a contrast in pace of the scene. The editing used in this action montage is used in such a way so that the audience understands how much effort Liam neeson is putting in to try and retrieve his daughter

MISE EN SCENE SHOTS
As part of mise en scene we as the audience can see the lighting in this scene at 0:42 there is a drastic change of lighting which is artificial the whole way through because we as the audience see the car which is speeding and has very bright LED headlights then swap as he gets out the car because we then see him travel to the bridge and behind him are regular street light which seem to be dim so there seems to be some sort of contrast of lighting which can be summarized as an element of mise en scene.

The location in this racing scene seems to be quite noticeable at 0:15 to the audience as they are aware that where Liam neeson is racing can be identifies as quite a civilized area where nothing bad seems to go on because everything outside the car such as the street and people seem to be ordinary which makes the car racing down a quiet road stand out a lot which is what the audience want to see.

TYPICAL THRILLER SOUNDS
We can see in this scene a typical thriller sound would be the sound of the car tires screeching as it begins to evade the area as quick as possible. This can be seen at 0:14 The audience know this because whenever the sound of tires screech is shows that the car is either being driven irresponsibly or that the car is going to be driven really fast which denotes a thriller scene of suspense which does occur as the car tries to drive off to catch the boat.

Also another typical thriller sound would be the gun fire at 2:15 because the two character who are the protagonist and antagonist are fighting as one lets a fully automatic machine gun go off. This is a fast paces scene yet it can be thrilling for viewers and the gun shots flying all of the place could potential kill any of the two characters.This is what makes the scene so thrilling for the audience. It is the way the fight starts with the bad guy getting hit on the nose and as he flies back he lets his gun go off as it pretty much fires all over the place what makes this part so thrilling is the potential of any person getting hit by gunfire.

unit 3 thriller sub genre