Inspirations - Miss Georgiou

Inspirations

We need inspiration before we create something because it gives us ideas that we may want to use in our own pieces and gives us further ideas than our what our own knowledge includes. To also get inspiration from others means that we can gather further insight as to what we can expect in a thriller film. We can take inspiration from other thriller films that intend to create the same effects as to what our own film will want to.  We can also take inspiration from things such as newspapers, magazines, graffiti, posters and other peoples work as well as many others. I have taken inspiration and analysed different successful thriller films  such as "Insidious", " The Human Centipede" and "Saw".

In my planning cinematography post I analysed a scene from the film "Insidious". I analysed this clip because I could find a lot of different camera shots used in it that were conventional to the thriller genre. These consisted of different shots such as gradual zooming in and a tracking shot.



Gradual Zooming In 

Tracking Shot

Seeing what shots were used in an actual thriller film gave me inspiration to how they create the emotions of tension, suspense, shock and surprise. The shots showed me how they were used to create emotion as I could tell which shots were the most effective and made me feel the most frightened as part of an audience. For example the gradual zooming in technique created tension because it is helping the audience to engage and build a relationship with her as the camera gets closer her facial expression become more visible. In looking back on my own thriller sequence I have noticed that I could use this type of shot on the characters faces when they are beginning to become worried about the missing dog. The gradual zooming in will tell the audience that something isn't right as they get closer to the character and see the worried expression on his face. This will also create a sense of foreboding that will make the audience anticipate something bad and make them feel sympathy for the character which is conventional to the thriller genre like they used in this insidious scene. The tracking shot also creates tension as it slowly tracks around the dark hallway which makes the audience anticipate and expect something to jump out at them, however when it doesn't come at the moment they are expecting it to it will scare them more as they wasn't expecting this. I feel like this type of shot would also work in my own thriller production due to our unusual narrative. We could use this shot to show our setting at the beginning of our piece. This would be effective as the setting of a dark forest will make the audience fear the unknown and feel as though they may be about to be scared by something they aren't expecting which will therefore make everything seem more frightening for the audience when it comes before Therefore I am going to use the shots that I found the most effective on myself in my own work.

In my next post I analysed sound. I analysed a clip from the film "Scream". I analysed this clip because there was so many different sound effects used in it that was conventional to the thriller genre and made certain parts of the scene seem scary. Certain aspects of sound that I analysed in the scene was diegetic sound, non-diegetic sound, sound effects and parallel sound. Examples of this was sound effects of the entering antagonist and a use of parallel sound when the man is screaming once he has been stabbed. I will also use parallel sound in my own production. I will use this to show the audience when one of the victims has been attacked. Due to the scream not having a picture image to acompany this the scream will be important in order to ensure that the audience understand what is going on and make sure they are still following the narrative. Another technique that I analysed within the scene were diegetic and on screen sound. These where evident when the man was looking in the mirror when he heard a knock on the door behind him. This is diegetic and on screen sound as we can hear and understand where the noise is coming from and what is producing it. I understood that by using this type of sound it can create tension because we usually associate knocking on the door with a bad presence behind it. I will also use diegetic and on screen sound in my own production. I will use this in my POV shot and low angle shot of me and Kane entering the forest. In these shots we will use the sound effects of footsteps. This sound is expected in thriller films as it usually creates tension and makes the audience anticipate the unknown of what may be following and lurking in the forest. This will also play a part in making the victim characters feel vulnerable which will make the audience feel sympathy for them which is also a part of the conventions of thriller. As part of the audience watching this clip I felt as though the knock on the door presented a sense of foreboding as it is conventional to the thriller genre because we usually expect the antagonist to knock on the door and tease the victim before he attacks. I took inspiration from the clip I analysed from Scream because the different sound techniques they used were effective on the audience and create shock, surprise, suspense and tension. The use of sound was created to highlight certain parts of the scene and make the audience jump which is ultimately the impact thriller films have on the audience.

Dark and abandoned setting

Close-up shot to show characters facial expressions

The post I analysed next was research into mise-en-scene. I analysed a scene from the movie
"Saw V". I used this scene because it had various different elements of miss-en-scene that made it apparent to be part of the thriller genre. Two of the main elements of mise-en-scene that inspired me within the Saw V scene was the setting and the facial expressions and body language. The setting was an abandoned dual room with the positioning of the character in the middle. The setting was dark and gloomy which is conventional to the thriller genre and immediately gives off a sense of foreboding and vulnerability. We also took this inspiration in choosing a setting for our own thriller film as we decided we would set our production in a forest during evening so it will be quite dark and gloomy. We felt this will give the audience a sense of foreboding and also make them feel vulnerable and sympathise for the characters as the forest is a big open space which anybody can enter. Also the scene showed various different close up, extreme close up and mid shots of the characters facial expressions and body language. I found this inspirational for my own opening thriller sequence because it expressed to the audience exactly how the character was feeling which was mostly pain and brutality. It made me feel empathy for the character and I felt as though I wanted to help him and didn't want him to experience anything bad happening to him. We decided this would also be good to use in our own thriller clip as we could use body language and facial expressions to show the characters beginning to become scared and helpless as they cannot find the dog. This was intentional as thriller films usually try to use these techniques so that the audience find themselves building relationships with the characters so when bad things happen to them this has a stronger effect on the audience. I found that I wanted to use these elements in my own opening thriller sequence as they had an effect on me being part of the audience and they also help to shock and surprise the audience which is a conventional element of thriller genres.

The next clip I took inspiration from was Halloween H20 : 20 Years Later. I analysed this clip because it had key conventional elements within the scene which created the different elements of a thriller such as suspense, surprise, shock and tension. The first element I analysed and took inspiration from was the hidden and unidentified antagonist. The purpose of this is to create and enigma and ensure that the audience are unable to connect and build a relationship with the antagonist as their purpose is to frighten the audience. I found this inspirational because as part of the audience watching the clip I found that I couldn't focus on any of the antagonists facial expressions which made me unable to understand him as a character and left me wondering about his reasoning's for murdering. Therefore we decided to use this element in part of our thriller sequence. Although our antagonist doesn't wear a mask or using a piece of clothing to hide their identity we will use this technique in a way where the antagonist is one of the characters that you would originally think is one of the victims and wouldn't expect for them to turn around an be the antagonist. We will also not discover the real antagonist until halfway through the production so the audience will be left waiting and anticipating what or who the antagonist may be.
Another element of conventions that I found inspirational was low key lighting. This is were the lighting is very dark and dual which creates a gloomy and mysterious aura. I wanted to use this in my own thriller sequence as I want the audience to feel the characters vulnerability as they are in the dark of night. It also makes the audience feel empathy for the characters as they would have built relationships with the characters and therefore feel aware of them wondering in the darkness. This would also have an impact on the audience as they could imagine themselves in this situation and would therefore understand how the character may be feeling. This is conventional to the thriller genre as they usually try to make the audience relate to the characters so the impact is stronger on them when the characters become the victims in danger. My group also decided we would take inspiration from this film of this technique too. We decided to use low key lighting throughout our whole production to keep a consistent gloomy atmosphere and make sure the audience understand that something bad may happen due to the dark gloomy whether and the sense of foreboding that this element gives to the audience.

My research of the different elements of thriller films was very helpful as they helped me to understand how to make an audience feel frightened and also what techniques are most effective and why. I feel as though the research into conventions and the research into mise-en-scene where the most inspirational. This is because I felt as I analysed the clips I understood clearly how the different techniques were used in ways to make me as the audience feel scared and how the different emotions of shock, suspense, surprise and tension were created through these techniques. I feel that researching different thriller clips was helpful because it has made me understand and see the similarities in different thriller films and has give me inspiration for my own narrative and has given me an idea of what sort of things I want to include in my own opening thriller sequence.