One of the conventions that kept appearing in the Thriller genre was the use of dark colours for the titles and logos. The dark colours create a mysterious tension before the film even starts. The opening is key to set up what is to come so it is important that the colour scheme in the opening matches the plot of the film and can be linked in to what the film is about.
We chose to start the opening scene with in a house. In premiere pro we added a black and white affect to make it look like the scene was taking place at night. This is normally a convention for a horror genre film. However we believed that if we take little snippets of the horror genre and mix them in with thriller the outcome would look and work really well. Nearly all thriller films do not have a black and whit opening. The convention is to have an intense scene where everything moves quick and keeps the audience on the edge of there seat. We took an approach which would mean us having a long build up but in the end of the opening have a quick moment that takes the audience by surprise.
This screenshot shows the shot taken just before we enter the dream state of this character. This is definitely not a convention of a Thriller Genre. However we did get the idea for this from a Thriller film called Taken. In this film Liam Neeson the main character has flashbacks and flash forwards which helps him during the film. We took this idea but changed it so it was a dream instead and this reveals the equilibrium in the film opening.
We were happy with the idea of the dream stage in the opening of our film. However because we were going against the normal conventions of a thriller we had to make it very clear for the audience watching that the character was dreaming. It was necessary that they knew this dream was looking at what had happened in the past so it set up the story for the rest of the film. The shot above shows the main male characters face. This is also an extreme close up
A convention of a thriller film is lots of dialogue between two characters. Our storyline did not really allow for dialogue between two characters. Knowing this we decided to integrate the dialogue in a technology way. In taken 3 we see the antagonist rings Liam neeson on the phone to tell him that he is going to die. This is dialogue through a technological device. We used this idea and used text messaging rather than face to face dialogue. We believed this created more tension in the opening which is the main feature we were looking for when creating our film opening.
This shot is where the speed and use of different camera shots increases. This is to tell the give the audience the sense of fear of what is to come. We looked at the film "The Transporter" to get ideas for different camera angles and to get the tight quickness of shot. This really helped us to choose the right shots for the right part of the opening. In a thriller the pace of shots is really important so it is necessary to look at a few other films at how they dictate the speed and tempo of the film just from the shots.
This is one of my favourite shots in the whole film. A big thriller convention is to show power and weakness. This can be done in various different ways but when we were on set we decided to use height as a way to show weakness. We used this high angle shot just after the build up music fades into the shot. The high angle makes the female character look small and helpless. This added in with mysterious build up music really gets the audience on edge which is the main aim for a thriller film.
This shot shows the equilibrium within our film opening. This is the problem that occurs and it sets up the resolution for the rest of the film. We looked at many Thriller films and saw that the antagonist rarely shows his face until the end of the film. We stuck to this convention and decided to not show this characters face to increase the tension within the opening and keep the audience thinking which is what a thriller should do.
We could have ended the film opening there. This is a convention of a thriller opening to end on a cliff hanger and then start the film in an entirely different location. However we decided to go against this convention because we believe that the story line would be confusing for the audience if they do not see the character wake up and can see that it was all a dream. To make it not confusing we added a last shot at the end of the character waking up. This is where the opening ends.
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