Why do audiences love psychological thrillers?

Forms and conventions of a thriller film

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Horror vs. Thriller (psychological) I've always said that the difference between the two is dialogue, and quite possibly blood.

In reality, what is the difference? What makes Horror not Psychological Thriller and vice versa?

Subject?
Theme?
Scene structure?

Here is some points form a debate on an online forum.

"I think the main difference lies in the source of the horror.
At least in general terms, the source of horror is not natural,
that is, not from the normal and rational world in which most of you live.
Again, in very general terms, the source of the psychological thriller is
a fairly normal and natural thing (i.e. a person ) which is acting in an unusual manner."

"I recently wrote an article explaining what horror is and isnt, and although Im sure it can be disputed, I feel that horror and thriller (and suspense for that matter), arent really all on an equal plane, but feel that one is just a continuation of the other."

"My opinion the difference is this. Horror is plain scaring you. There are no tricks just plain old fashion blood and guts. Its like in Halloween they use the music and suspense to build you up and then the murderer jumps out and makes you scream. Think about a haunted house. To me that is horror.

Psychological thrillers messes with the head. You think reality is one thing but it is actually another. It is the sophisticated cousin of horror. Not saying that horror is the hillbilly cousin everyone hates to invite but it does take certain finesse to writea good psychological thriller."

Hmmm we'll take that as a challenge, lets see if Mac 2 have that 'certain finesse' well for the opening 2 minutes of it anyway, which in my opinon is the most crucial part, the audience need to be hooked or at least have a degree of curiosity to continue watching the film from its opening or they will get bored, disengage and switch off as they have certain expectations of a film that it should meet. Even from its very beginning. 

Gothika

This film is another case study our group has found to help us when editing and thinking about the storyline which will possibly follow our 2 minute opening.
'Gothika' 2003 has a certificate of 15 because it contains violence, brief language and nudity. Its genres are: Horror, Thriller, Mystery

The plot is about a psychologist in a women's prison who wakes up one day to find herself on the other side of the bars, accused of having murdered her husband. She needs to prove her innocence, but the film is not what you expect. There will be not too much logic in what follows, and the borders between reality and hallucination seem to be crossed by the director and script writer, not only by the characters. (The same sort of cross we have featured in our film with the fireworks in the main characters head.)

The haunting setting in the film and the way the atmosphere is being built targets its audiences (15 -30 year old thriller lovers) inciting them. The institution looks like some gothic building from outside, with blue lighted corridors inside creating an appropriate setting for the mood of the characters. Rain seems to poor almost permanently, kind of reflecting the fluid state of mind of the characters.

This is England

Yesterday, in class we watched the five star film written and directed by Shane Meadows, we had to observe the representation of class and status also the power relationships. This film is also a great case study for Section B of our exam.

Weasel Waltz 4

Today in class we explored different fonts for the credits of our film opening and we listened to different non-digetic sounds we could include. Our inspiration to use a creepy children's jack in the box slow tune was from Coraline and The Woman in Black trailer. We found the perfect sound we want to use however at the last minute we couldn't download it so it looks like its back to the drawing board.

Finally got a close match a week later!!

Revision Material.. new BFF's

AS G322 revision booklet pt1 (Film Industry)

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Just a helpful reminder of the criteria for section B of the AS media studies exam, my revision check-list, we're going to become the best of friends from now until the day of the exam.

I found more great material on SlideShare this will definitely aid my understanding of how to dissect film companies, producers, distributors and the audience the end product is delivered to.

S:\media studies\media as\miss eccleston\revision session

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Ooo Second draft

I watch it and i just think how amateur, i wonder what other people must think.. However i have to recognise that there is method to madness (literally). We took so many different shots and angles, we found it hard to decide which were the best to include, so we just dragged all the main shots together and already its way over 2 minutes.. We have so much to do, but we can see it starting to take a nice form even though all we have now is a very, very rough outline.
 ..Need to do something about the sound we could leave the natural noise of the cars passing but maybe lower it and manipulate it to sound less harsh it might work, though we should probably play it safe and use Foley sound or even simpler just music.

ooo iTV vs ITV - Is there any competition though?

Today in media we looked at the article of the new addition to the Apple revolution the iTV the television that will demolish streaming devices. having the facilities that will enable people to watch films and TV show straight from the internet to the TV. Another article introduced Netflix the new American online streaming company said to attempt a breakthrough in the UK after its successful launch in the USA and Canada Reed Hastings and the company is sceptical about its UK rival LoveFilm

The Christmas Spirit

Watching many films and thinking about Media studies ... key terms are jumping out at me cant watch them without being analytical makes me laugh.

SE7EN ...Days to recover

Today in class we watched the jaw dropping thriller Se7en,
This is also a psychological thriller like our film

Proud Producers...

Our editing techniques have pulled together to create the first 41 seconds of our film opening, we are pleased with what we have so far the stand alone names is an interpretation of films we researched such as Coraline - which goes with our genre and most contemporary films today.

Coraline

even though this is an animated film, it has the creepy film conventions we want to follow and include in our film..
show picture


'Coraline' 2009 Rated PG for the matic elements, scary images, some language and suggestive humor its genres are Animation, Adventure, Family, Fantasy and Thriller.
The plot of the film is An adventurous girl finds another world that is a strangely idealized version of her frustrating home, but it has sinister secrets.

Storyline: When Coraline moves to an old house, she feels bored and neglected by her parents. She finds a hidden door with a bricked up passage. During the night, she crosses the passage and finds a parallel world where everybody has buttons instead of eyes, with caring parents and all her dreams coming true. When the Other Mother invites Coraline to stay in her world forever, the girl refuses and finds that the alternate reality where she is trapped is only a trick to lure her.

Here is the opening sequence of the film form art of the title, our group particularly like the arrangement of the credits and the creepy childlike music, which we want to feature in our two minute film opening.

Final Footage.. I'm going to Miss Filming

On Friday, Mac 2 braved the cold weather and ventured out to shoot the final footage for our 2 minute film opening. It was tough. We went far and wide, to the subway under the busy motorway at Enfield Crematorium. we brushed off the stares of the inconvenient passers-by. Our actor suffered cramps and near frostbite. The camera crew cradled and lugged around the heavy equipment from location to location making sure everything was fine for filming. Yes it was a struggle, but it was sure worth it..

Sequencing the Opening title sequence - what's its consistence?

Functions of the Title Sequence

The functions of the title sequence in a film may seem to be fairly obvious. They are designed to tell the audience the names of the people and organisations involved with the making of the film and in this respect they do the job well.

Irrespective of the genre, there is a conventional way of presenting this information in the credit sequence. This information and the order in which it is presented follows a standard format

1st Footage - Evaluation

video voice over footage..

BFI trip - How this whole A-Level is supposed to be done!!!!!

Need to totally re-assess our groups 2 min opening because there is no way we are getting level 1 just because of insufficient planning, we need to slow down and take it step by step and that's the way we get top marks, hence what we were shown and taught by Pete Fraser on the BFI trip and the reason for our allowing us to have this whole experience.

"The main thing is to make your final project look like what it is supposed to be- so if it is meant to be a trailer, you need to be sure it shows the conventions of a trailer, but if it is a film opening, it MUST follow the conventions of film openings!

The OCR AS video task asks you to make "the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes". Many students fall into the trap of thinking this is a really easy task and they can just have a laugh doing it and walk off with a good grade. Nothing could be further from the truth! Expectations are very high from this production work and you will need to work systematically and be extremely well organised if you are to be successful." 

- Pete Fraser