Analysing four thriller clips

In our lesson (Thursday 18th December 2008) we done a brainstorm on different types of thriller genres e.g. supernatural (sixth sense), psychological thriller (the shining) , murderous passion (what lies beneath), spy/action (bond films) etc. the brain storm helped us with the next part of our lesson. And helped us to identify the different representations of a thriller film.

We had to watch 4 different clips and analyse how each clip creates suspense. We filled out a sheet to write down the key features which creates the suspense , which were the lighting, the use of camera (movement, angle, distance), the music (sound, effects, soundtrack), editing and the setting and location. The sheet was really helpful to us because it was easier to identify the key components which makes a great thriller film/ clip. The first clip we watched was an extract scene from The Shining, the scene used was the bit where Danny was riding his bicycle through the corridors and stopping at room ‘237’, there is definitely suspense in this short scene due to mainly the camera shots and sound effects, firstly there’s a tracking shot of Danny riding his bicycle and slow scary music at the same time (non-diagetic) the use of the corridors make the audience anxious on what’s around the corner and we have the same vulnerability as Danny because the camera shot is behind the boy and on the same level as him. And we had to fill out the sheet for each clip analyse and focus on each of the techniques used (what lies beneath, 28 days later and collateral) after analysing each clip, our homework set was to choose a clip and analyse how suspense is created within the clip and blog it and post it . I chose what lies beneath .