In our lesson (Monday 15th December 2008), we watched a thrilling film from the director of Alfred Hitchcock called The Shining. This film was to give us an idea of how the director creates suspense in his film and who better than Hitchcock can portray this. Hitchcock has been named as the king when it comes to creating suspense and this is portrayed in the film. Not to mention that he also directed the classic film, Psycho. This film keeps the audiences on their toes throughout the film and plays clever mind tricks on the viewers allowing them to think they know what is happening, but they really have no idea.
One thing that fascinated me was the way the sound played a huge role in creating suspense. The sound is a vital element of Hitchcock’s production as it allows the audience to identify when something vital or gruesome is about to happen. In my opinion, the sound choice was perfect for the film. The sound made the audience forget that the film had limited characters and limited settings because of how powerful it was to the audience.
At the beginning of the lesson, I was not to keen on watching the Shining because it was not the type of film I like or would watch but by the end of the film my opinion completely changed. We were given a worksheet to write down three suspenseful moments in the film and within 20 minutes, I had already completed the sheet. This shows how suspenseful the film was.
The start was even gave me chills as we saw the birds-eye view shot of the mountains giving the sense of being lost and with the sound added it gave that creepy clam sound which built up tension. The sound usually becomes effective during the evil spiritual presence of the father and his extraordinary gifted son who has visions of the future and the past. Throughout the film, we began to be familiar with the kettle sound of when the water boils and the effect of it getting louder and louder as close ups were made which could perhaps illustrate that the audience are going into the characters head the sense of confusion portrays this sound allowing it to be full of suspense. Another common sound was the powerful thumping of the heart which was also effective in creating suspense as it allowed the audience to recognise what kind of mood was wet in the scene what kind of atmosphere was being portrayed.
I noticed that scenes with just one character was very effective in creating suspense and I saw this on many occasions in the film, such as the child receiving a tennis ball from someone who appeared to disappear and the father going into the supposedly haunted room 237. This shows that a simple film with a couple of characters and a hotel could be such a thrilling film and that my group doesn’t need various characters and incredible settings to make a just a thrilling film.
I have learnt a lot from this film about to thrill the audience from using clever suspenseful techniques and this allowed me to have a clearer image of how I am going to construct my group’s thriller and use some of the tactics I have learnt from Hitchcock’s film. This will enable my group to realise how sound is really effective in creating suspense in thrillers and take into consideration that we need to use editing time more effectively as we never had enough time to finish off the sound in our practice newspaper thriller.
One thing that fascinated me was the way the sound played a huge role in creating suspense. The sound is a vital element of Hitchcock’s production as it allows the audience to identify when something vital or gruesome is about to happen. In my opinion, the sound choice was perfect for the film. The sound made the audience forget that the film had limited characters and limited settings because of how powerful it was to the audience.
At the beginning of the lesson, I was not to keen on watching the Shining because it was not the type of film I like or would watch but by the end of the film my opinion completely changed. We were given a worksheet to write down three suspenseful moments in the film and within 20 minutes, I had already completed the sheet. This shows how suspenseful the film was.
The start was even gave me chills as we saw the birds-eye view shot of the mountains giving the sense of being lost and with the sound added it gave that creepy clam sound which built up tension. The sound usually becomes effective during the evil spiritual presence of the father and his extraordinary gifted son who has visions of the future and the past. Throughout the film, we began to be familiar with the kettle sound of when the water boils and the effect of it getting louder and louder as close ups were made which could perhaps illustrate that the audience are going into the characters head the sense of confusion portrays this sound allowing it to be full of suspense. Another common sound was the powerful thumping of the heart which was also effective in creating suspense as it allowed the audience to recognise what kind of mood was wet in the scene what kind of atmosphere was being portrayed.
I noticed that scenes with just one character was very effective in creating suspense and I saw this on many occasions in the film, such as the child receiving a tennis ball from someone who appeared to disappear and the father going into the supposedly haunted room 237. This shows that a simple film with a couple of characters and a hotel could be such a thrilling film and that my group doesn’t need various characters and incredible settings to make a just a thrilling film.
I have learnt a lot from this film about to thrill the audience from using clever suspenseful techniques and this allowed me to have a clearer image of how I am going to construct my group’s thriller and use some of the tactics I have learnt from Hitchcock’s film. This will enable my group to realise how sound is really effective in creating suspense in thrillers and take into consideration that we need to use editing time more effectively as we never had enough time to finish off the sound in our practice newspaper thriller.
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