STATS on questionnaire

This was to show how our STATS were recieved and processed from our questionnaire

Questionnaire about thriller films/movies                                                Name:

1. What gender are you?                 Male                    Female 

2. What age group do you represent?        15-20           21-30           31-45+

3. Please list a few of your favourite thrillers?

4. What do you consider to make a good thriller? (please tick)

• Impressive non-diegetic sound
• Special effects
• Good camera work
• high-quality acting
• good quality lighting

5. How many times during a month would you watch a thriller movie?

6. Are you currently in further education at school?

No

Yes

7. Who would you say are typical actors/actresses to appear in thriller films?

8. Who would be someone you would likely to watch a thriller movie with?

Boyfriend/Girlfriend 

Family 

Friend’s 

Grandmother 

9. Where would you expect a thriller movie to be set?

Town

City

Forest

Countryside

Other ________________________

10. What other conventions do you think a thriller should contain? (Please state below)

11. Who do you consider to be the hottest actress within the thriller film industry?

12. What is your favourite type of thriller genre??

13. What is the average rating of film you would watch?

12 

12A 

15 

18 

R rated 

Thank you for taking the time out to read through and fill in this questionnaire. Here at JLS production we pride ourselves on your opinion to try and make our company the best we can be. We also believe in equality and world peace.

 Productions Ltd.

These were the questions asked at people selected at random. We did this because we wanted our statistics to have a naturally occuring correlation.

Conventions Of A Thriller

American Beauty - A must see!

This opening sequence does use some of the typical conventions of the Thriller Genre. For example, in the dialogue used at the beginning of the scene, the main character, who we assume is speaking, says "..In less than a year...I'll be dead..". This, from the very beginning leaves us on sort of a cliff-hanger as it does not give any specific reasoning as to why he will be dead in a year, enticing the audience of this film to watch on and find this information out. Another convention used is the way in which the mood of the audience is played with straight away, by using death as an immediate topic within the monologue, which is very typical of this genre.

The dialogue used in the opening sequence is spoken in a fairly one-dimensional voice, giving a dull mood to the film from the very beginning. This use of dullness is reflected in the character, played by Kevin Spacey, as he is shown, through the camera angles/shots, Mise-en-Scene and editing which in this case is the soundtrack. The camera seems to mainly focus around the main characters and their actions, rather than the setting around them, which hints at the psychological side of the thriller genre, however, we are automatically shown the key setting of this opening from the very start with an establishing shot of the city in which Lester, the main character, lives. The first shot we see of Lester is when he's in bed. There is a use of a high angled shot looking down on him. This can already connote that he has no power within his life.

A key area that needs to be highlighted and that I would like to discuss is the soundtrack that is played over the top of the whole opening sequence. It is a score created by Thomas Newman, which creates quite a specific persona; a simple, repetitive theme, picked up through the continuous xylophone notes. This piece has no under lining bass at all. This possibly connoting the daily lifestyle of Lester's character.

Twyford Woods Location

Location was key when we were thinking about our shoot and we were looking for a secluded house that was half demolished or demaged to add an authenticity to the thriller. It took us a while to get to the location but once on arrival it was definitely worth it.

Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko doesn't get along too well with his family, his teachers and his classmates; but he does manage to find a sympathetic friend in Gretchen, who agrees to date him. He has a compassionate psychiatrist, who discovers hypnosis is the means to unlock hidden secrets. His other companion may not be a true ally. Donnie has a friend named Frank - a large bunny which only Donnie can see.

I think this still represents Donnie Darko reasonably well due to the psychological intensity and the intimidation that the look Donnie is giving. I think the axe also gives a sense of danger or rebellion that also mirrors in his behaviour; schizophrenia develops a sense of rebellious tendencies.

If you look at his whole body language it gives you a sense of not caring whatever he’s doing or not aware of what he’s doing; completely oblivious to what crime or offence he’s committing. His hair gives further evidence to not caring about what he looks like almost having no feeling towards the way he looks or what he does.

Sound

I think the sound was paramount in this movie, it added the right amount of tension in parts of the movie that needed to be intense or scary. Dynamics were put in place correctly to add the right effect manipulating how the scene could appear to the audience.

Shots

There was a variety of shots that worked well together including some unusual zooms and pans that create an unsteady feeling almost making you queasy.

Quotes

The quotes were quite humorous in some places “you’re such a fuck ass” “did you just call me a fuck ass” “you can go suck a fuck” “tell me Elizabeth, how does one suck a fuck?” this shows how chaotic the family life is in the darko household

Media Institutions

First of all i think it's important that everyone know what a media institution is and what its purposes are..

A media institution is an established, often-profit based organization, that deal in the creation and distribution of advertising, entertainment and information services.

In Media Studies, we are most concerned with the responsible for producing media texts. I think the best way to represent these texts are in this diagram:

Now don't get me wrong I'm just scraping the surface with this, however i think these are the fundamentals to media texts.

By using this diagram I think we could refer to TV and have a certain or basic awareness to what is being produced, why it's being produced and who is producing it. For example we could think of  a writer as to having the same belief system as his/her magazine company. We know what a magazine is and what its intentions are, this I think could be wrong in some aspects because it gives a false speculation as to how much authority the journalist may have over the newspaper and especially vice versa.

Here are the URLS which track the some of the activities of the global media corporations. Some of them are very open about the links between their operating sections:

• Disney
• Sony
• Time Warner
• News Corporation
• Viacom

For the sake of this piece of writing I'm going to concentrate on Sony. An organisation most familiar with every aspect of medial world. Sony are based in the US. The benefit of Sony being based there is - population is vast compared to the UK and media out there would be faster to get around the country. The country is not only technologically up to date but wealthy so the world of media is, shall we say in a leading position.

Sony have a movie website to share movies globally and the majority of those movies are thrillers therefore i think Sony would be the ideal corporation to work with for our thriller movie opening we plan to create. On a marketing basis, everybody (trying not to sound too generic) knows or has come across Sony before, because the company is so well known in the industry i think it willl be a huge benefactor for the selling and publication of our thriller. Another positive is the distribution side of things; Song are based in the US but have sections across the whole world that could help develop this movie, For example, getting past language barriers and being able to show the film in that specific country etc. This would be to the following of the BBFC.