Review on other student's thriller openings :)

During our lessons, we have had a chance to look at a couple of previous student's work from our school, to help us see the good and bad things about them and see if there is any ideas to help us with making our own thriller openings. Also, there might be some good shots or editing techniques used in other student's work that we would be able to use in my group's thriller opening to make sure that the opening flows from shot to shot.

I decided to mix it up a little bit and watch a thriller opening from another school - "Long Road." I watched the thriller opening "Final Deadline." I thought that it would give me a bigger choice of techniques used, because they might have a different way of producing or editing their openings. Here is the thriller opening that I watched...

I think that one of the good things about this thriller opening is the lighting that they used. There was quite a bit of low lighting so that it linked with the representation of thrillers and to make it feel eerie and quite scary. I think dark/low lighting would be good to use in our own thriller movie so that it can link in with our story, that our character might of had a dark past. Also, another main element in this opening is the music that underlies the filming. They use low sounds that gradually fastens to build the tension and the suspense of what action is going to happen next.

For example, the music that is over this picture...

... fastens up and becomes louder so that it causes suspense for when the lights turn out and we (the audience) are going to find something important out in the opening that has something to do with the narrative. I also thought that the continuity from shot to shot was good and they used a variety of camera movements and angles, which I think we should use in our thriller opening.

I also thought about the things that did not work so well in this thriller opening. One of the things I thought they could have done, was make sure that they did not show too much to give away what the rest of the film is going to be like. I got the feeling that I knew what the film was about, by revealing the person who came in with the knife. This has made me think about our own thriller opening and am going to make sure that it does not give too much away in the time that we have to film. It should give a sense of mystery and leave the audience wandering what is going to happen next. But apart from that, I think that "Final Deadline" was a good thriller opening because it contained codes and conventions of a thriller movie, such as seeing society as dark, corrupt and dangerous.

I found looking at other student's work very helpful, because it gave me an insight of the different techniques that can be used to make a thriller opening extra powerful and how it can relate to the codes and conventions of a thriller film.