Thinking of Genre

 

        Today me and my partner finally settled on the genre that we want our film opening to be based on. After some consideration, we decided on doing a thriller, specifically a psychological thriller, mixed with some aspects of drama. This choice correlates with our interest in the film opening purpose of developing mystery as I mentioned last blog post. 

        My research on this genre has showed me that it is characterized by having a moody, ominous, and unsettling tone to it, as well as having many twists and turns to the story itself, causing it to be a highly elaborate plot. A lot of thrillers are also characterized by elements of suspense that make the audience predict outcomes and anticipate the reveal of some truth. There's also the presence of clues and red herrings, which are pieces of information that lead the protagonist in the direction of the resolution of the mystery. The use of clues can make the audience feel immersed in the story and even come to their own conclusions as to what the clues mean; i think that this could be a fun technique to implement in our opening by incorporating shots of objects that have to do with an aspect of the plot of our story, but whose meaning we don't disclose, making the audience wonder what they mean. 

        The sub-genre of thriller, psychological thrillers, also focuses on anticipation and suspense but it concentrates more on the complicated emotional state of one of the characters, most likely the main character or an antagonist. Some very popular psychological thrillers include: American Psycho (2000), Shutter Island (2010), Gone Girl (2014), and Black Swan (2010).

 

        I was especially interested in the opening scene for Gone Girl. Although the purpose of the opening wasn't only to develop mystery, but also a lot of the setting where the story will take place, it also had good techniques which left the audience with questions. For instance, the use of ominous music set the dark tone, the close ups created the sense of intimacy and the voice over by whom we assume is the main character asks "what have we done to each other?" and then cuts to credit scenes and shots establishing settings. I think i would like to use dialogue in this way on my own piece in order to create mystery, as well as the same style of music.

        Throughout the next week i plan to continue to do research our chosen genre, come up with the details of our story, and pan out the schedule of the project as a whole to make sure i stay organized and on-task.