General Research

We looked at numerous openings to thrillers and horrors to see what the music, camera, lighting and general narrative and plot were based on we looked at the openings of David Gayle, taxi driver, the orphan, , double indemnity.We focused a lot on this as it fit in with our film Noir base and voice over.

The things we wanted to include in our thrillers were:

• A Voice over in the style of film noir which had a good script and was powerful enough to engage the audience into the lives of the characters.
• Dark lighting in keeping with the film noir style.
• Music and soudn effects that work well and in the style of film noir.

From the orphan opening we looked at how the music played a big part in engaging the audience and making hem feel tense and anxious.The first sounds we hear are soft music of piano showing a happy start of her being adopted this makes it easy for the music to change into something sinister reflecting how her character changes.The sounds that are used quite frequently during the opening were sounds of the wind and swinging of the swings.These types of sounds make it spooky and tense causing the audience to feel on edge not knowing what to expect.The music fits in well with the story and uses techniques of going from very quiet to loud to build up the tension and show that something is about to happen.

From the taxi driver we focused on how the voice over creates and sets the mood.It adds to the narrative and gives the audience an in site into the character and what to expect.
The voice over is clear and direct and just what the audience needs to know about his character e.g `the taxi driver is looking for a target' this makes the audience uneasy about what he is planning for his next victim.It also shows us a different side to the character and how he has become like this e.g The only moment in his life that will mean anything showing his only personal life hasn't satisfied him enough and now its payback.The voice over is important and must make sure it is done prisisely and fits with particular scenes.Overall the voice over gave us ideas as to the kind of dialogue we would use and how well it would fit into our narrative.

From the Life of David Gayle we looked at how the editing and camera work added to the creating the feelings of tension and suspense for the audience.It uses a lot of fades ans slow pace of cuts.This is to create tension fro the adience and not letting them know to much already. The voice over also gives the audience a second opinion on what has happened and how the characters are being portrayed.The use of angles vary showing a lot of high and low angles showing people of little and high importance.David Gayle is used in a lot of dark lighting in prison and bright lighting when it is flash backing on his life showing a contrast.We have used this technique in our thriller as well to show to different places in our characters life.

we looked at double indemnity as it is a film Noir style thriller including voice over.We looked at how the voice over works well with the narrative and characters also how the voice over was used and what kind of dialogue was used to follow the narrative and the characters.We used this style of voice over, the old Hollywood style this creates a story for the audience to follow and engage in.The style of lighting we used to keep with the film Noir era.We used this type of style as it was different and none of the other groups used this kind of style.This thriller gave us a lot of ideas for the voice over and what sort of narrative it was going to be based on.

Overall All these openings gave us ideas as to what type of voice over we wonted, the sounds and music we would like to use and the kind of shots and angles that will work well.