Genre Research

Both myself and Josh have determined that we want to create a Thriller film. We decided that we wished for our film to be a Thriller as we both have the same interest in this genre. Also, we feel that a thriller/realistic horror would be essentially more professional and believable due to our financial, locational and dramatic constraints. Furthermore, during our film analysis we have seen the elements which are applied in both a short film and elements which are conventional to our chosen genre. We feel this will be extremely helpful during the production of  our film.

In Depth Research of Thriller

Thriller and Suspense Films: These are types of films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension. Thriller and suspense films are virtually synonymous and interchangeable categorizations, with similar characteristics and features.

If the genre is to be defined strictly, a genuine thriller is a film that rentlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. The tension usually arises when the main character(s) is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission from which escape seems impossible. Life itself is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces - the menace is sometimes abstract or shadowy.

Thriller-Horror Sub-genre

Another closely-related genre is the horror film genre (e.g., Halloween (1978)), also designed to elicit tension and suspense, taking the viewer through agony and fear. Suspense-thrillers come in all shapes and forms: there are murder mysteries, private eye tales, chase thrillers, women-in-danger films, courtroom and legal thrillers, erotic thrillers, surreal cult-film soap operas, and atmospheric, plot-twisting psychodramas. Thrillers keep the emphasis away from the gangster, crime, or the detective in the crime-related plot, focusing more on the suspense and danger that is generated.

Characters in thrillers include convicts, criminals, stalkers, assassins, down-on-their-luck losers, innocent victims (often on the run), prison inmates, menaced women, characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, fugitives, private eyes, drifters, duplicitious individuals, people involved in twisted relationships, world-weary men and women, psycho-fiends, and more. The themes of thrillers frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder.

I wanted our film to be presented in a documentary style; to tell our story quickly and introduce different characters surrounding the protagonist. I felt that this would be an easy and effective way to create a believable storyline. To me, it is important to make a thriller film as realistic as possible and to integrate a horror link would make the film more intense and scarier due to the fact its realistic content could possibly happen; this would have a disturbing affect on the audience. I found my inspiration from the 2012 film, "The Devil Inside", a documentary style film  about a woman who becomes involved in a series of exorcisms during her quest to determine what happened to her mother; a woman who murdered three people as a result of being possessed by a demon.

Here is a clip from "The Devil Inside" which I feel shows some good camera techniques and tricky shots to create the "documentary style"