Stephen, Nigel and Ben's Foundation Portfolio: Ben- Evaluation Question 1

Suspense and Enigma are key within Thrillers. This is something we tried to incorporate and hopefully works as intended

Suspense: A state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what might happen.

Enigma: A person or thing that is mysterious or difficult to understand.

Suspense is used in Thriller films to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. This can be done in many ways. For example:

Restricted Narration: where the audience knows no more or less than the characters.
Unrestricted Narration: the opposite where the audience knows more than the character(s). Also known as Dramatic Irony.
Technical Codes: The techniques and rules within Camera, Sound Editing and Mise en Scene (or the lack thereof) can create almost any feeling if done right.

Using Restricted Narration is something that can work very well in Thriller to throw the audience in the deep end of mystery they know nothing about, leaving them wanting to get out. 'The Usual Suspects does this in its intro with a hidden and cloaked figure that walks up to what appears to be the lone survivor in a shoot out (taking into account the dead bodies and the Crime-Thriller genre). The injured survivor looks up to the man hidden by shadows and camera framing, and calls him by name. Suddenly, everyone watching is asking 'What? Who is he? How do they know each other? Why do we not see his face?', creating Enigma and Suspense in one move. In our Thriller, we have a similar attempt at creating such a mysterious character. This does not work the same as it does in 'The Usual Suspects'. We filmed early in the morning with plenty of light, while 'The Usual Suspects' was in the dark, giving them full control of how the image would look like, while also giving the ability to highlight certain areas. This is key to have the audience look in the right place and create the desired mood and effect.

A lot is shown, Enigma reduced - Thriller

Highlighting key areas, The Usual Suspects

Our Thriller piece ends with what I believe is the most suspenseful part of the film. A slow Zoom In on a light switch that only shows a hand turning it on and off. The sounds are key in this scene. The audience was just explained that the running girl is believed dead, having also been shown, that is not the case. The sound in the scene represents a beating. Made to feel uncomfortable, the restricted view adds onto the feeling of helplessness the audience would be feeling as they are unable to stop what is happening. As that builds the suspense, this is also furthering both Restricted and Unrestricted Narration. Unrestricted because the audience knows the girl is alive (for the moment) whereas the Protagonist is mourning at her grave. This gets the audience tense as they wish they could go up to the characters and tell them all they need to know. While Restricted is the lack of knowledge on the characters and their situations. Ideally, this information void would gradually be filled with character development in the remainder of the movie. But a short intro can get the questions rolling. The movie Pandorum creates suspense through sound in a similar manner at the end of its intro. After going through several variations in different languages, a voice says "You are all that's left of us. Good luck, God bless, and God speed". All the audience can assume is that the human race is dead, aside from the people we've seen in what appears to be a cockpit. This is Restricted Narration, as the characters in the cockpit know why they are there and what they must do. All the audience knows is they're on a BIG spaceship and the human race, somewhere, is gone. With this information, it can be assumed that Earth was dying and that a select group was sent into space towards a new planet, as it has a well traversed plot in Science Fiction. But the limited information given makes this Restricted Narration.

Hand and switch only - Thriller

Message and characters giving information - Pandorum

Iconography is the technique of using visual elements to evoke a certain idea, feeling or view of the world. Certain images or symbols, in today's society, have come to mean certain things. Easy ones are a Cross symbolising Christianity and a scythe symbolising death. In our thriller we have used little iconography and only for a few shots. The most prominent are the graves, symbolising death. Graves were also used in the "Blair Witch Project" to show the connection between the legend and death. What differs with film is that, instead of a Documentary format, pragmatically showing deaths that occurred several years ago, our Thriller format has someone mourning. This makes it personal to the character and a great place to start a quest for vengeance. The second piece of iconography is a read and white rose. We chose a rose because this flower symbolises love and romance. This rose was sculpted so that we could have it be both red and white in colour. This is because the red colour alone symbolises love, but with white it symbolises unity. This may not be picked up upon in the audience but it make a connection between the grave and the character with the flower.