Why we veered away from Horror.

We decided to veer away from Horror as we became more interested in the mysterious and technology aspects of Thriller and therefore looked more closely at Psychological Thriller. The main aspects of Horror films is to make and audience jump and to disgust or panic the audience, which after discussing the intentions we wanted our trailer to convey decided that Horror did not match the expectations we had.

We felt that a Psychological Thriller would be more challenging as we incorporated more modern Thriller aspects such as Political and Technological. After researching into political broadcasts, we discovered that the politicians always talk directly to the camera hence talking directly to the audience which is what we intended for Lauren's speech at the beginning of the trailer.

The Psychology of the Poster.

The main features of psychological thrillers are: character fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot. Another aspect of psychological horror is its use of body horror. The purpose is to develop a feeling of unease by playing on human fears of the abnormal, human experimentation, disease and suffering.

These are a few posters of psychological thrillers:

Paranormal Activity has a black and white image of a couple in bed huddled together pointing towards a shadow on the open bedroom door. The image has a time on the bottom right which is portraying that the couple are being watched. It has a quote from the premiere of the film from a newspaper or critic saying its "one of the scariest films of all time." The title of the film is in red which stands out against the black on white writing surrounding it, it is a larger font and the letters are well spaced making it easy to read. The font of the white writing looks like a typewriter and at the bottom is in capitals portraying that it is an important statement for the film and is meant to make the audience think before and after the film.

The Ring poster has a white glowing ring of light surrounding the white child like handwriting title the lower case lettering with large spaces between the letters. The white on black is a well known convention of psychological thriller films. "BEFORE YOU DIE, YOU SEE" is in capitals to create suspense they have offset the writing to make it more scary and to look like a reflection. The shape of the ring is the shape of the moon and by having it still glowing looks like an offset ofan eclipse which would lead to complete darkness which plays on peoples fears of anything coming out of the darkness.

The Butterfly Effect poster has the protagonist male and his love interest taking up the alloted space. The lighting is blue tinted with more emphasis on the male as the female is facing sideways of the camera. There is a reflection in the males left eye making it stand out and it contrasts the light pale colours of the faces.  The names of the actors on the poster are written in white across the top in capital letters. The title is in red signifying blood, lust and romance. The letters vary in size which is effective because it is confusing hence following the ideas from the film.

Dial Hitchcock for Thriller.

"Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else." - Daily Telegraph, 2007

Alfred Hitchcock was an English filmmaker who produced some of the most suspenseful and intense psychological thrillers in all cinema, also dabbling in silent films establishing himself as a truly great director through the early stages of talkies. He became an American citizen in 1956 when he moved to Hollywood and produced his vast back catalogue of films through 1921 - 1976, an inspiring and prolific career.

He described his childhood as sheltered, plagued by his obesity and loneliness and inspiring many of his films. After caught misbehaving by his father, he was sent to the local police station with a note to lock him up for 10 minutes. He was treated with distance and a strictness by his parents - made to address his mother from the foot of her bed, and sometimes forced to stood for hours and his father tragically died at the age of 14 - a memory amongst others which inspired the character of Norman Bates in his magnus opus, Psycho.

His films always included unexpected twists and thrilling plots, laced with violence, murder and sex and he became notorious for pushing the conventions of every genre he dabbled in. Hitchcock also liked to make cameos in his films in all his films, for example trying to get a double bass onto a train.

“Psycho” Produced in 1960 on a controlled budget of $800,000, shot in black-and-white and considered his greatest masterpieces. The exceptional violence of the infamous shower scene, the early downfall of the heroine, the innocent lives ended by a disturbed murderer were copied in many subsequent horror films.

“The Birds” Inspired by a Daphne Du Maurier short story combined with an actual news story about a mysterious infestation of birds in California, this was Hitchcock's 49th film, released in 1963. The scenes of the birds attacking included hundreds of shots mixing actual and animated sequences. Therefore some of the conventions we follow today come from Hitchcock and the 60+ films which he directed.

Psychological Thriller: The Equation.

Psychological: Elements that are related to the mind or processes of the mind; they are mental rather than physical in nature.

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Thriller: A genre of fiction that attempts to "thrill" its audience by placing characters at great risk. This constant unease throughout the story makes the narrative suspenseful to the reader by creating a tense atmosphere.

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Psychological + Thriller: By combining these two terms, the definition changes to a narrative that makes the characters exposed to danger on a mental level rather than a physical one. Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies (which is often the case in typical action-thrillers), but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind.

TRAILER: Inception

WHY IT WORKS:

• Sound: starting with a deep and low, horn like alarm, very slow, and then building and building with higher pitched, faster notes almost unbearably to a point of tension and agitation, that enthrals you into seeing it - I feel like it’s the low horns at the beginning that really get you, they stir something Olde Worlde-y within you that something big and increasingly dangerous is near and in a way, it agitates you and shakes you up. The effortless editing of the sound gives the whole film an ‘epic’ quality – that this isn’t a cheap, low budget thriller, it’s an event – something the low horns almost announce, and it is not to be missed.
• Complete lack of narrative: I feel like from these clips it is impossible to attain a narrative – no clip is over five seconds and none include any speech or actions to give away the plot, the whole idea of the teaser and effortlessly done by the producers of this one. The most revealing is the text – ‘Your mind is the scene of the crime’ – something ominous and quite disturbing to the individual, having your mind specifically targeted. Combine this with the sinister soundtrack and at the end of the trailer, the CGI skyscrapers then zooming out to an aerial shot and seeing them all as mazes creating the word ‘Inception,’ this trailer is definitely a very psychological one and invades your own psychology, leaving you desperate to have these unexplained factors explained.
• Hollywood budget: The high budget and professionalism of the producers is evident throughout this trailer, again enticing the viewer with its sleekness and Hollywood finish, and of course having such a major, and incredibly gorgeous, Hollywood actor leading the cast is another obvious pull for the audience – of all the cast his is the only name shown, and the majority of shots he is dominant in, the other cast are shown relatively little. The high budget is again demonstrated through aerial shots of New York, impossible to attain without a helicopter – and the incorporation of a helicopter in certain shots as well as the use of CGI and special effects, for example the sky scrapers at the finish.
• Unexplained clues: Despite the high budget of this film and trailer, I find the most intriguing of all the shots the ones that are simple shots included of seemingly normal objects that are obviously key to the plot and the film, but are unexplained to the viewer, like clues as it were, for example, the spinning top, which is perhaps the longest of all shots incorporated in the trailer at about five seconds. The water in the glass bending is unnatural to the sight and humans and within the context of the trailer is completely unexplained, as well as being unexplainable by science, and is therefore left as an inexplicable clue for the viewer, as well as the brief shot of the watch ticking, as if time is running out, something very attainable to incorporate into our own trailer.

The beginning of a beautiful friendship ...

Psychological thriller:

Codes and conventions

-CHARACTER OVER PLOT - whereas basic thriller is plot driven - the thrills coming from the twists and turns and physical action within the plot, psychological thriller relies on the character and their mental state to deliver high impact thrills. The protagonist's psychology - their motives, morals, mental processes, fears, paranoias are what shapes the plot by their reactions to the threatening situation they find themselves in and the thrills are essentially created by exposing the viewer's own fears and paranoia's and in essence, threatening them.

-MIND GAMES -psychological games are a major plot thrill used to drive up suspense and tension in this subgenre. Games of deception - deceiving the protagonist and slowly demolishing their mental state are particularly alarming, especially from another evil character's equally unstable mind, but sometimes the conflict is literally within the protagonist's own mind - finally understanding or accepting something that has happened, for example a particularly traumatic experience they'd repressed within their mind, will be the climax of the film. This toying with people's mind and their subconscious are always unsettling for the viewer - the mind being a completely safe and seemingly secure place for any normal human being, as well as the reliance of mental resources, as opposed to physical strength throughout the film.

-Themes: REALITY - Characters attempting to determine what and what isn't true/real through the narrative.

PERCEPTION - Characters misperceiving the world around them or the world around them being displayed to them by outside factors in an obscured manner.

MIND - Used as a location for narrative conflict - characters battle their own mind to reach a new level of understanding/perception.

EXISTENCE/PURPOSE - The character's attempting to discover the purpose of their lives, the reason for their existence - the conflict occurring when they try to discover/question this purpose.

IDENTITY - Characters questioning and doubting their true identity and trying to discover it.

DEATH - The characters have a fear or fascination with death.
- Philosophical themes: METAPHYSICS - attempting to explain the world and define reality, a rather broad category that can be split into several subsections

EXISTENTIALISM - In a world that is uncertain and mysterious and they begin to lose the ability to make meaning of their lives, the protagonist must rely on their own mind and own morality to create a meaning of the world around them and themselves.

DETERMINISM - The world is out of control and the protagonist feels hopeless to change the events that are occurring around him/her.

FATALISM - Whatever will be will be, so the character is essentially fighting a losing battle to gain control of their lives in a meaningless and chaotic world.

ONTOLOGY - Trying to determine what exists and questioning this to an extent that results in answers more confusing than the questions

DUALISM - The protagonist struggles to grasp the difference between the mind and matter and are unable to determine what is physically present and what is a fabrication of their mind

MORALITY - The protagonist knows the difference between right and wrong, but is conflicted between listening to their own morality or following societal standards.

MORAL SKEPTICISM - The protagonist questions whether morals are false or can actually be determined.

NIHILISM - The protagonist feels hopeless and depressed with the view the world, and especially human existence, is without objective meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value.