Past Student Thrillers

Past Student Thrillers
I have been looking at past student thrillers. By looking at these, I can compare them to the thriller opening I made and see where these people have done well and what they can do to improve. I have also seen if I could notice any typical thriller conventions that have been used in these openings.


Hunter
In this thriller opening I think this group have made a great use of sound. As soon as the detective character walks in we instantly know that something is going to go wrong simply because of the way the music builds up and creates suspense. There are a good use of camera angles in this and I think the costume choices were very good and suited each character; the detective was wearing a stereotypical inspector coat and the killer at the end was all dressed in black and held a baseball bat, like he was undercover and this was very effective. I liked the way the camera followed the main character, however, I feel like the tracking shots went on for too long and they could have easily been cut down a little.

After Eight
I really like this one and I feel that the camera angles were very accurate and you can tell that each little shot in each part of the opening was filmed very precisely and carefully. I think the music is very good and as soon as we see the male character walk in with the bag there is a sense of enigma because the audience don't know what is inside of it to start with but are instantly drawn in to want to know what is inside of it. There is also a cliffhanger at the very end, and when the guy says "are you ready for this?" and the female character gives him a very sneaky grin, we wonder what it is they are plotting especially when we see the axe and the blood on the chopping board - what was it that the girl was cutting up? I think to improve they could have used a better microphone and maybe could have limited the dialogue a little bit.

The Catalyst
This opening was very creepy and I found the whole concept of it quite saddening. But there was an excellent use of mise-en scene involved, and also there was a great sense of suspense which started up when the male lead role pulled out the sniper rifle. The music really suited the whole assassin atmosphere. I think to improve they could have added in some more obvious camera angles that you would typically see in thrillers for example a low angle as he pulled out the gun to show that he had power over everyone else.