Psychological Thriller Openings

We decided to look deeper into the openings of Psychological Thrillers to really understand how they are constructed and how they work. Out of our choice of opeings, I looked closely at four of them to expand my understanding of what makes a Psychological Thiller.

The openings I chose were 'Shutter Island', 'Girl, Interrupted', 'Side Effects', and 'Silence of the Lambs'.
To get a clear understanding, I looked for how my openings:

• Created Enigma
• Introduced the Characters
• Set up the Plot
• Used Pace and Rhythm
• Set the Mood and Tone

Pschological Thriller Openings: Analysis

As we have decided on the genre of 'Psychological Thriller' for our opening, we decided to look at openings of other Psychological Thrillers to understand how the codes and conventions work together to convey what the genre is.



We looked at the film 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' to get a better understanding of how these codes and conventions can work together to produce a Psychological Thriller. The openings includes many typical aspects found in Psychological Thrillers, for example, it begins with what apears to be a desterted house with a single open window who's curtains are being blown about. The lighting inside the house is minimal, with only the light from the window allowing us to see what is going on which conveys an eerie, creepy atmosphere. The scene then jumps to a serge of people tainted red as they are covered in some sort of raw, bloodied meat. This connotes some of the common themes we found in our research, such as death and maybe murder. The redness of the meat also fits in with the typical iconography we have found, as it connoted blood and the devil, and evilness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxHdvs01QEA

 

We also studied the film 'Donnie Darko' which is the story about a schizophrenic boy who has come off his medication. Donnie Darko is the stereotypical 'mentally incapeable' character of a psychological thriller, and also has an imaginary friend who is able to influence him to do certain things. The film overall is a great example of a psychological thriller, as it features many of the stereotypical codes and conventions which we found are common in the genre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZyBaFYFySk

 



Another opening which fits the typical codes and conventions is 'American Psycho' a film about Patrick Bateman, a man who by day works on Wall Street, and by night descends into madness, as he experiments with fear and violence. In the beginning of the opening, we are introduced to an incredibly white and sterile environment, and then to the character himself, who completes a sort of workout, then goes on to wash himself. We can gather from this that this man may be quite OCD  about things being clean and tidy, and after he places a susbstance onto his face, which he then proceeds to peel off, we start to understand that there may be something wrong with this man; he may have some sort of mental disorder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGeAMVK75T4

 

Examples of various Psychological Thrillers

 

    

Audience Research: Survey Monkey

We wanted to understand our audience better, to find out who they are and what they do and don't like in psychological thrillers, so, we decided to use the website www.surveymonkey.com to compose a survey which would allow us to collect primary data from open and closed questions to get some answers. This will ensure that when completing our opening, we will use the stereotypical traits of typical pschological thrillers that people enjoy watching. Our use of open and closed questions will allow us to be able to gain both qualative and quantitative data, which will greatly benefit us when choosing what to add in our opening.  

 We E-mailed the link to our survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q3QS6Q7 to a variety of people to ensure diverse results

Our survey.

Psychological Thriller: Research into the genre.

To help us get an idea of what is expected in a Psychological Thriller, we looked at a selection of films and opeings of the genre. We wrote down our findings in this table, showing the stereotypical traits which make up a Psychological Thriller. These included the typical themes, characters, plot, settings, narrative and iconography found in the genre.

WHAT WE FOUND.

• We found that the typical Stock Settings of a pschological thriller usually involve quite personal places to the main character, such as their homes (particularly their bedrooms), schools, a therapists/councillors’ office and their own private place (a field or deserted house).
• We also found out that the main character was most likely to be a teeager or a child with a strange mental ability or disability, and that their parents didn't understand them, hence the need for a councillor or therapist. A police man or detecive was almost always involved as a consequence of the main character committing a crime which either harms themselves or others. The last key characters we found were romantic interests and a 'special' friend (a friend that was either really close and knew all of their secrets, or an imaginary friend.)
• The typical Themes of a Psychological Thriller tend to involve a murder or crime, a serious case of mental instability, the contrast of death and existance, and various perceptions of life and situations.
• The Narrative usually involves features such as flash backs, voice overs and strong binary opposites such as Good Vs Evil and Light Vs Dark
• We found that the stereotypical iconography of a Psychlogical Thriller includes a lot of dark, mysterious objects; real and surreal (dreams/nightmares, devils/demons, writing on walls that only the protagonist can see), churches and crosses and nature which has rotted (hanging trees, dead flowers ect).



Our table of the codes and conventions of a Psychological Thriller.
 

 To summerise our findings in a creative manner, we decided to present them in the form of a booklet, which will allow easy access to our information whilst also being entertaining to read.


Our booklet summerising the codes and conventions.

First lesson: What are we going to research, why and how?

For our first Media lesson, we made a plan of what we were going to research throughout the course. We studied what, where and why we were going to research these aspects of our work, and how we were going to do this. This will help us when actually carrying out my research, as it will guide us with what we are researching and why.

We decided that the most important aspects to research would be our audience and their demographics, and the openings of other Psychological Thrilers.

Researching locations for our opening and actors/acresses who we would have perform in it will also be an important job, but relies on the information from our audience research to carry out.



Our table showing what we are going to research, why and how we are going to do it.
 

To gain information about our audience, and to find out who they are, what they enjoy and what they do and don't like in Psychological Thriller, we decided that the most effective option would be to host focus groups and get people to fill in questionnaires/surveys. This would give us the primary research we need to let us know what sort of plot we will use in our opening.

To find out the codes and conventions of a Psychological Thriller, we decided that we would search openings of other films of the genre on youtube and rent out DVDs, and also look at other students coursework to see what did and didn't work for them.