Section 12: Analysis of completed thriller

TITLE OF FILM – Who Am I? (Opening sequence)

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE:

·        Young male (18 years old), Stephen Smith wakes up and gets ready for school (sixth form)

·        He then leaves the house unenthusiastically and walks up the street towards school

·        We then see him walking home much later in the day when it is dark

·        Then we see Stephen wake up in the middle of some woods and he is covered in blood, and he looks confused and has no idea how he got there or how he came to be covered in blood.

·        Scared and confused he runs in the first direction he sees.

·        Unbeknown to him he has actually murdered a young girl he went to school with.

THRILLER CODES AND CONVENTIONS:

·        The music is dark and ominous and creates a chilling and suspense filled experience for the audience. This sticks with a key feature of the thriller genre and it is essential to this particular bit of film because it conveys the most emotion to the audience. Other examples of this type of music come from more notable films such as jaws.

·        The feature of blood is sticking to thrillers also because the narrative structures usually stick to a theme of murder and the audience expects to see at least one dead body which is more shocking when it is covered in blood.

·        The dead body of the girl is shown so that the audience can have a question answer model. They get this because they see the character covered in blood in a woodland area and then they see the dead body of the girl in the same area and it makes them answer what has happened to the girl and Stephen.

·        The theme of mental health which is sown in other thrillers such as American psycho and Donnie Darko are quite frequent in thrillers, and they are often used as an explanation for the killer’s motives. This makes the thriller a little bit more shocking because it is no real reason for killing just a disease which there is no control over and that is shown in Who Am I? This is to make it more shocking for the audience and make them question the killer and his motives.

·        The killer is a male and this is also a recurring theme within thrillers and it is shown in other thrillers such as seven, the Da Vinci code and American psycho. I think that this is because men are seen as the protectors in society and this relates to a vulgar display or physical power upon someone else.

CAMERAWORK:

·        There is a lot of use of long shots such as extreme long shot and regular long shots and this is in the scenes where Stephen is walking to school, walking home and running away. Also there is a long shot used when Stephen wakes up in the woods and discover that he is covered in blood. This is to show the audience how much he is covered in blood and gives them an idea of how much violence must have taken place.

·        Close ups of the characters face are important in the sequence because the audience is allowed to see his own shock and at one point his utter confusion. The confusion comes when he is looking around the woods trying to figure out where he is and where he should go.

·        The camera peds down when Stephen is waling to school and this could be being used to show that maybe when this character everybody else doesn’t matter it is only him that the focus needs to be on. Also this camera movement could show he has a higher power.

·        In the stills of the girl, there is an extreme close up of her eye whilst she is dead and this is to show the audience that even though she looks awake her soul no longer resides within.

·        When Stephen is asleep on the floor in the woods there is a birds eye shot of him and in this shot he wakes up and this could symbolise a higher power willing him to wake up and see the extent of his actions

MISE EN SCENE:

·        The setting of Stephen’s home allows the audience to have a look at his home and see that he is leading what seems to be a very normal life. This leads them into a false sense of security with the character and it also introduces him to the audience as the main character of the film

·        The setting of the street outside his home shows the normal suburban surrounding and allows them to relater to him because 9 times out of 10 the people watching will be from an area that is similar.

·        The setting of the woods creates confusion and fear because it is the unfamiliarity and seclusion that makes it stand out and makes the narrative much more sinister

·        The lighting in Stephens home is dim and this is because it is showing the time of the day which is the morning. The light in the woods is bright enough to see Stephen clearly but it is shrouded by the woods trees and this adds a bit more atmosphere to the scene because it makes the audience feel the seclusion and containment that Stephen feels

·        Stephen’s movements and expressions in the beginning are tired and unenthusiastic and this could show that the character is bores of his life because it is the same or it could ponder the question, is there something missing in his life? And this would relate to the constant absence of Stephens father. When we enter the woods scene then his movements become a little bit more frantic because he is scared and confused and shows sign of delirium because he doesn’t see to know where he is. This also makes the audience feel a little confused because they don’t know what has happened just like Stephen but because of the action and enigma codes of the blood and the pictures of the girl then the audience can work out and discover for themselves what has happened.

·        When Stephen runs away then he is showing his fear for his surroundings and possibly his own safety or freedom. This is shown because he obviously knows he has done something very serious but because he doesn’t know what he panics and flees the scene.

·        Stephens costume at the start looks very normal for an 18 year old and it does not raise suspicion for the audience and it helps them to see his character as not that much of a threat at first. When the sequence makes its way to the scene in the woods then this is where we first witness that the make up and costume of Stephen matters and answers all of the questions posed like what has happening? The blood on his clothes tells the audience that he is the murderer or criminal.

·        Another part of Stephens make up is the fact that he also has dirt on him as well as blood so this is a reflection of his surroundings and this creates a contrast in the two scenes of the woods and the normal suburban street, this is because Stephen is clean in the street and dirty in the woods.

SOUND:

·        The first sounds that we hear are the non diegetic noise of the piano music. This is slow and emotional and it introduces the character and it also tells you that this characters emotion are going to be sad, emotional and that there is possibly some sad ending for him.

·        There’s some diegetic noise and this is the phone alarm and this is made to stand out to the audience because it is heard in two contrasting scenes when Stephen is waking up. This is a signifier to the audience at what is going to happen and even though Stephen is only waking up in the scene it is still important for telling the audience that the times and days have changed but also the setting.

·        There is a slow droning noise which is non diegetic, and this happens in the scene where Stephen is walking home at night and because of the dark lighting and the droning noise this creates an element of suspense in the audience and some tension because it is like there is a looming danger or horrifying scene about to unfold.

·        The other piece of music comes in about halfway and it starts when we first see a still of the girl dead and the music is a bit faster paced and is louder, and this shows the audience the other side of Stephens’s personality as being slightly more dangerous.

EDITING:

·        There are a lot of fade in effects used and this is effective in the two scenes where Stephen is waking up because it could be used to symbolise eyes opening and it is like the audience are waking up with him and they are experiencing what he is and this is more personal for the audience.

·        There are dip to white effects use when the stills of the girl come on and this is a signifier of the white light supposedly seen when we die and this is a clue to the audience as to what Stephen has seen or what has happened to the girl.

·        The fade out effects are used to close a scene and it is used between the scene when Stephen arrives home at night and when he wakes up in the woods and this could be used to symbolise him forgetting or falling asleep.

·        There is elliptical editing shown in the wood scene when Stephen runs away for the first time. It shows through an additive dissolve which shows a part of the previous scene and overlays it with the new scene, and the elliptical side comes in because Stephen has travelled quite far, but for the purpose of keeping delirium it is made shorter and quicker.

·        At the end of the scene it fades to black into the credits and it prepares the audience for the action to continue whilst giving them a break to ponder what they have just seen.

·        In the scenes in the woods the shots are all in black and white and this is to make the blood on Stephen and the girl stand out more and also keep the audience guessing as to what it may be.

GRAPHICS:

·        The writing in the scene where Stephen first appears when he gets out of bed is white and because it is over a black background then it is made to stand out and the black and white is also another code and convention of the thriller genre

·        The writing in the credits sticks to these codes and conventions because it is also white against black and this is also a binary opposition. The reason that the white writing is against the black background is simply because it stands out but one could also make the assumption that it symbolises the colours of death (black cloak and white bones)