Media coursework: research draft 1

Media coursework: research draft 1

Over the past few weeks I have been researching Teen Thriller films to gather information for our research task. I have gathered information on certain topics like: the difference between Thriller films and Horror films, the structure of a Thriller film, the features of a Thriller trailer and the characters in Thriller films.

Firstly I had to recognise the difference between Thriller films and Horror films because they can easily be confused. A Horror film focuses more on unrealistic events like: a zombie apocalypse or a mass murder whereas Thriller films are more focused on extraordinary things happening to ordinary people. To put it simply Thriller films are more realistic than Horror films. Thriller films have a long list of different characteristics, the majority of Thriller films involve: mystery, tension and several plot twists throughout. This is what makes a Thriller different because a Horror film sets out to scare the viewer and not much else whereas Thriller films intrigue the viewer and engage them in the film.

Poster for 'Hush'

As a part of one of my research tasks I watched a film called ‘Hush’ this film was a good example for my research because it included so many features of a Thriller film. There was a brave and strong protagonist and a psychotic, evil antagonist as well as a dark, secluded setting and lots of shocking twists. At the time I was looking further in to sub genres and decided that this was a Psychological Thriller because the antagonist tries to mess with the protagonist before trying to kill them. Also in this research task I watched three movie trailers. ‘Out of the dark’ which was a Horror thriller, ‘7 minutes’ which is an action thriller and ‘alien outpost’ which is a sci-fi thriller. From all of these trailers I saw that all thriller films are made to be exciting and suspenseful. All three of the trailers included several black out shots which built suspense in the trailers and make the viewer want to watch the full film.



Todorov Theory

As part of my next research task I looked at the theory of Todorov which suggests that all movies follow a set pattern, this pattern is: the Equilibrium which is the norm, the Destruction which is the main event that breaks the norm, the Recognition where the protagonist realises what has happened, The attempt of repair where the protagonist tries to fix the situation and lastly the New Equilibrium is after the events when the effect of the events settle in and becomes the norm. Also there is another theory called Propp. Propp is the idea that each film has set characters. For

Keith Frazier from 'inside man'

example in the film ‘Hush’ the idea is that: there is the hero who was the deaf women Maddie Young, the villain who is the masked killer, the prize which in this film was survival, the mentor which was the protagonists intelligence and risk taking  and a Blocker which was the protagonists inability to hear. I also done a character analysis after watching the film ‘inside man’ I wrote a character description of three characters: the protagonist Keith Frazier, the antagonist Dalton Russel and Arthur Case who was the owner of the bank that got robbed. These two tasks helped me understand the way films are structured and how the characters are put in to fit these structures.

In conclusion, the research in to Thriller and Horror films helped me understand exactly what needs to be included in a Thriller film for it to be successful. The first task helped me understand what makes a good trailer and what needs to be included in the trailer; also the research in to characters helped me in developing characters for my own production.