Evolution of the Thriller

Evolution of the Thriller

Thrillers have been in existence since the early years of film production, however, the conventions/principles that define a thriller have since changed greatly. For example, Hitchcock’s acclaimed ‘Psycho’ was very much regarded as a horror, but due to the evolution of horror and it’s sinister nature (desensitisation), it is now deemed as a thriller in modern day terms. Many argue the differences between horrors and thrillers.

Thriller uses suspense, tension and excitement as its main elements. Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewers moods, giving them a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and/or terror. Films of this genre tend to be adrenaline-rushing, gritty, rousing and fast paced.

A thriller provides the sudden rush of emotions, excitement, and exhilaration that drive the narrative, sometimes subtly with peaks and lulls, sometimes at a constant, breakneck pace. It keeps the audience on “the edge of their seats”.

Thrillers often make use of literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists and cliffhangers. A thriller is usually a villain driven plot which presents various problems a protagonist must overcome.

Psychological thrillers are fictional thriller storys which enphasizes the psychology of its characters and their unstable emotional states, with similarities to gothic and detective fiction in sense of “dissolving sense of reality”, moral ambiguity, and complex and tortured relationships between obsessive and pathological characters.

Psychological thrillers often incorporate elements of mystery, drama and horror.

Examples: The Machinist, House of 9, Straw Dogs, Shutter Island.

Supernatural thrillers bring in otherworldly elements(such as fantasy and/or supernatural) mixed with tension, suspense and plot twists. Sometime the protagonist and/or villain have some form of psychic ability or super powers. Examples: The Dead Zone, Chronicle, Frequency.

Techno Thrillers are suspense films in which manipulation of sophisticated technology plays a prominent part. Examples: Jurassic Park

Spy Thriller: The protagonist is generally a government agent who must take violent action against agents of a rival government or (in recent years) terrorists. The sub genre usually deals with the subject of fictional espionage in a realistic way. Its is a significant aspect of British cinema.

Examples: The parallax View, The Tailor of Panama, Taken, Unknown.

Thrillers thrive on the notion of suspense, provoking thought from the audience who spend the duration of the film trying to decode a complex plot. This is especially true for psychological thrillers.

Sound

Sound in movies

Parallel sound

Parallel sound is the music that runs along side the film in sink and relates  to the film.
Contrapuntal sound

this is when the sound is the opposet to what you see in the film.
Sound bridge

A sound bridge is when the music bleeds in from one scene and goes into the next
Ambient sound 

An Ambient sound is a sound that you expect to hear in a location. For example,birds in a wood.

Foley sound

This is everyday sounds that are added over a frame to a certain clip to create emphasis on the motion or activity.

the meaning of signs

The meening of signs to the audience

Semiotics - thestudy of signs.

This allows us to deconstruct media texts to understand how meaning is created.

Signifier - the object itself, example a rose

Signified - what the object represents, example the rose represents love.

A sign is the smallest element off meaning, they are joined together to create a larger over all meaning. these are codes which are to be decoded or interpreted by the viewer.

Denotation - The literal meaning off a sign

Connotation -  The interpreted meaning off a sign

Polysemy - Many different meaning's, something that has a many different interpretations depending on the type of audience.

The effect model

The effect model

The effects model is an idea within media to present the consumption of media texts:

These are the three ideas:

• Imitation- This is the idea that audience's passively take in what the media texts are presenting. This makes them copy what they see and get used to it slowly turning it into the norm.
• Desensitisation- involves media texts loosing their the effect they should have on the audience they are supposed to have on audiences,this is because they have become used to the events.
• Catharsis- This is watching media as an escape. Often audiences use catharsis to watch programmes that get them away from there life. These are programs such as Eastenders to make themselves feel better and have an escape from their life or even to feel like there involved in there life to get away from reality.

Audience theory

Audience theory

A target audience is the people the media is aimed at.

A target Audience is broken into differnt sub-categories

here are some of them:
Race
Gender

Religion
Class
Disability
age

The types of audience in media are an active audience and a passive audience.  An active audience is an audience that is engaged with the media and are consciously taking in what they are being told.  The passive audience is when you are taking in messages from the media text unconsciously and are almost being controlled by what u watch.

The other types of audiences are Primary which is actively engaging with the text.  Secondary this is Not fully paying attention to the media and lastly tertiary,this is unconsciously taking in what the media is telling you.

The 3 main theory's that are used for a better understanding about relationships between text are: 

1) The effects model
2) The uses of Grafications Model
3) Reception Theory

What is the purpose of censorship? (hays code,watershed,music videos)

What is the purpose of censorship?

Censorship is to provide guidelines in media texts and to block out explicit content from the viewer.
This is so the viewer doesnt get offended by any content that could be seen as derogatory in anyway or holds any explicit content, becasue of this The Hays Code was introduced.

The Hays Code was introduced in the 1930's as a Motion Picture Production Code it was named this as Hollywood's chief censor of the time was Will H. Hays,these codes were a set of rules that censorship guidelines followed.
So this meant the Hays Code decided what we viewed they made sure what was to be shown was to be censored as things that was seen as too explicit would curropt are youth and change peoples ideas and views.  The type of things that wasnt excepted and they would censor out would be: Sex relationships between the white and black     races, The use of the flag in a bad way, Arson, Firearms, Theft, Brutality, gruesomeness, murder, smuggling, Prostitution. The Hays Code was enforced in 1934 but later abandoned in 1968 due to The MPPA film rating system,this is what we follow today ed movies rated from U/PG-18 and R Rated.

A Watershed is when programs with adult aspects may be broadcast at a certain time.
It divides the day into the overnight sections where family oriented programming for a younger audience may be aired and where programming aimed at adult audience is shown, though not required.
Examples of adult content include, but are not limited to, graphic violence, strong language, nudity, secual scenes and drug use.
 In most countries, the same set of rules also applies to radio commercials and tv commercials, both for the content of the commercial and the nature of the product or service being advertised.

Today there is quite a heavy censorship on music videos especialy on MTV.MTV had concored number of music videos to remove references in lyrics to drugs,sex, nudity, violence, racism, homophobia, and completely removing or editing out the swearwords.MTV will also censor any content that is a concern to copyright holders. here are some examples:
"express your self" by N.W.A censored the words "i have a dream" when the group goes through the banner with the statement  while Dr.Dre began rhyming.
When the music video for "paper planes" by M.I.A. was released on MTV, the word "weed" was removed from the second verse, and the gunshot sounds that are heard in the chorus were replaced with cash register sounds in order to remove references to murder. Also, the singer's vocals were edited to take away from the song's mature content. This angered M.I.A. greatly, and she publicly spoke out against the censorship of the song on her Myspace blog.
The issue with this is that this doesnt approve to every music station and some show the un censored versons which is free for younger ages to watch,also things like youtube being able to upload any music video and having accounts such as vevo have made it harder to censor for all contries as it depends on where you are in the world.  

Discuss the way in which cameron has used binary opposition to create meaning in titanic.

In the extract we watched , Cameron uses binary opposition to show the difference between the rich and poor.  He does this by showing Rose arriving in a gold plated car which denotes wealth and is symbolic to high class showing her,and her family have power and wealth.  As she steps out the car she looks up at the boat with the sun shining down on her face again creating emphisis on her class and power and making her seem like a god-like figure.  

As the camera is focused on Rose she is wearing a purple hat,this again signifies wealth showing she is upper class.  The colour of the purple hat is very clean and the sun shining down shows how it is almost looking brand new and expensive, this connotes to the viewer that she is a strong character that will stand out. This is then juxtaposed with the use of iconography where as the first part of Jack the audience is him in a smoky room playing poker,dirty hands and messy hair and the only hat that is being worn is his french friends which looks like an old dirty chimney sweeper style hat this is an iconic sign that connotes that he is from the working class.

Also in the very opening we are introduced to the binary opposition between old and new.  The first clip shown is the sunken ship and then the camera pans to show the ship as if it were in 1912. Another binary oppostion between between old and new we see is between Rose and her mother. Her mother seems to be impressed with the ship, where as, Rose is uninterested and compares it to a previous boat she has been on and seems to feel as if its not a new expeirence and its just another boat trip.

Another Binary opposition Cameron used is as the passengers are boarding the ship the lower class and the upper class, because on one hand the lower class citozens are boarding at the bottom of the ship where it’s coloured black which connotes dirt and grime where as the upper class are boarding on the top of the ship which is white which connotes happiness/bliss and purity/clean. This is because people in the upper class can clean wash and dont have to work. On the other hand, lower class usually worked in factories and could not afford many clothes or even wash where as Rose wears very clean new clothes. Also, the lower class have to do health inspections before boarding to check for lice and even desises.  The upper class do not need to do this as they are expected to be clean.  Also, the lower class are wearing browns and blacks which again connotes to the impression that they are dirty as they cannot afford nice fresh coloured clothes that have to be dyed and stains/dirt are not seen on darker clothing.