Famous Thriller Actors

Robert De Niro:

Robert De Niro *Born: 17th August 1943* is an extremely popular thriller actor probobally due to his weather beaten face and distinctive voice, Robert has appeared in classics such as:

Ronin
Taxi Driver
Heat
Casino
Jackie Brown
The Untouchables
Goodfellas
The Godfather: Part II

Robert De Niro began his acting career in 1963 and is still in the business today currently filming for Robert Rodriguez's latest film 'Machete.'


Michael Caine:

Michael Caine *Born: 14th March 1933* is one of the United Kingdoms most highly regarded actors, you only have to glance at his history of commendations to see why he is such a big deal: two 'Oscars' three 'Golden Globes' and a 'Bafta' are just some of the awards he picked up in the past. He's also a very nice chap too I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Caine in Hythe two years ago when he was filming 'Is Anybody There?' Here are just some of the thriller films he's featured in:

Harry Brown
The Dark Knight
Sleuth (2007)
The Statement
Get Carter (2000)
Shiner
Midnight In Saint Petersburg
Bullet To Beijing
The Black Windmill
The Fourth Protocol
Sleuth (1972)
Get Carter (1971)
Billion Dollar Brain
Funeral In Berlin
The Ipcress File

Michael Caine in my humble opinion is one of the best actors ever, for me his best role would have to be as 'Milo Tindle' in the orginal 1972 version of Sleuth in which he plays along side another British acting legend, Laurence Olivier.

From 1965 til 1996 Caine starred as Harry Palmer in a number of film designed to rival the James Bond series, although the Harry Palmer films didnt quite get the popularity the Bond films enjoyed they are well worth a watch. Michael Caines acting career is far from over though, just a few weeks ago 'Harry Brown' was released in which Caine plays a World War II veteran who is terrorised by chavs on his local housing estate.

Filming Diary

Saturday 28th November:

Me and Nicola braved the bad weather and traveled to meet Paige at our filming location ( Lingfield), we arrived about twenty minutes late but hey you cant have everything!

Our first filming location was the vicarage house near the church, We first set up the camera in the living room to film 'The Girl' sitting on the sofa and hearing a mysterious knock at the door. when then filmed several shots in the hallway before filming the intruders movements in the kitchen. For that scene we used POV, Medium, and Close up shots.

We then left the moderate comfort of the house and began filming on a scary dark path, which was a bit of a pain because it was a bit too dark to able to see what we were filming. We tried to overcome the problem by incorporating the camera mounted light into shooting, but that made little difference.

With some of us still with a smile on our faces despite the filming being blighted by poor light, planning and weather, We soldiered on to begin filming at the church. Me and Nicola only had the pleasure of staying to set up up the church scenes as we both had previously planned commitments. We altered the lighting and position of actors accordingly and set up the camera and left Paige to it.

Actors Used:

Paige Lee Edmunds

Ben Pyner

Kirk Lee Edmunds

Nikki Freer

Film Crew:

Nikki Freer

Paige Lee Edmunds

Megan Gendall

James Davies

Target Audience

The target audience for our 'Religous Thriller' will be adults over the age of 15, I have made this decision becuase the film contains a very tense atomsphere throughout and persons under the age of 15 could find it somewhat distressing.

Our thriller is very hard to place in a target audience becuase of the niche genre our film falls into.

Character Information

As the opening to our thriller is very very vague, none of the characters yet have names. It could be said that this lack of naming and character background makes our opening scene all the more tense and thrilling, because it makes it impossible for the viewer to predict what the character will do next.

The Girl (Paige Lee-Edmunds) :
'The Girl' is quietly relaxing on her sofa at home when suddenly she hears a voilent bang at the door, however when she answers the door no one is there. Almost a split second after she closes the door another loud bang in the kitchen is heard and she cautiously investagates.

The reluctant manner in which she investagates these loud noises signifies that she isnt normally caught up in any trouble and lives a normal life, often when you watch a thriller you can tell the spy from a civilian by the way they react to strenuious situations. This is excatly what weve done here, which puzzles the viewers even more as to why shes being stalked.

The Man (Ben ?) :
'The Man' has very limited character information this makes the film alot more tense as his identity is not revealed in our opening. No one know why he is stalking 'The Girl' or what he intends to do when he finally catches her.

Location Info

The starting location is in the alley opposite the station leading up to the church. The alley is between the two fields and is a narrow pathway. We have chosen this location, as it is a very secluded area with fields on either side. Also there are some really old houses, which in the evening add to the affect of the thriller convention, as they look mysterious and creepy.

By Paige Lee-Edmunds

Props List

Props List
· Weapon - Knife
· Mobile phone
· Cross on necklace
· Costumes ie. Big parker jacket
· Bells
·Magazine
Bin

By Paige Lee Edmunds

Shot List

1. Worms Eye (Low Angle) - Paige running down the road
2.Point Of view - Paige running down the road
3.(Flashback) - Medium Shot of a door being knocked on
4.(Flashback) - Medium Shot, the door is now open, nobody is there
5.(Flashback) - Medium Shot, see part of door now closed (See Paige, she looks confused)
6.(Flashback) - Close Up of Paige, she hears a noise and looks round past the camera
7.(Flashback) - Medium Shot - Paige walking down the corridor towards the back door
8.(Flashback) - Point Of View of the backdoor. It is wide open.
9.(Flashback) - Point Of View from Neil - of the back of Paige's head. Moves towards her quickly. She turns around
10.Long shot of church and Paige. She is looking at the church showing relief
11.Long Shot of Paige running down a cobbled alleyway towards the church
12.Medium Canted Shot - Paige runs into the church and cowers in a corner, watching the door she just came into.
13. Two-Shot - See a silhouette from the behind of Neil, with a weapon in his hand. He has come in a different door and is behind Paige - She cannot see him because she is looking at the front door.
14. Black screen with white lettering on it - "The Devils Playground"

By Nikki Freer

Character Info

Workload

Short List - Nikki

Storyboard - Nikki

Location Info - Paige

Character Info - James

Props List - Paige

Target Audience - James

Production Schedule - Paige

Camera Angles Blog post saved on BRIT server in word document

Famous Thriller Directors

Alfred Hitchcock:
Without a doubt the master of suspense, of the Elvis Presley of the thriller genre. His films include many famous and recognisable names such as:

The Birds
North by Northwest
Vertigo
The 39 Steps
Psycho
The Lady Vanishes

If you were to watch just one of the films listed here you would realise just how talented Mr Hitchcock was, each film has exciting and experimental new camera angles in it. Film directors to this day are still pinching all the camera angles hitchcock himself invented years and years before them. A good example of this would be the 'dolly zoom' camera technique Hitchcock first used in his film 'vertigo' this effect is achieved by moving the camera away from a object or scene and zooming in at the same time.

Steven Spielberg:
A very respectable and talented director it must be said, although Mr Spielberg was heavily influenced by Hitchcock which becomes apparent when you realised he used Hitchcocks dolly zoom we dicussed earlier in his film Jaws.

However unlike Hitchcock, Speilbergs thrillers are set in a plethora of different settings, for instance Duel was set at the time it was made on a lonely road in the dessert. Minority Report on the other hand was set in the future. Showing just how diverse Spielbergs films are.

Here are some of Steven Speilbergs Thrillers:

Munich
Catch Me If You Can
Minority Report
Jaws
Duel
The Sugarland Express

Here is the trailer for 'Duel' my favorite Speilberg film, just by watching the trailer you feel tense and on edge

Sound In Thrillers:

Sound in thrillers is so important, not just sound effects but music most of all. Can you imagine the 'Shower Scene' in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' without any music? It wouldnt have half of the shock or mood it did with the music, it would just look like footage of a pretty woman taking a shower.

The same goes for the opening of 'Ronin' directed by John Frankenheimer. For the first five minutes or so nothing at all happens apart from one of the main characters walks down a flight of stairs and into a seedy bar. With the help of the tense music though you spend the entire scene on the edge of your seat waiting for something to happen just becuase the music suggests so. to help you understand this, here is the clip for that scene:

Sound Effects are equally as important as the soundtrack for thrillers. If the story requires a gun shot sound, what sort of gunshot sound do you need? A silenced gun sound is more mysterious and implies a secretive killing, however if you were to use a unsuppressed weapon sound in the same situation whilst it might shock the viewer more it could potentally ruin the stealthy moment of a film.

The 180 Degree Rule

The 180 degree rule is a very important rule to adhere to. If you dont your filming piece will look very disjointed and strange, because it creates the illusion that both characters are looking in the same Direction.

The rule entails making sure when you film over the shoulder shots in a conversation you keep left/right relationship in which you film excatly the same. Eg if you film one characters over the shoulder from the left you need to make sure you film the next over the shoulder from the same side on the other character and visa versa. I understand that explaining things isnt excatly my strong point so ive provided a picture and a video aswell.

Our Preliminary Task

Prelim Task

For our prelim task we had to film a conversation with a focus on continuity, for our piece we decided to build up to this conversation by means of a journey which meant we could incorporate some of the ideas and camera angles we had learnt in the previous task.

The films plot is based around a young lad going on a mission to find his friend a pen. Our aim was to create a film that was engaging for the viewer and used a plethora of camera angles and showed off the skills we had acquired whilst filming the last piece.

We started the film on the field where one character asks another if he has a pen, the other character checks and he realises he doesn't and begins his quest for the pen. The scene was shot in the medium shot.

The character then gets up and begins to walk away from his friend (long shot), when the character reached the stairs to the school we moved the camera underneath the stairs for an interesting angle opportunity. This angle was taken from below the character and showed his feet scampering down a flight of stairs in front of the viewer. We really didn't know how this angle would work but the end result was very pleasing indeed.

We then moved into the foyer to do a birds eye shot of our character walking in and underneath the walkway from which we were filming. Then we decided to experiment with P.O.V (Point Of View) shots for a the scene where our character walks through the canteen and into the lift. This presented a few problems with continuity as some other students blighted filming by waving and jeering at the camera. For the shots in the lift we moved the camera down onto the floor for a worms eye view of the character in the lift. We eventually cut this scene as the angle and shot method grew tiresome. Once upstairs we filmed a long shot of our main character walking towards a door. Then when he got to the door we moved t0 another P.O.V shot to show him trying to open the door, then panning to the right hand side to show me coming up and announcing in no uncertain terms that he was pushing the door the incorrect way.

Once inside the room we really went to town with our camera work, for our conversation we filmed it thrice so we could show the conversation from three different shots a Over The Shoulder from behind the main characters head, an Over The Shoulder from behind the other characters head and a medium shot from the side of the conversation. We concluded the film with our main character failing to locate a pen and leaving the room.

First Filming

Today (23^rd September 09) we learned how to use the schools Sony HD video cameras. I now know how to construct the camera tripod, record a short film, and how to load a tape into the camera.

After this we set off to record a very short film revolving around the idea ‘A Journey.’ For our piece we first positioned the camera on the balcony over looking the foyer. We filmed a point of view and pan shot of Nicola walking down the stairs and around the foyer where I would bump into her. Shanice filmed this scene

We then rigged the camera at the top of a flight of stairs, here Nicola walked down whilst I appeared at the bottom of the steps ready to walk up, when Nicola got to the top of the stairs she would run down some steps on the opposite side of the school ready to meet me at the bottom of the stairs we were filming and visa versa. Shanice also filmed this scene.

We then relocated to outside the stairway door, here we filmed a worms eye shot of Nicolas feet walking from the door into the workshop I filmed this scene.

Once inside the workshop I filmed Shanice walking into the workshop and getting scared by Nicola.

Then to experiment low camera angles we relocated to the lift to film Shanice from below.

Codes & Conventions Of Thriller Films

Codes & Conventions Of Thrillers:

Plot Twists

Tense Atmosphere

Suspense

Dim Light

Jumpy Music

Villain

Different/Unusual Angles

Point Of View Shots

Flashbacks

Chase Camera

Mystery/ Slow Revealing Plot

Puzzling Storyline

Ambiguous Ending/Cliff-hanger’s

Naturalistic

Sometimes Based On A True Story

Realistic Situations

Hybrids – Subgenres: Action Thriller, Spy Thrillers

Climax

Introduction To Me

Hello my name is James Davies, I chose the media additional study because I am highly interested in the thriller genre and I also enjoy producing short films in my free time. Although this isn’t a film in the thriller genre here is one of these films: