Thriller Research: Looking at Last Years "Opening to a Thriller Film"

For the "Thriller Opening" I am now in a group with the following people (due to group changes):

• James Kent

In total, it'll just be me and James - Us 2. However, I can see this as a good idea despite many of our groups in our Media Studies Class are in 3's and even one or two in 4's. This is because I've known James since the start of High School. We didn't talk much, but we knew each other and got along with one another. This will help when it comes to creating our film opening and editing as we are familiar with each other's strengths and weaknesses.

In today's lesson ( 12/Oct/2011) we looked at some "Thriller Openings" by last year's students. I thought that these where very good. They gave me an insight into what my group's "Thriller Opening" will look like too when we come to filming it.

After looking at some of the productions by last year's Students, I began to think about filming in colour or in black and white. This is because one of the productions which we watched was in black and white (there was also a colored version too, which I believe didn't have that "impact" which the black and white one did.) The whole idea of having it in black and white instead of colour was brilliant. I believe, in my opinion, it seemed to add more to the mise-en-scene. It made everything more dark and mysterious to view. Especially when it was filmed during the evening. 

Close example of what I mean by a
"Detective by a lamppost."

One shot stood out for me, and that was where this figure (a Man with a black suit, and with a rounded black hat) was standing on a slight tilt by a lamppost. This reminded me SO much of a detective waiting to swap information with an agent.

When it comes to filming my group's "Opening to a Thriller Film" I think it would be very wise to have a colored and a black and white version so I can compare them and see if it makes a difference to the opening or not.