Revision of Ideas (no more Bollywood)

Although we liked the idea of "Bollywood" as a group we have come to the decision that we should drop this idea and continue developing our idea within western "Hollywood" style. The main reasons we came to this decision was that our understanding of the technical codes and conventions where not at the standard required to produce something of this magnitude. By completing the research we did undertake we have broadened our horizons on the many styles, genres and cultures that go into film making and by expanding our knowledge hope to produce a better overall project.

Conventions of Psychological thriller

As almost all of the research I looked into involved various conventions of Bollywood, we will now have to look towards the conventions of a psychological thriller. The key areas that i will focus on is;

• Lighting
• Pace of editing
• sound

To start of with lighting. Many psychological thrillers incorporate lighting massively as the way it changes something can be enormous. The majority of psychological thrillers I've seen usually include a lot of dark scenes connoting danger, fear and the unknown. The use of darkness can also add to things being ambiguous, which in turn helps promote the aspect of tension (another convention of psychological thriller). Light can also be used to create interesting juxtapositions with one of the most famous being the difference between good and bad. If someone was shot with the mise-en-scene being very dark then the following showing someone in a bright light the normal decision would be that the person in the dark wasn't as "good" as the other. As we are going to be featuring at least two leading characters the light in which they are filmed at is something of importance.

The next key point that I see in psychological thrillers is that of the pace of editing. A lot of thrillers tend to use fast pace action which again helps build up tension something key to most plots. The best example I found showing the use of this "fast editing" including rapid cuts was the opening of se7en. This was a very effective title sequence as the speed of it created a lot of suspense. From our initial planning creating something to a similar effect is the desired goal where the skills on cutting will be tested.

The final point I'd like to raise regarding some of the research into psychological thriller is sound. The usual sound that would  found is one of strings, with an icreasing tempo untill reaching a climax. This sound is parallel as it meets the action on screen however one technique less broadly explored is using contrapuntal sound, where the music doesn't fit the action. An example of this would be playing dance music in a major key over the top of a murder. Famous example include the "ear scene" that is found within "Reservoir Dogs". To make this work it is harder however it's affect can be more memorable with the reader as its not what they expect.

There is many more codes and conventions to still research however as a basic addition to our knowledge I believe the three above to be the stepping stones to the start us of.