What is a Thriller?

Our coursework is to make an opening sequence to a thriller, so it is very important to understand what thriller is.
Thriller is a genre and not only for films but also for literature. As for me, I am not a big fan of this genre as it always seemed too tensive to me. In fact thriller films should make the audience feel suspense, anticipation, anxiety.
Thriller has different sub-genres such as action, comedy, conspiracy, crime, erotic, horror, legal, political, psychological, spy, supernatural, techno. Moreover I would say that it is just the most popular according to Wikipedia, and you can find more of them online.
This genre is quite old and has its history. There are films from 1920s-1930s, the most famous and legendary are Alfred Hitchcock's films. Actually the peak of his career was in 1950-s after the thrillers "Vertigo", "Real Window" etc. However, I haven't seen any of his films yet, but I'm going to catch up with this soon.
As I have already mentioned I am not really into the thriller movies but I have seen some of them: "Black Swan" which is a psychological thriller, "Fight Club" I should say that I have even read the book, "Secret Window" which is also a psychological thriller, "Everest" this was too emotionally-hard for me, "Divergent" both parts and it is an action-thriller, "Before I Go To Sleep" which is a mystery thriller and actually I enjoyed it a lot, "Need For Speed" an action thriller,  "Deadpool" and some others. seen some of them:

Even that I am not so interested in movies of such genre, I like to watch different thriller TV series. For example "Supernatural", "Prison Break", "Breaking Bad", "The Walking Dead",  "Game Of Thrones", "Sherlock". I don't know why, but I prefer series even in this genre.
I think the reason why my list of films that I have seen is small because this genre is close to a horror, which I don't really enjoy either.

Prelim task video

Prelim Editing

On Thursday lesson we were editing our prelim shoot. All class was separated in pairs and i was together with Kate.
Firstly we have made a quick recap of what we have learned to do and then started to edit our own rushes.

To start with we decided to look over everything we had. We chose the best shots which we wanted to use and started to put them together according to storyboard. However in couple cases we decided not to follow storyboard. For example, on words "it's got to be done" "I can't wait for you" we replaced close up on over the shoulder shot to stay longer on Kate so the audience will feel more sympathy to her. Also we have replaced Miranda's close up with Kate's over the shoulder. We were also working hard with shot of closing door as we should cut it before my reflection with camera would be seen.
At the end we had to options to choose from: with shoot breaking 180 degree rule or without.

Account of Prelim Shoot

On that day we were going to shoot our story. Our group was finally together, so we explained everyone what we are going to do. We decided to shoot in one of the classrooms as we thought that such background will look very natural. However, later on, we understood that the lightening there is poor and very difficult to work with so it may look different in different shots. While our actresses were preparing and learning there lines, we were thinking how we are going to shoot.
Firstly, we decided to take the wide shot. I think, it was the most difficult one as the girls haven't learn theirs roles yet and didn't know how to behave. Hopefully, we were already familiar with the camera so we knew how to cope with it. On that moment we have all realized that "to keep everything simple" was a good idea because we didn't have to worry a lot how to express the idea and meaning of that scene. We had just one lesson, so we were a bit in a rush. When finally we made our wide shots, the work became easier as everybody already knew what to do.
We faced different problems like lightening, which I already have mentioned, keeping everything silent except the dialog, making people stay out of the shot (sometimes people were passing and it was seen in the window) and making sure that every shot is the same in action and there is nothing irrelative in the shot.
In my opinion, all the shots we have made were quite successful, especially for the first time. When we have finished, we even had an extra time. That's why we decided to take some extra shots which weren't in storyboard. In one of these shots we have crossed the 180 degree line. We knew, that it may look horrible, but we decided to try.  We even have submitted it with the teacher. The shot looked very nice as the perspective and width looked very interesting.
Anyway, this lesson was a good practice for all of us and it helped us to prepare for our coursework. Now I know what to expect from it and look forward to edit it.

Prelim task: planning and storyboard

On that lesson we were told that we are gong to make our own story, but it should follow the scenario:

It was quite banal, but still dramatic in a way.
We were divided into groups, but unfortunately half of my group was away and there were only two of us to decide what we are going to do. The fact that it wasn't the whole group, limited us in discussion. As a consequence, we decided to keep it simple and do not overload it with extra information. Our final idea was that the person is forced to go outside, but she can't. She is nervous and afraid of it. This idea may be not the most interesting one, but it gave us an opportunity to think more about the shooting process, rather then acting. We decided to make different shots of each character: close-ups, over-the-shoulders and the wide shot. To conclude, we made our own storyboard with all actions, sounds and shot-types to make it easier to explain our group what we are going to do.

First Edited Sequence

Here is our first edited sequence:

Intro to Editing

On the 29th of September we had our first attempt in editing. We took our shots from the lesson in studio and worked in a different groups to cut it and put everything together. This was a first time in my life when I was doing it, so I needed to remember and understand a lot of things.

Firstly, we have found all rushes that we have made that day. We decided which of them we are going to use and then we we taught the basics of editing. We were using the program called Premiere Pro CC. In my opinion it is not too complicated, so I managed to understand how it works. We were using different tools like trim handles , selective tool which is on V on the keyboard to switch any tool to a mouse, a blade tool or razor which is on C on the keyboard to cut the rushes etc. Also we were told that it is better to cut shots in a movement as it will look more natural and it actually works. Overall, we tried our best so hopefully our first attempt wasn't that bad.