GENRES

GENRES

Genre is a style or category of art, music or literature. For example you can get have genres for films which would be Thriller, Adventure or Sci- Fi. In music the different genres you can get are Hip Hop, Classical and Jazz Music. And then when it comes to literature you can have genres such as Comedy, Romance and Fairy Tales. But the main genres that I am going to be studying on are the film genres.

GUESS THE GENRE:

           

Thrillers
A thriller is a genre of a literature, film and a television programme, which usually contains suspense, tension and excitement. It normally contains a resourceful hero, a better equipped villain, a McGuffin, cliffhanger and a background music which goes at a very fast paced which causes adrenaline. This is especially used when it comes to the trailer of thriller movies, this is so that it can catch the eye of the audience so that they are intrigued by it and then they can go view it in the cinema. The red-herring in a movie is used to misguide the audience from the main plot and allows them to believe something else it about to occur. And then there is the McGuffin which drives the plot forward but has little significance.

The most common thrillers were made by the film director Alfred Hitchcock as he is known as the 'Master' of the thriller genre. He has made the most popular thrillers such as Psycho, North by Northwest and The Birds. In media we will be analyzing more thriller movies in more depth, and we will also be making one of our own.

Sub Genres
There are also sub- genres in thriller, so this includes:

• Comedy Thrillers
• Crime Thrillers
• Psychological Thrillers
• Romantic Thrillers

And many more.....
 

THRILLER CONVENTIONS

                                                                       Thriller Conventions

Thriller is a broad genre of literature films and television that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres. 

In Thriller movies they usually have fast pacing and frequent action. This is good because it keeps the audience entertained and interested in the movie and what is going on, as they don't want to miss out on what is going on. Thrillers also include resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipped villains. This is good because they will be more engaged in what happens to that person, will he survive or no? In Thrillers they usually have a man as the main character who would also have an attractive young women along with him. So for example in the film Red the young man has a women along his side who he fell in love with. 

 A Thriller often has a villain driven plot. The villain present obstacles which the hero has to overcome, a good example of this is the James Bond film called Skyfall. This creates excitement to the audience because the

Thrillers also uses devices, such as red herring, this is where the audiences are fooled as well as the characters. In addition to that they use devices such as cliffhangers to keep the audience intrigued about whats going to happen next. And also suspense which leaves the audience feeling excited and anxious about what may happen next.The genre thriller is flexible and can change and it does engage the audience through dramatic rendering of psychological, social and political tensions. For example Hitchcock said "Thrillers allow the audience to put their toe in the cold water to fear to see what its like". 

At times thriller can sometimes be mixed up with mystery stories, however they both have a different structure to their plots. In a thriller the hero must thwart the future plans of the villain but in a mystery they have to uncover the crime which has already happened. When it comes to murder mysteries if we was to know the murders identity of the person then it would ruin the film, but in a thriller we do get to know the villain and we get to see how they get defeated, if they do. Usually the best bits of a thriller is the climax, this when the hero finally defeats the villain, saving his own life and maybe the life of others. Resulting in the audience receiving a sense of relief as the man character has been saved. 

Thrillers also have characteristics within their movie. Thrillers always usually take place in exotic settings such as foreign cities. An example of this is the film Taken which was set in Paris. The heroes in Thrillers are frequently "hard men" accustomed to danger e.g. policemen. But on the other hand they can also be ordinary citizens drawn into danger by accident. While such heroes have traditionally been men, women led characters have also become increasingly common: for an early example see journey weavers characters Ripely in the movie Alien in 1979. 

Thrillers differ from mystery murders this is because Thrillers often overlap with mystery murders, but they are distinguished by the structure of their plots. In a thriller the hero must thwart the future plans of the enemy rather than just uncovering the crime that has already happened. A murder story would be spoiled if we knew the murder's identity whereas in a thrillers the identity of a murder is already found out in beginning and they are trying to be stopped. Thrillers also normally occur on a much grander scale than mystery films: the crime that must be prevented are serial or mass murder, terrorism assassination or people trying to overthrow the government. Danger and violent confrontation are standard plot element of a thriller. Also the climaxes in thrillers are also different. 

Thrillers can be defined by the primary mood that they create fearful excitement. Basically if it "thrills" then it is a thriller.

There are all kinds of Thriller; legal thriller, spy thriller, action - adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high tech thriller, military thriller etc. The lis goes on with new new variations constantly being invented.  

Here are also 5 of the best Thriller movies:

MEDIA THEORIES

Media Theories.

When it comes to Media there are many media theory's created  by media theorist which are being used today. So these include Barthes with his Enigma Code, Levi Strauss who created the Binary Opposites, the Traditional Hollywood Narrative Structures with the 3 Acts linear, Todorov creating the Narrative theories, Propp creating the character types and lastly Laura Mulvey creating the Male Gaze. 

Roland Barthness came up with this Enigma (mystery) when it comes to movies, he called it the 'Enigma Codes'. The Enigma Codes are either open which means that they have not been resolved at the end, so for example in the film the Birds the story was left unresolved as we never found out why the Birds reacted in that way. Then we have an closed Enigma which is when the story does get resolved at the end leaving the audience feeling satisfied. Or we can get a Polysemic Enigma which means that the story has a number of different meanings.

And Levi Strauss came up with 'Binary opposites' this includes Heroes and Villains. He said narratives can be organised through a binary opposition. So two things will oppose each other, this is often dominant vs subordinate e.g male/female, hero/villain. 

There is another theory which which made up by Todorov. In 1969 Todorov produces a theory which he believed to be able to be applied to films. 

Todorov believed that all films followed the dames narrative patterns through various stages.

The 5 stages that Torodov came up with were:

1. A state of equilibrium (All is as it should be)

2. A distribution of that order by an event

3. A recognition that the disorder occurred 

4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption

5. A rerun of restoration of a new equilibrium 

An example of this is from the movie Taken written by Luc Besson.

The equilibrium of this movie is when the daughter is getting ready to go on holiday with her friends after her dad finally allowing her to go. 

Then the disruption of that order of event was when his daughter gets kidnapped and he makes a threat to the kidnappers, that when he finds them he is going to kill them. 

The next stage which is the recognition that the disorder, in the movie this occurred when the father (Liam Neeson) finds out that his daughter had been kidnapped by a Albanian human-trafficking ring which has been abducting female tourists. 

With the 4th stage, the attempt to repair the order of events occurs when he goes to find his daughter in Paris and then he begins to hunt the men who kidnapped his daughter and finds out who the guy who killed the girl was. 

And lastly the return of restoration he is then reunited with his daughter after killing a lot of guys, and he meets his wife and now they are all together.

Laura Muvley's: The Male Gaze

Laura Muvleys "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" 1975 said that in cinema the camera has the same view point as a man.

Women are viewed as the object of male erotic desire in the film and also in the audience. Men are active and the women are passive. they don't have n agency, they are not usually known to move the plot forward in a story.

The audience are therefore forced to identify  the male gaze, and us also are forced to view them as sex objects. Cinema usually reflects patriarchal (male dominated) society.
Patriarchy and Phallocentrism linked Phallus (penis) a symbol of power e.g cinema guns. So basically Phallus = Power.

Lastly Vladimir Propp:
He analysed traditional folk stories and discovered that there are usually 8 character types:

• Hero
• Villain
• Helper
• Donor (Provider
• Father
• Dispatched
• Princess
• False Hero 

BRIEF

The Brief 

 You have been asked to produce the titles and opening sequence of a new fiction film in the thriller genre

The sequence should last a maximum of two minutes.

You may work in a group of 2 - 4 students.

As acting is not assessed you are free to use actors that are not members of your group.

The film is worth 60% of your coursework grade.

The accompanying blog is worth 40% of your coursework grade

Together the Foundation Portfolio is worth 50% of the overall AS Level.  

WELCOME BLOG

My name is Ebun Awosiyan
 I attend Robert Clack School. The subjects I study are ICT, Business, Psychology and Media Studies. When I'm older I want to become an Accountant.

I have an interest in Media Studie because I thought it would be a good subject to take seeing as I watch a lot of TV shows everyday. The mains TV shows that I enjoy watching are Eastenders, Hollyoaks and Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
 My favourite movie so far has to be Think Like a Man and an old film called Higher Education and Love and Basketball.
I enjoy listening to Hip Hop, Afrobeats and R & B music. My favourite song is probably Drake ft Jhene Aiko - July and Rich Gang - Lifestyle.
I don't usually play games but the most recent game that I have played was Temple Run.

And there is a little bit about me and the different things that I enjoy.