Maguffin

A Maguffin is a device used by Alfred Hitchcock in his films.

A Maguffin is an object which the story evolves around and
motivates the characters. For example in a film where terrorist are trying to retrieve blue prints of a weapon of mass destruction while a group of spies prevent them from doing so. The  the blue prints in this film would be the Maguffin.

Suspence & Shock

In thrillers the use shock and suspence is quite common, but they are very differnt devices.

Suspence is the use of building up tension for the viewer, an example of building up tension is Sabotage by Alfred Hitchcock. In Sabotage there is a scene where a child is transporting a package containing a bomb across london, but the child is unaware of the bomb in the package. This is what creates the tension for the viewer, and the tension builds as the timer for the bomb continues to tick away. This is suspence.

Shock is use to give the viewer a scare, an example of shock is in Children of Men. In Children of Men at the begining the main character enters a cafe to buy a coffee where people are watching the news, the character then leaves the cafe. After leaving the cafe the character puts his coffee down to pour a drink into it, but as he pick it up the cafe he was in instantly exploads thus causing the audiense to jump in shock.

Red Herring, Cliff hangers & Enigmas

A Red Herring is a device which draws away the audiences attention from the truth. For example in a film where a man is being accused of being a serial killer where all the evidence points to him, but it turns out its not him.

A Cliff hanger is a device which i sometimes used, and it is when the main character in a dificult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation. This can entice the audience to keep watching to see of the situation they are in gets resolved.

An Enigma refers to a puzzle, something mysterious, inexplicable, a riddle or a difficult problem.In thrillers this is commonly something which the protagonist has to try to find out or solve before the narrative is solved and the film finnishes.

Cinematography

Cinematography means the use of the camera, this is the different shots and camera movements used to film.

Types of Shots:

• Close up - This is mainly a shot of the face and neck, mainly used to show facial expression and emotion of the character.
• Extreme close up - This shot is used to focus on a small part of something. 
• Midshot - This shot is normaly comprised of the head to waist of a character. 
• Long shot - This shot is used to show a characters entire body.
• Extreme long shot - This shot is used to show the surroundings of the character.
• Point of view shot - This shot allows you to look through the eyes of the character.
• High angle shot - This shot makes the viewer look down on the character thus putting the character in a position of weakness and the veiwer in a position of power.
• Low angle shot - This shot makes the character look down at the viewer therefore making the viewer seem inferior to the character.
• Over-the-shoulder shot - This shot looks overe the characters shoulder to show what they are looking at.

Types of camera movement:

• Pan - The camera rotates from left to right
• Tilt - The camera tilts up and down
• Dutch tilt - The camera tilts on an angle to give a disorientation effect.
• Zoom - The camerqa remains still but the focus is adjusted to move either towards or away from the from the object.
• Reverse zoom/Contra-zoom - When the focus zooms in while the camera moves out (or vise versa).
• Free camera - A camera which is free to move around.
• Trackcamera - The camera moves fluidly along a set of tracks in a certain direction. 
• Dolly - A dolly camera is on a set of wheels so it can be moved in any direction.
• Crane - The camera is placed on a large crane arm which enables it to move around the set with ease. It also allows the camera to move quickly between on different heights.  
• Rolling shot - The camera moves diagonaly, making the image askew
• Handheld - The camera is held in a hand and can therefore move in any direction. The result is usually a very shaky picture. 
• Steady cam - The camera is worn on a weighted harness to keep it still and balanced, whilst allowing the freedom in hand held filming

Types of Thrillers

Spy - These thrillers would usually be based on a group if spies trying to prevent a maguffin from falling into the wrong hands.

Psychological- This type of thriller would usually be based on a story where the pritagonist and antagonist are preying on each others minds.

Legal - This type of thriller would usually be based around a court case where protagonist is trying to prove the antagonist guilty.

conspiracy - This type of thriller would be orientated around an enigma which would be based around a government.

political - This type of thriller which would be based around presidentual issues or assassinations.

Analysis of Thriller Openings

On this post i will be analysing the opening of thrillers.

A History of Violence
I thought the the opening to A History of Violence was rather effective in the way it was set in a very remote and random location, this makes the audience begin to think on how they ended up in a motel in the middle of nowhere. There are some elements thast make tell the audience that its set in a baron location, these are the sounds which are crickets in the background and the rare sound of a truck going past on the road. Another point that makes the opening good is the part when one of the men has to go inside the motel to retreve something and the shock of the dead bodies and the killing of the little girl brings across a suprising twist. This creats thought as to what their doing killing these people and what have they done to act like they are on the run.

Memento
I thought the opening to Memento was very effective, mainly because of the scene with the the polaroid picture and execution in reverse. I found this very effective as it creates a confusing moment with the photo fade back to being blank, but only until he places the blank picture back into the camera it is then clear that that it is set in reverse. The clip with the photo could represent the direction of the story of how it goes backwards.

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock was the master of suspence who's films came to be the benchmark for'psycological' thrillers. He was born in Leytonstone, London on the 13th of August 1899, his famous films would consist of Psycho - (1960), North By Northwest - (1995) and Vertigo - (1958).

Alfreds Hitchcocks famous quotes:

• "The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them." 
• "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."
• "If its a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience will still have a perfectly clear idea of whats going on."
• "Always make the audience suffer as much as possible."
• "Im a typed director, if i made cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach."

Two examples on Hitchcock's uses of suspence:

•  Rope (1948) - Rope is a thriller which is about two men who live together, and they plan to murder one of their friends in an attempt to see wether or not they could get away with it. Hitchcock uses suspence in the scene wehere the two men throw a party and the body of the man is in a chest which is in the middle of the room, the suspence is built from the anticipation of the body being descovered by the guests. And to emphasise this shots which focus on the chest are put into play to build the tension even more.

• Sabotage (1936) - Sabotage is a thriller which is about a foreign terrorist who plans to set off a bomb in london. The use of suspence is used when the terrorist gets a child to transport the bomb across london to the location he wants to destroy for a specific time. In the scene as the child wastes time the emphasis on the time increases, this is emphasised by shots of clocks the child passes them. The steady increase of music which resembles a clock ticking also addes to the whole suspence.