Thriller Textual Analysis:

Vertigo (1958) Thriller Textual Analysis:

Mise en Scene:

Vertigo’s colours are vibrant and bright especially the blue of the ocean, the green of the cemetery and flowers surrounding the shop while lures the audience into the film. The lighting is ambient to make the visual appearence of the film feel natural and to relax us, with the settings shot mainly outdoors in open spaces. The main male character wears a smart black uniform with a matching black hat, symbolising to the audience that his male dominance, professional occupation and wealthy background makes him successful. Females are represented wearing white blouses and navy blue skirts to denote innocence, purity and beauty which aesthetically please the audience. The rooms surrounded by paintings, lamps and wood support the artistic modern interior designs that have been placed to evoke positive reaction from the audience. Shadows appear on the walls to raise suspense and forward the narrative.

Cinematography:

The trailer begins with a zooming in close up of a dictionary entry with the word “Vertigo” as a code to the audience and tells them what the film title means (possible giving hints towards what might happen in the film). A shot of two people hugging is shown with their figures in centre frame to emphasise their warm affection, easing the audience in scenes where suspense is not raised. A long shot with a female character watching a male character climb on a stool convinces the audience that they are spectators, watching from afar to see what happens next. Low angle shots have been used to reinforce the main characters psychological condition (fear of heights). Extreme long shots such as the shot of the San Francisco bridge shows off the scenery with characters wandering in deep thought. A low angle shot zooming out puts the audience at unease as the main character hangs off from a building.

Sound:

The sound begins with non-diegetic strings and orchestral sounds, quiet at first but introduces trumpets etc to raise suspense. The sound then returns to a quiet level as the voiceover narrates the film trailer. The narrator asks rhetoric questions to invite the audience and persuade them to listen to the story told by the characters exchanging diegetic sounds of dialogue. Near the climatic point of the trailer the instruments build pace to fix the audience’s attention to the actions happening on-screen which involves the main character leaning off from a building, inches away from his death. This near death experience is supported by a few seconds of loud strings and orchestral sounds that hold a note down to emphasise the thrilling sensation.

Editing/Special Effects:

The first editing technique is a swirly transition that goes into a black screen with swirling objects of different colours prior to a thin light orange text font with “VERTIGO” on it. This has been done to allure the audience into the trailer, makes them create expectations and ask questions. The text used to introduce names of the actors is the same but with a smaller font size with white colour. Further effects include a transition used include fades between shots to move the trailer forward smoothly to ease the viewers before the pace of the music rises. Another editing effect was a shot placed over another shot where a beautiful female character is caught on camera looking outside the window to find a male character looking around. The transitions of the text effects enter and exit in various ways including wipes and rotations to excite the audience further.

Directing Trademarks/Techniques:

Now that I looked at each of the thriller trailers and familiarised myself with the genre's forms and conventions I noew have a clear idea of the genre.


Our group was not ready to put our teaser trailer into development so we did additional research into directing trademarks/techniques. We felt that we needed to learn new styles of film-making to benefit our technical skills with using a camera. We also wanted to test the audience to see if they could identify these particular directing trademarks/techniques and relate our product to the directors we researched.


The first director we studied was Christopher Jonathan James Nolan, born in 1970 in London. He started his filming career when he was seven, using action figures and filming them with an 8mm camera. At University College London he begun making 16mm films at the college film society. His early works such as 'Tarantella' and 'Larceny' were presented.

His most notable works include:

1. THE DARK KNIGHT (1996) -

2. INCEPTION (2010) -

3. MEMENTO (2000) -

4. BATMAN BEGINS (2005) -

The second director we studied was David Andrew Leo Fincher, born in 1962 in Denver, Colorado. When he reached 18, he went to work for Korty Films in Mill Valley. From there he became a director, producer and an actor. He subsequently worked at ILM between 1981-1983 before leaving to direct TV commercials and music videos.

His most notable works include:

1. FIGHT CLUB (1999) -

2. SE7EN (1995) -

3. THE SOCIAL NETWORK (2010) - 

4. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (2008) -

The last director we studied was Alfred Hitchcock, born in 1899 in London. His interest in movies began around 1915 after working as an estimator for a cable company. He went on to become the most widely-known, influencial director in the history of the world of cinema. He produced work for over 50 years and his techiques are still used today.

His nickname was 'Hitch, the master of suspense'.

His most notable works include:

1. VERTIGO (1958) -

2. PSYCHO (1960) -

3. REAR WINDOW (1954) -

4. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) -

Christopher Nolan uses the following directing trademarks:

Our group thought that having a non-linear timeline in the narrative would raise suspense and make our audience ask questions. Plus, it would make the production of our teaser trailer much easier (by not having to take shots in numerical order but instead be able to film random shots at random times when it suited our group). 

Endings with justified dishonesty is a factor we are considering. This may involve challenging a convention which will be elaborated in the evaluation questions for when we get onto them.

Our group is not thinking of having our main protganist with any particular kind of psychological disorder but we may consider having a an over-emotional main protaganist. We want his emotions to stand out to the audience so they can feel sympathy, relate to his character and fear for his/her life.

David Fincher uses the following directing trademarks:

Our group has decided that we will pay attention on shooting the faces and figures of mysterious antagonistic characters covered in shadow to mask their indentities and raise suspense to set up the atmosphere for the thrills our audience will recieve.

We are also considering on using single frame inserts with subordinating antagonistic characters walking towards the camera. This will thrill the audience with terrifying and menacing facial expressions of antagonistic characters.

Tracking shots have been taken into consideration. We mainly want to show the main protagonist running to build pace and lead this up to our teaser trailer's climatic point.

Alfred Hitchcock uses the following directing trademarks:

The "wrong man" or "mistaken identity" theme is an innocent man or woman mistaken for a criminal. Our group is planning on reversing this theme, making one of our characters pretend to play the innocent role when playing an evil role in reality.

Creating shadows on the walls is a code we may use at our disposal for making our audience ask questions. It will make our teaser trailer look impressive for taking after the work of Hitchcock. We at least want our audience to identify the allusions we have placed into our product to help them identify it as a thriller.

It is only circustantial as to whether we will cast any actresses who is blonde - this is not one of our intentions because we want to cast people who have some experience at acting. As long as they are acceptable at performing their roles, they can join the cast.