Research: Character types in thrillers

INTRO 

In movies, character types are very important due to the mental map that the audience will guide themselves. Without them, a plot is just a series of random events, having the problem of the movie not having a central message and disconnected scenes. They are important because they provide structure, emotional resonance, and clarity for the audience. 

 

Research

In thriller movies, especially psychological thrillers, characters are not usually heroes in the traditional sense. Instead, they are defined by their secrets, their traumas, and their proximity to danger. 

 

Some characters that are usually used in psychological thrillers include an unreliable narrator, innocent bystander, and the puppet master. All of these are character types that could be used for other genres of movies but are best in psychological thrillers.  

 

Unreliable narrator 

The role of this character is to tell us the point of view of the story; however, we cannot trust everything that the narrator tells us. The narrator might be telling us the wrong story on purpose or not; they might be lying or can have memory loss. On example of movie that does this is  Knives out Wake up dead man which starts with fathers Jud narration which can be misleading to the final plot twist, which at the end makes the audience that everything they have watched is false and just a mirror of what is really happening. 

 

The puppet master  

Unlike other genres where a typical villain uses a gun, the thriller antagonist uses manipulation to have other characters waste time and even controlling them to bring chaos. They are often highly intelligent, calm, and stay behind the scenes for most of the movie. They know the protagonist’s weaknesses and exploit them. A clear example is Saw X movie in which the character is a puppet; however, he controls his victims with psychological weapons like putting friends or family in danger. He makes them play dangerous games where they can die this being the whole plot of the movie, making them see the villain without him being in any action but in the shadows. 

Overview

Each genre has their valuable set of character types, in psychological thrillers character types serve as a psychological mirror, shifting the focus from physical conflict to the fragility of the human mind. I like knowing this because it would help my film by letting me know what type of character we want to use and how each character is going to contribute to building the guide for our film. 

https://www.arcstudiopro.com/blog/the-7-main-character-roles-in-film-ultimate-guide-to-archetypes

https://screenrant.com/the-killer-narration-explained/

Research: Camera movements of Thrillers

 Intro

Camera movement is one of the most powerful tools along with lightning  in a director’s "visual grammar." It isn't just about following the actors; it’s about shifting the audience's perspective and emotional state without saying a single word. Some examples of camera movements that are usually used in film are , the pan, tilt, tracking , zoom , trucking , static shot and many more that build a movie on how the audience takes scenes.

Research

Things that camera movement can transmit are panic with shaky tracking or low angle tilt that can create dominance/ fear.

In thriller movies, camera movement is less about showing action and more about controlling the audience's heart rate. In this genre, the camera acts as an invisible character sometimes it represents the eyes of a stalker, and other times it represents the growing instability of the protagonist’s mind. Thrillers use a lot of pan tracking shots to transmit to the audience as they are watching something that is not supposed to. 

 

Another big camera technique that many directors use for thriller movies is the dolly zoom effect; this is when the camera moves forward but at the same time it zooms out. This technique can be especially useful to show internal panic or vertigo, which can transmit to the audience the panic that the character is experiencing through weird stretches. A lot of the times that this technique is used is to break reality to something or someone shattering that sense of protection that the characters feel and changing it for the sense of consequences coming. An example is when the character realizes they have been betrayed or that the killer is in the house. 

Another example of camera technique that is frequently used in thrillers is the shaky handheld cam, which can be combined when tracking someone and is meant to recreate the physical movement of a human body. What this does to us the audience is transmit instability, chaos, and lack of control, creating the sense of reality immersing the audience deeply into the movie creating physical anxiety  

 

Shakey Cams 

 

 

Diving more into the psychological subgenre of thrillers, we have camera movement that are used as tools to blur the line between reality and delusion. While a regular thriller use movement to show you where the killer is, a psychological thriller uses movement to show you how the protagonist feels. 

 

One example is  

• The Dutch Angle  

 Dutch angle which is when the camera is tilted so that is not aligned with the ground and is meant for it to mean mental instability, disorientation, and that feeling that something is wrong. By physically tilting the world, the director makes the audience feel uneasy. It is the visual equivalent of a panic attack. It tells the viewer that the character’s internal world is no longer balanced or sane. 

 Overview

After finishing researching camera movements that could be interesting to use in my film. I feel better about how our film is going to look like and how it is going to help us transmit the message we want to transmit. Camera movements are one of the technical movements that is the most important because it helps the movie not feel clinical and distant. Movement keeps your nervous system engaged. By moving the camera, the director controls how you feel. 

Physical effects of camera movements

Dolly zoom effect

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/different-types-of-camera-movements-in-film/

https://www.videouniversity.com/art-of-video/shaky-cam/

Research: Target audience of a movie

 Intro 

In the world of film, movies need a genre which is the core of how the movie is going to be shaped, but they also need a target audience that it would need to satisfy. First of all movies need to be announced for an age group based on what content is found in a movie, per example children (G/PG),teens (PG-13) and adults (R), and this is needed for when the content of a movie is strong and influential  for a young immature mind.  

Research

 

Target audiences are needed because, in the world of media and business, a product that is made for everyone at the end is a product that attracts no one. Trying to look appealing to a whole human population simultaneously usually results in a bland, confusing, or prohibitively expensive mess. This can mean that the movie will never reach the intended fame and never get back the expenses that were used to make it. 

Now that I know a little more about how target audiences work on the public, I looked up how does the target audience works for psychological thrillers. Before we must understand what types of plots and themes psychological thrillers work with, some examples of plots are cat-and -mouse games, missing persons, or memory loss, and for themes we have things like paranoia, identity crisis and thin lines between reality and illusions. To understand the target audience, we must know that the concepts of these movies are meant for people with a higher level of maturity. 

 

The target audience for psychological thrillers are people that lean toward viewers who prioritize intellectual engagement and emotional intensity over high-speed action or jump scares. This can be seen in the age range, primarily these types of thrillers are more attractive to people from 18-45 due to what i said before about maturity levels. 

 

One example of a movie that is intended for an older audience is Saltburn (2023) because it deals with a considerable number of taboos and complex personality styles like narcissism. I did not know what narcissism was until i looked it up and is characterized by an "inflated sense of self-importance, a deep need for excessive admiration, and a lack of empathy for others." This type of trait is not meant to be understood by little children that would not understand the complexity of this theme till later in their lives. 

Often the reason people watch psychological thrillers is that the audience for psychological thrillers is most distinct. They are often called "Reformers" or "Explorers." They look for the dread and suspense that this kind of movie gives them that triggers a controlled release of adrenaline and dopamine. Another element that people look for is the dark side of humanity, per example understanding why the killer did what they did or a protagonist's breakdown, using the film as a safe laboratory to explore forbidden thoughts or moral "what ifs." 

Overview

Learning about target audience helps me understand that in the process of making a film you must decide from early the who and why of the movie. It helped me realize the dos and don'ts that we must include in my movie for it to have the success we wanted it to have. Per example I am a huge fan of mystery movies where there is a big plot twist at the where they point out every single detail throughout the movie and how it helped build everything that would be revealed at the end. That is my type of movies that i would watch, a genre that I am not attracted to are deep romances with extremely dramatic Scenes. But this is good because it shows how directors think about people and how to satisfy them. 

 

What is a narcissist

https://prezi.com/_tx5rlgdlb1u/psychological-thrillers-target-audience/