Picking the genre from my Film Opening

This week, we began to learn about the possibilities of our film opening project. I've had a couple of ideas for the two-minute opening, but I have decided to make it a Drama or a Thriller film. Currently, I am leaning more toward thriller film options because I would be able to use more creative freedom and many more techniques than I could for a drama. 

Drama Film- 

Common drama films focus on emotional conflicts and go deep into character development. Drama has many sub-genres like crime, tragedy, and psychological dramas. They revolve around real emotions to connect the audience with the character's experiences. 

Thriller Film-

A typical Thriller film depends on suspense and emotional engagement. I feel like a psychological mystery thriller film would be the best type to create, it allows for the story to slowly develop and it uses suspense to maintain engagement. Gone Girl and Black Swan are two great examples of psychological thriller films. 

Film Opening- 

I want to focus my film on a young girl who moves back to her hometown after she inherits a house that was in the family, she will find out the horrid truth of her family. Thriller films are created to give the audience a sense of tension, suspense, and anticipation. I want to make my thriller a slow-burn film, allowing tension to escalate and for twists to appear. After researching common themes of psychological thrillers I want mine to focus on the theme of deception. 

I was looking up proper and common techniques for cinematography for these types of films, and I noticed that extreme and regular close-ups were essential to telling the story. They give the audience a sign of "This is important, keep watching." 

In Gone Girl (2014), they used extreme close-ups of Amy's journal entries to give Amy's version of the events. With lingering shots on certain pages and phrases, it tricks the audience into questioning if Nick is guilty. I want to use close-ups similarly, focusing on props that are an essential part of the development of the story. 

 

Slow zooms are also crucial in developing tension in the film, for example, a slow zoom into a character's face as they are discovering something allows the audience to see how the character is feeling, or a slow zoom into a dark area will allow tension to be created.  I want to be able to use various camera techniques to achieve tension and be able to develop the deception theme in the film.