Planning Editing Styles - Miss Georgiou

Editing styles are important to include within a thriller film  because they help to provoke shock, suspense and surprise in the viewer which are all conventional to the thriller genre. They also engage the audience by helping them to build relationships with the characters and keeping them uncertain of what will happen next. This also builds tension so the audience will want to keep watching.

                                                             As a group we discussed several different editing styles we could use in our opening sequence. The first being timing of shots.  We will use this editing style when the victim is running through the forest, trying to escape. The sequence will be slowed down so every movement is emphasized and focused on, giving this part of the sequence a slow-motion effect. This will suggest that it is taking her a long time to run away and her escape is never ending as it will never come. She will inevitably be captured by the antagonist because there is no way out. In another part of the chase sequence we will speed up the timing of shots to create a very different effect. Using a point of view shot of the victim running into the forest, we will speed up the shot so it appears as though she is running away desperately and frantically. This will implie chaos and panic which the audience may also experoience feelings of as they watche the sequence and relate to the victim.

We have also decided to use filters in our sequence to create several different desired effects. Using the aged film filter can make a shot appear darker resembling the effect of low-key lighting, this makes the shot and lighting conventional to a thriller. The aged film filter also adds a flickering effect which can create a creepy, disturbed effect in representation of the antagonist. The dark lighting is a connotation of the antagonist and how he is dark and evil as well as being hidden for most of the time. Thois creates suspense as the audience do not see the antagonist as much in the sequence and threfore wonder where he is and if he will jump out suddenly. It also makes them wonder and fear what he will do to the victim when he captures her as they know from the low-key lightng and filters that he is dark, creepy and disturbed.

Another filter we are thinking about including is a red coloured one. This could be used when the victim is running from the killer im the forest because it will deepict danger and caution which will crrate suspense as the audience believe the antagonist is close to catching her. The red also has connotations of blood and murder which foreshadows how it could end for the victim. This is conventional because blood and fear is usually presented or portrayed in the form of the colour red. The audience will be able to see these filters, unlike the victims. Therefore, they will understand what is going to happen next to the victim while the victim does not. This causes them to feel empathetic towards the character and in turn build a relationship with her.

The third editing technique my group discussed using was a reaction shot. We will use this when the antagonist realises the victim has escaped the abandoned house. The first shot is off a door slamming after the victim has untied herself and escaped through it and then the reaction shot it of the antagonist turning his head around in a sudden and serious manner before he continues to chase and capture the victim again. The antagonist will be facing a wall in a seperate room where there are pictures pinned up and circled. After the door slams, he will turn his head to face the camera that will be behnd him. This will be done in one sharp movement so the shot is very short because it will emphasise the panic of the killer as well as portraying how he is not waiting around for long and straight away hurry's to capture her again.  The sharp movement also proves that the antagonist is not in control for once as he is usually slow and calm to show his confidence and that he knows he will win.

The audience will feel a sense of urgency, hope and encouragement for the victim to keep running and to escape so she does not get harmed and the antagonist will be caught and stopped. However, they know that this is unlikely to happen as it is conventional to the thriller genre for a victim to always be caught in the end after a near escape. This provokes suspense and tension in the audience.

Finally, we decided to include the Kulveshov effect. This is when two shots are shown together to imply something that the audience did not see first hand. In our sequence, we will show a shot of the antagonist circling an image of the victim in red pen before showing a shot of the victim tied up on the ground in a different room. In the first shot there will be several images of previous victims on the wall that have been crossed out in the same red pen. This will suggest our antagonist is a serial killer and our female character is his next victim.