Thriller review of previous work

U2-55 - Last Words

Unsteady took away tension and realism, as more hand held shots were used instead of steady shots using a tripod. Framing was rarely used but not in appropriate situation to match the story line. most camera shots were mainly mid distance and only one long distance (these gave the audience too much information and therefore obvious and bland). No close ups were used which meant that no enigmas could be created.

When they search for the house, it makes it seem appropriate for a crime/detective thriller to use information that a conventional police force would use. In costume, they did use smart wear to make characters look official but trainers were worn, this also ruined the realism of the image.

A split shot was used, but it didn't seem necessary as parallel editing was used anyway. This gave away too much information about one characters location and therefore the ending didn't shock the audience. Also, this caused confusion of who the main characters were. the continuity and general pace of the editing didn't match the characters actions fluently. One example is when the two characters open the door to the house, but the match-on-action effect wasn't achieved as the pace went from walking to running as soon as they opened the door.

Appropriate cuts were used and a blur disguised what we were about to see and created more of a shock, but in this case, it was not necessary as the character coming through the door didn't have any condition that would have given him a blurry vision (a blurry point-of-view shot). In the diegetic speech, the vocabulary was fairly casual during the whole opening, including the two "main" characters and also the unconvincing voice of the character in "distress". Bad cuts in the speech, ruined the continuity as some speech was cut off. The sound track stayed the same throughout, and was highly inappropriate to the narrative.

The non-diegetic soundtrack used wasn't entirely appropriate for this, as it gave a more upbeat and uplifting mood than it did to give suspense or a bruding atmosphere. It somewhat, however, did reflect on the characters movement, maybe to show their hurry, as it was moderately fast-paced.

Credits were used but not appropriately. At the beginning, a voiceover of a emergency call was used to add to the narrative and continues this until the credits have ended. But the credit titles were rushed it seems, as the font of the words were plain and inappropriate titles such as, 'Dead Guy' also ruined the effect and it gave away vital information to create the shock at the end of the sequence.

One of the genre conventions of a thriller may be a dark scenery, but they shot this is daylight and due to this, the atmosphere could not have been created. Another genre convention that they used was the enigma over someone's death. They have done this successfully as they didn't give the audience any answers to the cause early in the opening sequence, which keeps the suspense building. This can also create a complex plot even though they kept the arrival at the enigma simple, which is another thriller genre convention.