Creating Suspense

 3 Ways Steven Spielberg creates suspense:


  • creates empathy with the audience.
  • (jaws) makes fishing rod very large with a low angle looking up --> makes the audience look and aware of the tiny detail of the line pulling.
  • (jaws) jumps between subjective and objective perspective.
  • (jaws) breaking up a series of action shots with close ups.
  • (jaws) a close up on hands to show minor details that actually have a major impact on the way the audience feels.
  • (the colour purple) once again watching hands to show a potential murder weapon --> interestingly the murder weapon of whom; either the wife as she murders her husband or the husband as he threatens her with a simple "you cut me and I'll kill you". This leaves an intense and eerie feeling with the audience.
  • (the colour purple) keeps panning camera instead of cutting to a different shot in order to not cut the momentum of the scene.
  • (the colour purple) close up on blade and sounds of shaving turns something innocent into something very intense and threatening.
  • (the colour purple) close up on frightened eyes and sweat on bro --> still with the view of the husband in the shot.
  • (the colour purple) the cutaway sustains the tension.
  • (the colour purple) a distraction is introduced --> leaves audience with the idea that the wife will not be as focused on shaving her husband's face and there is potential for a slip up.
  • (the colour purple) once again there is a close up on a small object so the all the audiences attention is on that.
  • (munich) the character has a huge compacity for empathy; audience unaware whether or not he will pull through with giving the queue to set off the bomb.
  • (munich) another distraction to divert the tension.
  • (munich) low level lighting.
  • (munich) steps into low lit room to resemble his dark character.
  • (munich) an innocent object of the lamp is used as the murder weapon.
  • (munich) objective and subjective perspectives used again.

How Hitchcock creates suspense:


  • audience needs information from the director, without it suspense cannot be created.
  • shock vs suspense (the bomb theory): With shock the audience is given no warning or information that there is a bomb --> it is shocking when the bomb goes off. With suspense the audience is made aware of a bomb and knows that it will go off in a short amount of time --> there is suspense waiting for that moment.
  • there is almost a grand reveal for the extent of danger the character is in --> the audience is made aware at the same time the audience is.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

concept (foundation portfolio)

concept title We'll meet again (an abduction thriller) Our film is titled "we'll meet again" because of the song with the same title by Vera Lynn. It's a hopeful, optimistic song that will be playing at the end of the film when our main character is getting abducted. This not only challenges the normal convention of a thriller to have an intense or suspenseful score but also contrasts the events that will be occurring during the duration of the song. There is nothing hopeful or optimistic about the situation. It also implements the idea that we may be seeing these characters again throughout the film which gives that slight bit of hope to the audience that there may be survival for the main character. However, like the lyrics go on to say "don't know where, don't know when" there is still a slight feeling of uncertainty which allows the film to still hold onto that sense of mystery. target audience 16 years old and over as the themes of the movie...
Read more