Media studies questions

The purpose to the opening of the film is to interest the viewer to gain their attention to encourage the audience to watch the entire film.

A director can create suspense in a film by keeping the identity of the main antagonist hidden to create an on going question as to who it is and why they do what they do. The director could also use dark colours to create darkness and mystery such as blue and blacks, or even red to represent danger.

I think a crime film is defined by certain characteristics, and expectations such as the protagonist and the antagonist, for example cops and robbers. Crime films usually have some sort of crime whether it is robbery or murder. Violence is often in crime films which can be associated with gang cultures and mobsters. Props used include guns, police amour, police badges.

‘Bad boys’ is a film that would fit into this category as it contains an actual crime, protagonists and antagonists, being the criminals and the detectives. The film also contains crime like props in guns and police body armour and badges.

The thriller genre can be divided into different sub-groups such as action films, horror films and crime films.

The characteristics of a crime film are mystery as crime films often have questions to be resolved in order for the criminals to be caught. Crime films can involve violence between the antagonists and protagonists but also with each other on the same side, to express clashes of personality’s opinions or just to highlight human nature. A classic narrative for crime films is that they have two main characters on opposing sides, a crime is committed and it is up to the police (usually) to find them.

The difference between horror and thriller is that horror can contain very vivid and gory scenes, and not contain a great deal of mystery and the main question asked in horror films is if the unsuspecting will survive. However in thrillers there will be close encounter and a focus on suspense building rather than the gory scenes.

From the top 20 films I have seen 1 I think this is due to the age I am in relation to the films. The films in general are before my generation so the imagery and effects would not appeal to me and during the time period where it would have been most appealing I would have been too young to be a part of the target audience or not even born.