Tarsem Singh's inspiration on me

The Fall undoubtedly has lead me to want to create a visually appealing film, over an excellent story line, even though the story line in The Fall does follow on the same lines as the twisting and complex shots/scenes used in being slightly complex and confusing.

The main inspiration that Tarsem is on me is his indivuality and what must have been perserverance to get what he wanted from his films. I just love the fact that he adopted a certain remarkable and recognisable style that can now be seen in most, if not all of his works. I will not be replicating his style simply paying homage to it, as I want my work to be as independent and individual as possible, with also being able to show who and what I find interesting and a great inspiration on my own work.

I will explore different colour techniques in postproduction and post on here once I have experimented. My style will follow the Tarsem basic idea of bright striking colours, but will look different to his final works. Actual the whole process is more similar to Jean Pierre-Jeunets' method of working, in which he more than often edits the colours after production.

Thriller conventions...

"Thriller is a genre of literature, film and television that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. The primary subgenres of thrillers are: mystery, crime and psychological thrillers. After the assassination of President Kennedy, political thriller and paranoid thriller films became very popular. The brightest examples of thrillers are the Hitchcock’s movies. Thrillers are mostly characterised by an atmosphere of menace, violence, crime and murder by showing society as dark, corrupt and dangerous, though they often feature a happy ending in which the villains are killed or arrested. Thrillers heavily promote on literary devices such as plot twists, red herrings and cliffhangers. They also promote on moods, such as a high level of anticipation, adrenaline rush, arousal, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and sometimes even terror. The tones in thrillers are usually gritty, slick and lurid." - Wikipedia (Oct. 2010)

This is unquestionably the only genre that my film can fit into, the elements of suspense, tension and perhaps excitement will definately be seen in the piece.

• Thrillers embody, mainly: suspense, tensions and excitement
• They often centre on a story based around: violence, menace and crime
• They prompt heavily on literay devices such as: plot twists, red herrings and cliffhangers
• They also prompt heavily on emotions such as: anticipation, adrenaline rush, arousal, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and sometimes even terror.
• The story builds toward one climax

These elements, with the basic ideas I have in my mind, appear to be the words I would use to describe specific individual elements of my film. It is hard to describe exactly how my film will be a thriller without giving examples though, and I cannot give examples without having an idea of what some of the shots will look like when complete. I do see these conventions to be the main focuses of my film however, and will more than likely, actually I will be definately writting a story idea based upon these elements and will make sure to include the key aspects such as tensions, cliffhangers and suspense, along with anticipation, uncertainty and possibly a small amount of terror.

Thriller

The thriller genre is definetely the genre I wish to follow. I instantly know most of the conventions of the genre, and it fits everything that my initial ideas want to become.

The research below leads onto the thriller conventions post later on, but the research was to see what people expected from a thriller. This would help me understand what is intended, to make my piece look and follow thriller convention.

I can see here that the top three points which are most recognisable in thrillers, from the twenty individuals I asked, are; 1. Suspense, tension and anxiety. 2. Psychological, mind warping, confusing plot. 3. Realistic gritty characters with faults.

Leading on from here I can adapt the expectations either completely into my own piece, or possibly break convention and not create what the normal convention and expectation of a thriller would be.