Group Presentation - The Thriller Genre

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Our Task
As part of our ongoing project we summed up what we had learnt during the teaching portion of our coursework in a 15 minute multimedia presentation to the class including the use of film extracts, powerpoint skills and still images.


What we did
Working as a group; we created a powerpoint presentation based upon the key areas which we studied. (Conventions, Direction, Audience and Analysis) We, as a group, presented our findings (in the form of both spoken and written language) to our class accompanied by two film extracts which we had previously analysed. (The Life of David Gale & Man on Fire). We also analysed a still image and applied the generic conventions of a thriller to two films (Man on Fire & Secret Window) in order to gain a wider understanding of how conventions are not hard and fast rules but rather can be applied at the director's discretion and often without clear purpose.

Reflections
Kim Rayner:
My contribution to the group's presentation was to analyse an extract from the thriller film The Life Of David Gale. I analysed the opening 30 seconds of the film and commented on the use of camera movement and shot types, mise-en-scene, sound, plot structure/ editing and semiotics and what effects these had on the audience. I felt that the presentation of my extract analysis went well and that I was able to communicate across clearly the use and effects of the above mentioned areas of analysis.

Laurence Sturla:
In this exercise i gave a presentation showing how the film Payback is aimed at different audiences and why, and how that this film is an example of a modern day film Noir, using many conventions associated with the Noir sub-genre. I also analyised an extract of man on fire, commenting on the shot types, camera movement, mise-en-scene, the different sounds, and the editing and effects that are used to create this thriller, and how they are effective. I feel that i presented these extracts well using correct terminology and putting the ideas across clearly. i think that our presentation as a whole worked very well.


How we benefited
As a group we feel that the presentation was an excellent way of summing up the knowledge we had learnt over the course of the last few weeks; and allowed us to reinforce this in our own minds because we were able to allow our knowledge to actual media and content.


The next phase of our project will be the planning and execution of our Preliminary Task.


Please note that the presentations we created were presented in different groups than the actual group that we have chosen for our task. Going forward all work will only be completed by the four members of our group as detailed previously.

- Rory Jee (Reflections - Authors indicated)