Research: Directors

Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg has directed six thrillers, this ranging from action thrillers, mystery thrillers and psychological thrillers. Before I explain the type of techniques Spielberg uses in his thrillers, we must understand what a director is, and the things a director would contribute towards a production of a thriller. A director is someone who is in charge of activity, departments in a film production, or organization; for example, in terms of departments, the director will suggest the type of props needed for a scene, they will then describe to the props team what the props should look like in detail, so that the props are created correctly. Generally, a film director controls a films artistic and dramatic aspects, and visualize the script while guiding the technical crew and actors in the fulfillment of that vision.

Steven Spielberg has made the following thrillers: Indiana Jones (all sequels), Jaws, Saving Private Ryan, Schindlers List, Minority Report, Jurassic Park and Munich. Spielberg is especially excellent with fulfilling the mise-en-scene fantastically; he is capable of appropriately applying the correct props in order for the scenery to match the context and theme of the film. An example can be Saving Private Ryan. Saving Private Ryan is a film set in the times of world war two, and is about a soldier who has gone missing among three other brothers who have been killed in battle. The film includes a lot of fast paced actions and scenes. In order for Spielberg to fulfil the theme to the film, he filmed the whole movie on a muddy, dusty and rough terrain. This also includes the use of trenches, forests and automatic weapons. With other aspects of world war two in the film, he successfully achieved the context an theme of the film.

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino has directed for thriller films, these thriller are: Kill Bill (Volume One And Two), Reservoir Dogs and Inglorious Bastards. These are all action thriller but of different contexts. Tarantino especially specializes in the tension and suspense of music in syncronisation with the scenes and action. For example, in the Kill Bill Series, the music would be syncronised so that every attack the main character makes will cause large and louds bursts of music. This is done so that it cause anxiety to the viewer.

Martin Scorsese 

Martin Scorsese has directed seven thriller movies , these thrillers are: Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Mean Streets, Casino, Gangs Of New York and Cape Fear. Scorsese tends to direct Italian based films, such as Goodfellas, Raging Bull and Casino. Scorsese is especially excellent at executing and directing the characters dialogue. For example, due to the film Goodfellas being based around Italian criminal mobsters, he makes sure that the accents of the character has an essence of Italian. He also makes sure that their dialogue is slightly slurred. This is also vital for fulfilling the context and theme of the film.

Christopher Nolan 

Christopher Nolan has directed four thrillers which are: Dark knight, Memento, Inception and Insomnia. Nolan is especially good at using macabre and using specific objects to subliminally send messages to our brain in order to thrill us. For example, in inception he uses a range of objects to allow us to understand whether a character is within a dream.

Summary: I should make sure I refer back to the techniques that these directors have used in their thriller movies and incorporate what I have learned from this research into mine.