Iconic Thriller Directors
By researching iconic thriller directors, we can use their techniques and conventions of thriller.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
Alfred Hitchcock was a famous producer often nicknamed “the master of suspense” or “the father of Thrillers”. He pioneered many elements of suspense and psychological thriller genres. He had san accomplishing career in the British cinema with silent films and early talkies and became renowned as England’s best director.
Many of Hitchcock films have a twist ending story leaving the audience intrigued to watch more of his movies, and he also uses thrilling plots featuring depictions of murder and other violence.
From Brian De Palms to Danny Devito, every director who has tried a crane shot has been labelled “Hitchcockian” and its true, Alfred Hitchcock was certainly one of the movies most influential innovators. But what people tend to forget is that Alfred Hitchcock himself has had influence from other directors to create his amazing movies. Some of the directors are:
-F.W. Murnau: His purely visual storytelling approach inspired Hitchcock, beginning with the 1926 thriller, The lodger.
-D.W Griffith: Hitch appropriated chase and last-minute resue motifs for many films, from Blackmail (1929) to Family plot (1976)
-Luis Bunuel: Hitch’s penchant for dream sequences came from surrealism, particularly Bunuel’s 1928 Un Chien Andalou (made with Salvador Dali, a collaborator on 1945s spellbound)
-Segei Eisenstein: To catch a Thief’s (1955) crosscuts between amorous couple (Grace Kelly and Cary Grant) and fireworks pay homage to Eisenstein’s use montage.
Henri-Georges Clouzot: Reportedly envious of Clouzot’s 1955 thriller, Diabolique, Hitchcock fashioned pshcho (1960) as a similarly bleak black-and-white film.
Below are some of Hitchcocks most famous movies
By Lolita Lind
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN
Christopher Jonathan James Nolan is an English-American film director, screenwriter, andproducer. His nine films have grossed over US$4.2 billion worldwide and garnered a total of 26 Oscar nominations and seven awards.
Nolan has co-written several of his films with his brother, Jonathan Nolan, and runs the production company Syncopy Inc. with his wife Emma Thomas.
Nolan's films are rooted in philosophical, sociological and ethical concepts, exploring human morality, the construction of time, and the malleable nature of memory and personal identity. His work is permeated by metafictive elements, temporal shifts,solipsistic perspectives, nonlinear storytelling, practical special effects, and analogous relationships between visual language and narrative elements.
He began making films at age seven, borrowing his father's Super 8 camera and shooting short films with his action figures.[10][11] Growing up, Nolan was a great admirer of Star Wars (1977), and around the age of eight he made a stop motion animation homage called Space Wars. From the age of 11 his ambition was to become a film maker.
Nolan's habit for employing non-linear storylines was particularly influenced by the Graham Swift novel Waterland, which he felt "did incredible things with parallel timelines, and told a story in different dimensions that was extremely coherent". He was also influenced by the visual language of the film Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982).
Some of his other influences were: Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang ad the list goes on.
Christophers most well known thrillers are :
Memento, The Prestige, Inception ” - Schwenkstar
Christopher Nolan started creating films as young as 7, in-between traveling from London and Chicago as his mother was American and his dad was British. He finally settled University College London where he studied English literature and joined the school's.Film society where he began the production of short films learning techniques such as guerrilla filmmaking -independent filmmaking characterised by low budgets and simple props that are available at that present time which are shot quickly, have no warning and no permission from owners of the locations- that he would later use (Following 1998) on a budget of $6,000. This gained him credibility at international film festivals and enough money to financing for his next film.
From this he created Memento (2000) where he won plethoras of awards such as academy award, golden globe and began moving onto the Batman sequel. In Batman Begins (2005) he reinstated gritty, levels of gravitas back to the hero which was liked by the audience. He then wrote The Dark Knight (2008) which grossed more than a billion dollars world wide at the box office as well as being nominated for numerous awards. In 2010, he wrote Inception (2010) which was one of his prominent productions, where he directed and produced off his original screenplay. Inception raked in around $800,000,000 and became the most debated film of the year. More recently in 2012 one of the best reviewed films The Dark Knight Rises which finalised his Batman Sequel.
FACT FILE
Name: Alfred Hitchcock
Born: 13 August 1899, Leytonstone Essex England
Died: 29 April 1980 (aged 80), Bel Air California United States
Occupation: Film Director/ Film Producer
DID YOU KNOW?
Walt Disney thought psycho was a disgusting movie and refused to let Hitchcock film at Disneyland in the 1960s.
FACT FILE
Full Name: Christopher Jonathan James Nolan
Born: 30 July 1970 (age 45), London, England, UK
Occuptaion: Film maker/ Film Director
DID YOU KNOW?
Christopher Nolan tries to do as little post-production work as possible, filming whatever special effects he can in camera. Some of the most unbelievable scenes in The Dark Knight were created with very little CGI. He believes that audiences can sense when things are actually there rather than just being computer generated.
By Nya Browne & Lolita Lind
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. His films have an aestheticisation of violence, and most of films tend to show brutal, bloody killings. Tarantino has done a range of thriller films, such as Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained. Tarantino has many trademark styles. For example, he has Mexican stand off’s in all his films, including True Romance. This is where three or more characters are pointing guns at each other at the same time.
Another trademark of Tarantino’s is the use of extreme violence, however much of the extreme violence is suggested off-screen. This is a convention of thriller films, as target audiences can expect violence in thriller films. Revenge is a common theme in his films, and this can also be a convention of certain types of thriller films that he writes and directs. Tarantino tends to use an unconventional storytelling device in his films, such as retrospect in Reservoir Dogs, nonlinear in Pulp Fiction, or ‘chapter’ format in Kill Bill Volume 1.
Tarantino has won many awards for his directing and writing of thriller films. He has had 128 wins and 110 nominations. He has won oscars for best writing and original screenplay for Django Unchained, and best writing, screenplay written directly for the screen for Pulp Fiction. He has also won many Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards for his work. Not only has Tarantino won awards for his work, but his work has been rewarded with plenty of money. His film, Pulp Fiction, earned more than $108 million dollars, and was the first independent film to do so.
DID YOU KNOW?
Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained are the first two parts of a triology based on revenge, with the third movie rumoured to be called Black Crow/Killer Crow.
A paramedic was kept on the set of Reservoir Dogs to ensure the amount and consistency of Mr Orange's blood loss was realistic.
One of the names carved into the bat carried by The Bear Jew in Inglorious Basterds is Anne Frank.
FACT FILE
Born: March 27, 1963 (age 52) Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.
Occupation: Film director, screenwriter, film producer, and actor.
QUENTIN TARANTINO
By Skye Smith
Steven Spielberg is an American director, producer and screenwriter. He is considered as a founder of the new Hollywood era, and is known to many as the most popular film director and producer in history. Most of Spielberg's films are thrillers. However, Spielberg has done a range of sub genre thrillers, such as:
Spielberg teamed with Star Wars creator George Lucas to begin the first of the Indiana Jones films, an action-adventure thriller. It became the biggest film at the box office in 1981, and the recipient of numerous Oscar nominations including Best Director and Best Picture.
A year later, Spielberg returned to the science fiction genre with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It was the story of a young boy and the alien he befriends, who was accidentally left behind by his companions and is attempting to return home. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial went on to become the top-grossing film of all time. E.T. was also nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.
In 1993, Spielberg returned to the adventure genre with the film version of Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park, about a theme park with genetically engineered dinosaurs. With revolutionary special effects provided by George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic company, the film would eventually become the highest grossing film of all time (at the worldwide box office) with $914.7 million. This would be the third time that one of Spielberg's films became the highest grossing film ever.
Spielberg's next film, Schindler's List, was based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his life to save 1,100 Jews from the Holocaust. Schindler's List earned Spielberg his first Academy Award for Best Director (it also won Best Picture). In 1997, the American Film Institute listed it among the 10 Greatest American Films ever Made (#9) which moved up to (#8) when the list was remade in 2007.
In 1997, he managed the sequel to 1993's Jurassic Park with The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which generated over $618 million worldwide despite mixed reviews, and was the second biggest hit of 1997 behind James Cameron's Titanic (which topped the original Jurassic Park to become the new record holder for box office receipts).
DID YOU KNOW?
He was rejected twice to direct the James Bond franchise.
Spielberg has seven children in total. Four are biological, two are adopted and one is a stepchild.
Spielberg did not accept any money for the making of the ‘Schindler’s List’, claiming it would be blood money. With the film a huge success at the box office, he used the profits to set up the Shoah Foundation, a non-profit organisation that archives filmed testimony of Holocaust survivors.
FACT FILE
Born: December 18, 1946 (age 68), Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
Occupation: American director, producer and screenwriter.
Net worth: 3.6 billion USD (2015)
Steven spielberg
By Skye Smith