-
Day 1 Assignments
Reply to post your assignment.
-
7 Replies
-
5. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?”
I’ve learned that it’s hard for me to untangle the Big Mystery, Big Intrigue, and Big Suspense from just a few lines and a sample. I’m glad tomorrow’s class will cover it in more detail.
1. Picked “The Informer(2020)” off Amazon.
2. Watch the movie and as you do, note the conventions of THIS story.
Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: Riley, an ex-convict working undercover for the FBI. His ally (at least at the start) include FBI Special Agent Erica Wilcox, who is his handler. He also has a wife and daughter to protect.
Dangerous Villain: When another criminal shoots an undercover cop, Klimek, a Polish mob boss, takes Riley’s family hostage and forces him to go back to jail and run drugs inside. Agent Riley wants Riley to control drugs inside the prison too, so she can get evidence against Klimek. Her FBI boss is another villain putting Riley in danger and forcing Agent Wilcox to choose orders or her word.
High stakes: Stakes are raised when an undercover cop is killed. Stakes are raised when Klimek gets his family and blocks their escape. Riley is almost killed by rival drug dealers in prison. Agent Wilcox is told to burn her informer, or her FBI boss will hang her out to dry with jail time. When Riley realizes the FBI has burned him, he warns his wife to use “the key,” holding evidence against the FBI agent, but Agent Wilcox is tapping the phone and intercepts the wife with the evidence against her. The only chance now for Riley’s wife is for her to trust the cop investigating the cop murder.
Life and death situations: family in jeopardy multiple times, a cop is killed. The rival drug gang almost kills Riley for invading their turf. On Kilmer’s orders, the Polish mob tries to kill him. To escape jail, he takes a guard hostage. He changes clothes with the prison guard so that he’s able to switch places with the guard and tricks the snipers into shooting the guard.
This movie is thrilling because? The hero is very resourceful and the stakes continue to raise. There is constant jeopardy, some betrayals, and multiple characters set against each other in conflict.
3. What is the BIG Mystery, Intrigue, and Suspense of this story?
Big Mystery: What is the key? It’s a box with tapes that implicate the FBI in everything he was asked to do, including attempting to sell drugs inside jail. How can Riley go free and stay alive when the FBI betrays him and the Polish mob wants him dead?
Big Intrigue: Has to sneak drugs into prison. A drone drops them on the roof, hidden in a dead bird. He has to sneak out of prison when the FBI betrays him and the Polish mob attempts to kill him.
Big Suspense: Will Riley and his family survive the dangerous Polish mob and the dangers of jail? Will Riley go free without Klimek or another inmate killing him? When the FBI boss orders agent Wilcox to betray Riley, Wilcox must choose her word or follow orders.
4. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great thriller?
Riley’s family was in danger from the beginning and Riley acted intelligently to protect them in advance, even if it didn’t work. The stakes are continually raised. He makes lots of great moves to get out of jail and hide afterwords. It had good scenes to tie up the subplots with the NYPD cop investigating the cop murder and Agent Riley taking down her FBI boss.
-
This reply was modified 2 years, 12 months ago by P.G. Sundling.
-
This reply was modified 2 years, 12 months ago by
-
What I learned doing this assignment: Even thrillers that are 30+ years old can still be thrilling to watch.
Movie: Dreamscape
<div>Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: Alex is a wanderer who gets himself in trouble by using his ESP to earn money at the racetrack. He isn’t interested in “doing good” with his gifts.</div><div>
Dangerous Villain: The head of black-ops for the US government.
High stakes: The head of black-ops wants to kill the President of the USA for more power.
Life and death situations: They are experimenting with doing into other people’s dreams, and it become deadly.
This movie is thrilling because? We wonder if Alex be able to stop the head of black-ops before he kills the President.
</div>
3. What is the BIG Mystery, Intrigue, and Suspense of this story?
<div>Big Mystery: Why is the government so interested in dream research? What will they do with the knowledge?
</div><div>Big Intrigue: The head of black ops plans to use the knowledge to kill the President in his sleep. But first he has to find out if it will work.
Big Suspense: When the hero refuses to go along with the assassination plan, the head of black-ops needs to kill him too.
</div>
4. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great thriller?
One two fronts it was interesting. First, as a spy thriller. Then with the added sci-fi layer of going into other people’s dreams.
-
5. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?”
Placing crucial elements of the story in place to create the overall framework for a thriller story to hang off of. In this case, a far-reaching conspiracy and hidden, unexpected players uncovered via high stakes adds to the thriller milieu of this story.
2. Picked: LA Confidential
Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: Ed Exley
Dangerous Villain: Captain Dudley Smith
High stakes: moving Mickey Cohen’s heroin and taking over its distribution
Life and death situations: pinning/misdirecting various murders on “the negroes” and others
This movie is thrilling because? You don’t know who may be involved in what becomes a conspiracy at the highest levels of LAPD and even the District Attorney3. What is the BIG Mystery, Intrigue, and Suspense of this story?
Big Mystery: who’s moving Mickey Cohen’s heroin
Big Intrigue: the aforementioned conspiracy and coverup
Big Suspense: will unlikely allies Bud White and Ed Exley uncover the killers and the conspiracy before they suffer the same fate as everyone else4. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great thriller? The film noir approach to storytelling served to heighten all the elements of the story.
-
What I learned doing this assignment is… I learned that the stacking as much as possible the suspense, mystery, intrigue, betrayal, tension and twists really heightened the thrill of watching this movie. I want to write a thriller that achieves this level of thrills for the viewer.
2. Watch the movie and as you do, note the conventions of THIS story. I watched the thriller “The Woman in the Window”.
Unwitting
but Resourceful Hero:Anna
Fox, a psychologist, is an unwitting but resourceful hero. She’s
agoraphobic, housebound, paranoid, suspicious, afraid, anxious and nosy.
She’s taking Elavan for depression. She’s attempted suicide in the past.
Dangerous
Villain: Turns out to be the adolescent
boy across the street, Ethan Russell, 15.
High
stakes: Anna’s life, her sense of
sanity and her credibility.
Life
and death situations:
Ethan’s father, Alistair, came to Anna’s house and threatened her. Ethan’s
mother, Jane, called Anna on the phone and threatened to call the police
if she didn’t stop spying on the family.The police challenged Anna about her truthfulness.
David, Anna’s tenant downstairs, threatened Anna to keep quiet when she revealed that she knew he was on parole. He made a veiled physical threat.
Ethan, unbeknownst to Anna, had broken into her house and stayed there for a week. While there, he photographed her while she was asleep.
Ethan attacked and killed David in the house with a knife. He threatened Anna with the same death. He said he wanted to watch her die.
This
movie is thrilling because we
don’t know whether we can believe her and whether she’s a credible
character.We don’t know whether she’s safe or not. We don’t know who the villain is. It could be any one of several people.
3. What is the BIG Mystery, Intrigue, and Suspense of this story?
Big
Mystery: Is what Anna seeing real and
true or is she hallucinating? We know that she drinks wine and mixes it
with all of her anti-psychotic drugs.
Big
Intrigue: First of all, we don’t know if there is a villain. And
if there is a real villain, and she isn’t fantasizing all of this danger,
we don’t know who the villain is. By the time that Anna and the viewer
learn that Ethan is the villain, Anna is at a big disadvantage for
defending herself.We later find out that Ethan is the one who killed his father’s administrative assistant, Pam, and that his father covered it up for him. And that, if he kills Anna, Ethan will be able to get away with it in a similar fashion because his father will cover up for him again.
Big
Suspense: (The main danger the hero
experiences) Anna has made herself vulnerable to anyone who knows her
because she’s so fragile, weakened by the drugs and alcohol and severe
depression, and most people question her sanity. So she has absolutely no
credibility with anyone including her therapist. The alcohol and drugs
have weakened her ability to be alert and strong enough to fight back
against a villain.4. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great thriller?
It kept me guessing about Anna’s credibility and her ability to take care of and defend herself. She was constantly threatening and accusing the people around her of suspicious and criminal behavior. She was making herself a target which made her even more vulnerable. All of this heightened the tension, drama and suspense as I watched this movie.
-
I picked Abduction (2011) and I learned that you really need to know your ending/twists from the beginning so that you can plant in Act 1 – which is a lot of exposition.
Our Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: Nathan (18) has rage issues, but his father has trained him extensively in martial arts. He has a recurring dream that he sees a woman getting beat up. (this turns out to be his Mom)
Dangerous Villain: Nikola, an British assassin (known to be extremely dangerous) finds out that Nathan is alive and is coming to capture him and will kill anyone who gets in the way.
High stakes: Stakes are raised when two Men Show up from the “Bridgewater Juvenile Police Dept” (actually hired guns of Nikola) and kill Nathan’s parents. Nathan escapes with the girl he’s had a crush on for years. Nathan kills the men, but a bomb explodes the house and they’re forced to flee.
Life and death situations: The two assassins that killed his parents are trying to kill him and Karen (his crush). New assassins show up at the hospital when he makes a 911 call from a payphone there.
This movie is thrilling because: The murder of his parents and bomb explosion is being written off as a gas explosion with no deaths because “the family was out of town.” – AKA – We don’t know who to trust.
Big Mystery: Jacob sees a photo of him as a child on a missing persons website and he wonders if his parents are even his parents – essentially “who is he?”
Big Intrigue: His therapist shows up and explains that he needs to hide, and that she was a friend of his father’s.
Big Suspense: Nikola, the Villain, wants to capture Nathan as a bargaining chip because Nathan’s father works for the CIA and has access to state secrets. Who will capture him first – the CIA or Nikola?
What made this movie a great thriller: They keep adding to the suspense because they get rid of each person who can tell Nathan about his past, including his mother, so he has no clue as to who he really is and we want him to know.
“What I learned doing this assignment is you always need to keep the villain right on their toes so tension is always at an all time high – even when our hero is relaxed and doesn’t know the killer is on their toes.
-
I learned during this assignment that nonstop action can serve as a thriller movie if the action is served to reveal suspenseful elements to the plot. I believe the movie I picked is lacking in tying the plans of the villain to this suspense. It also could have had the main character struggle more with his initial flaw at the story’s beginning and the conflict he had to endure with it as the stakes and tension built throughout the story.
Picked “Extraction”
Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: Tyler Rake, an alcoholic mercenary who extracts kidnapped targets. His 6 year old son died of cancer when he was on a mission, which he does not forgive himself. He currently accepts dangerous assignments for money but secretly hopes that the next one will put an end to his suffering.
Dangerous Vilain: Amir Asaf. A drug lord who kidnapped his rival’s son, Ovi, while the rival is in prison. No one is safe from him as he employs children as well as government officials as his military.
High Stakes: Tyler’s life, Ovi’s life, Ovi’s caretaker’s life
Life and Death Situations: Ovi kidnapped at the nightclub and his friend is shot in cold blood. Tyler infiltrating the kidnapped building which is swarming with Amir’s hired guns. Ovi’s caretaker joining in on the hunt and neutralizing the Extraction by taking out Tyler’s team one by one. Fight in the house where Tyler’s former teammate betrays him. Final bridge fight in which Tyler and Ovi’s caretaker team up to see the boy safely across the bridge to Extraction.
The movie is thrilling because: Tyler develops a bond with Ovi and fights to survive so that the boy may live. Ovi’s caretaker, who is competing against Tyler, also needs to succeed or else his own son will be killed by Ovi’s father.
Big Mystery: Will Tyler fight to save he and Ovi when the promise of reward is null?
Big Intrigue: What will happen to Ovi if Amir captures him?
Big Suspense: Who, if anyone, will succeed in the Extraction? Tyler… or Ovi’s caretaker, who intervenes to protect his own son.
What made this movie a great thriller was the plight of the hero and his rivalry with Ovi’s caretaker. They both compete with each other to the point of nearly killing each other but have the same goal: to rescue Ovi. There is nonstop action, and because the villain runs most of the government, law officials, and even child street urchins there is nowhere to hide or run for very long.
-
Under Siege (1992) Thriller Conventions
I learned the model lets me observe and hold on to a lot more detail.
Casey Rybeck, clueless why he is provoked, is sealed in a reefer unknowing of the unthinkable upstairs on the battleship, but he’s more than a cook, he’s an extraordinary Navy SEAL. Hero.
Strannix, an arch-trained battleship/sub destroyer and Krill, de facto in-charge have the skills and ice in their veins. Villains.
USS Missouri is under seige, sailors are being killed or drowned, Warheads are at risk, and then the entire population of Honolulu. High Stakes, yes also all Life and Death, in scenes or silence.
OMG we need another line to reason why it’s thrilling? Casey doesn’t relent. What did I miss?
Mystery: for Casey, what happened, how to stop it, for us, what are they doing?
Intrigue, for Casey, who, where, what the ___. The plan to steal Nuclear Warheads complete with access to launch codes.
Suspense: Fail = loss of more sailors, stolen Tomahawks, insta-fried Honolulu + humiliated US.
This is likely an exceptional movie, I don’t know how it did and how it is perceived today for certain stereotypes. What made it so riveting other than great writing, tight and rising stakes is Steven, Elena, Tommy Lee and Gary are so committed to the roles, and the cinematography doesn’t suck even 30 years later. Andrew, the director wove it all so well I am still not laughing how 20 jerks overran a USS battleship. Not the least, also refreshing even in 2022, Elena’s transformation from unwilling hapless pliable victim to a heroine. Rocks!
Log in to reply.