Research into editing styles-Miss.Georgiou

Editing is essential in thriller genre as it helps create the three elements of a thriller film which are needed in order to create a successful thriller film, the three elements are shock,surprise and suspense. The different types of scene cuts and shots all allow the director of the film to achieve these elements.So it can be argued that editing is a powerful tool when it comes to producing a film as if the scene is not edited correctly the situation may be portrayed poorly therefore not allowing the right emotions to be transmitted to the audience which would classify the film unsuccessful.

At the beginning of the scene we see a shot reverse shot has been used as the director wanted to show the facial expressions of both characters as it is obvious that have they both just woken up and are shocked to find that they are tied to bed and most probably think their lives are in danger. The body language is also shown in this scene and the audience can see that they are both panicked as they are frantically trying to get out of the bed. The shot reverse shot makes the audience feel sympathetic for both characters as well as panicked for them as they know more about the situation and what might happened next. This is conventional of a thriller as both the victims in this case are of the female gender which seems is a common occurrence in most thriller films as they seem to be more helpless in certain situations like this as they are completely unable to escape as they are tied which immediately builds remorse for them from the audience as they are able to see how vulnerable the women are. 

At 0:25 the producer decides to introduce reaction shots when the character is being injected by the doctor as she starts to scream in agony, this specific type of shot has been used as it shows the audience the pain on the characters face and her body language.This is conventional to a thriller as the male is quite often portrayed as the antagonist as male characters are often seen as more superior and capable in comparison to a female character which seen to be the case here as the male antagonist has complete control  of the situation whereas the female victim is helpless.The audience already have great sympathy for the female victims due to the previous scene as they can see victim has no way of escaping the situation which can be clearly seen in the restrictive body language and hysteric facial expression as the victim frantically tries to move, so the audience are in full favour of female character, per se.

The timing of shots starts to get faster once the female character leaves the bed and fleas from the professor who is injecting some sort of lethal liquid into the other character. The increased timing of shots is supposed to mirror how scared and panicked the character is and that she may have a slim chance of escaping.The faster timing of shots makes the audience feel hopeful for the character however at the same time it also creates suspense as the audience begin to wonder if she going to escape in time.At one point the timing of the shots slows down this is done to show the audience that she may have a chance to escape however she also begins to become scared and vulnerable which is easier for the audience to see when the timing is slowed down.This specific style of editing would be considered as conventional as the use of these two techniques is relatively common in films and even more so individually however the use of both here seems perfectly relate to situation by both emphasising to the audience emotions of panic,hope and suspense. 


A jump cut has also been incorporated into the film as we can see the facial expressions of both characters and their body language. At this state they are still both very unsure of what is happening, the audience are able to see how frightened and disturbed the character are from their faces and the struggling nature of their body language. Cuts like this create more suspense to a scene as we are able to see how the characters are reacting. This style of editing would be considered conventional as it allows the audience to see the facial expressions of both characters which is an important element of mise-en-scene this is not used too often in this context but when there is a similar situation in other thriller films they will most probably decided to use this particular style of editing in order for the audience to capture the emotions of the character which in this case is a state of panic.


The research have conducted will ultimately be used to help me when produce my own scene or opening sequence so based on this post i will hopefully be inspired to incorporate similar techniques into my own sequence which will therefore make my sequence more conventional as the techniques used here have perfectly executed their main purpose which differs from showing the facial expressions of the female victims to the hope for an escape.