Case Study

The Usual suspects

Part i

The case study I am doing is on the crime thriller the Usual Suspects. The Usual Suspects was directed by Bryan Singer and the production company for this film was Poly Gram Film Entertainment. The film was brought in the UK on the 25th of august 1995 and it was filmed in various locations in New York. It has made $23,341,568 from the box office around the world.

Part ii

Once I had watched the film I felt that the target audience was very wide spread, as it contains mostly everything a viewer would want such as gun fights for the more action seekers to more technical scenes for the more intuitive viewer. I feel that the film should be watched from teenagers upwards as it contains to much violence for the younger population.

Part iii

With the technology nowadays, such as the Internet I found that it has helped the targeted audience to get a feel for the film, and gather information about it much quicker with such websites as Wikipedia and IMBD; they had all of the information on the director of the film, the cast and the production company. Also with this access to the film information timings on viewing times can be found making it very easy to watch a film with the technology.

Part iv

The Intro to the film starts with a slow camera movement drifting across rippling water, there are light strips going across the water this really creates a eerie atmosphere giving the audience, in my opinion a more horror feel to the film. What I like about the light across the water is that it sort of shows that there is always a glimmer of light. This works as the surrounding image is very dark. The camera angles at the beginning of the film start low due to the man sitting upright against some boxes, this creates great filming as the man who walks down the stairs appears as the villain so filming him three quarters of the way up works perfectly as it keeps the audience interested, due to the wonder of the character.

The way the camera shot focuses on the victims whole face makes us feel his emotion and pain while sitting there. The killer  walks down some stairs towards his victim, the sound here creates a really good effect in keeping the audiences attention, the way he walks down the stairs you really get un understanding of his personality as he walks with a slow casual walk.  As he walks to his victim he  lights up a lighter, this is when the camera focus on the it for a while this gives us the impression that the killer comes across as a bad guy with all the characteristics for it with the hat covering most of his face and the long coat suggest he has a lot to cover, maybe suggesting he has also got a lot to hide. The lighting in this scene is dim this makes it hard to make out face recognition, this is good as it creates a added suspense as the killers face cannot be seen making you wonder out of all the character who it is as the film continues, keeping the audience focused in excitement and wonder.

When the killer walks off the scene it finishes with a large explosion this really creates dramatic atmosphere as it really brightens up the visual effect making the viewer naturally excited due to the action .The way the location of all the drama  is set on a boat during the night is really great as the large boat is very confusing with all its room and passage ways making it very easy for the killer to make his getaway if the police make an appearance, this leaves us with suspense as the killer seems to wonder around quite shifty and slow, in a way making the audience frustrated as they want  him to hurry up with his deeds.

The way there is fuel dripping around the boat and has created puddles shows that there has been former fights before the scene started, this keeps the audience interested as ideas approach the viewers head about what happened.

There are many character types in the film, but there are two important ones which really help with the thriller theme such as the character the audience follows throughout the majority of the film is a thief that get interrogated by two police officers for the antics that have happened recently, he is a like able person making it hard for the viewer to see why he’s getting questioned about it. He is also a crippled on the left hand side making have to walk with a limp and show that he can’t really use his arm, he also is quite a timid person this would also make the viewer feel sorry for him, making it seem impossible for him to be able to commit to any crimes as it would seem very hard for him to do so. Even though he is a cripple there does seem to be something about, like no one would know of, as when he gets interrogated with certain questions, he is able to change the subject incredible quickly given little suspicions about him.

Another really effective character was the mystery villain; even though we saw him at the beginning we didn’t see any facial features making it very frustration encouraging the audience to keep watching. By having a character like that in a thriller works really well as it really builds up the mystery guy, making the audience suspicious of all the characters giving them the chance throughout the film to picture their motives.

An effective part of the thriller was all the fights, drug hand over’s and gun wars as these were all very intensive which would of kept the viewers attention by the amount of shootings. Also many of times the main characters got into trouble which would of really got the audience going ,as these incidences would of really caused problems. The plans the main characters organised, you would of thought they would never work but most of them always did this really helped with viewing capabilities.

The structure of the film must have been very confusing for some as there were many twist and plots. This would make the viewer question what was going to happen during the film. I think by the film being structured like this it really made the film as it really kept the audience involved.

Part V

The big stereotype in this film is the cripple who is supposedly paralysed down his left side. He is a criminal in the film but he is not seen as a suspected to do his incapability’s. This shows that viewers often will not see a cripple as a suspect as they would usually feel sorry for them; this just shows that we should treat everyone with the same standard and shouldn’t judge people for what they are.