Week 1 - Colours & Lighting

In thriller films, the colours and lighting are usually very dark and creepy. This sets the atmosphere for the audience.

Here are some examples of thriller :

US (2019)

Colours :

Black , Red, and White

Lighting :

Very dark, a spotlight shining down on the woman's face

Other :

The woman is holding a mask revealing a scary and almost psychotic face with a teardrop running down her cheek

Cape Fear (1991)

Colours :

Black, Grey, Dark Blue

Lighting :

Quite dark, but not as dark as the other poster above.

Other :

There is a man's face blended into the lake, with his eyes of anger and rage

There is a family photo floating in the lake with a rip on the top

Ma (2020)

Colours :

White, and Red

Lighting :

Unlike the other two, the lighting in this poster is quite bright

Other :

The woman is staring directly at the audience with no emotion.

The poster has cracks in the picture to signify losing sanity

Differences in lighting with other film genres : Comedy

"Silence Of The Lambs" (1981) "Dumb and Dumber" (1994)

What are the differences in lighting ? :

The lighting in "Dumb and Dumber" is more bright and vibrant

The lighting in "Silence of the lambs" has a black and white filter. However, the film poster exposes a little bit of colour in the woman's eyes and the moth that is placed on the woman's mouth

Differences in lighting with other film genres : Romance

"Dead Silence" (2007) "Love , Simon" (2018)

What are the differences in lighting ? :

The lighting in "Love , Simon" is more bright and has more vibrant colours

The lighting in "Dead Silence" is a lot more colour muted, and has very dark lighting with a spotlight shining down on the creepy doll, as he stares right into the audience's eyes

After looking at the thriller posters, I have decided to draw inspiration towards US (2019)

Now that I have researched colour and lighting in thriller films and compared them to other film posters, I will now research Titles and Taglines