Director Case Study: Quentin Tarantino

 

Quentin Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. He has become famous for many of his films like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof and Inglorious Bastards. As well as directing his films, he also likes to act in them and has acted and directed Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. His directed film Inglorious Bastards was nominated for 3 academy awards, 2 BAFTA’s, 1 Chicago film award, a Director’s guild of America award, a Golden Globe, a Palme d’Or and a Grammy. Quentin Tarantino is a very talented man and his films are made to a very high standard.

Quentin was born on March 27th 1963, in Knoxville Tennessee. At the age of 15 he dropped out school and went to acting school at the James Best Theatre Company, in Toluca Lake. By 22 years old, Quentin was working at the Video Archives, a video rental store in Manhattan Beach, where he spent all day discussing cinema and recommending videos to customers. From this it was obvious that from a young g age he was interested in the world of films whether it was acting or reviewing films. At a party in Hollywood Quentin Tarantino met Lawrence Bender which was not only the start of a friendship but the start of his career. Lawrence encouraged Quentin to write a screenplay. In 1987 he was co-writer for a film called My Best Friends Holiday. Although this film was destroyed it was the basis for his next film True Romance. True Romance was fully written by Quentin in1993 and in 1992 Quentin Tarantino had screened his first film Reservoir Dogs, at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

His film “Pulp Fiction” focuses on a different series of incidents that connect and intersect in various ways. There are three distinct storylines in these films that all connect in some way; each storyline has a leading character. Mob hit man Vincent Vega is the lead of the first story, prize fighter Butch Coolidge is the lead of the second, and Vincent's fellow contract killer, Jules Winnfield, is the lead of the third. Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega are two hit men who are out to retrieve a suitcase stolen from their employer, the mob boss Marsellus Wallace. However Wallace has also asked Vincent to take his wife Mia out a few days later when as Wallace will be out of town. Butch Coolidge is an ageing boxer who is paid by Wallace to lose his next fight.

Reservoir Dogs was the film that portrayed Quentin’s writing talents and was a big hit. From this his career developed and he directed more awards winning films as well as acting in some. He also worked on Broadway, starred as a guest judge on the program American Idol and on television shows Alias and Golden Girls and was also the host of an episode of Saturday Night Live. Many of Quentin Tarantino’s films have used some nonlinear storylines and violence and majority of his films would come under the Thriller Genre.

One to One Interview

As part of my primary research I also conducted one to one interviews. From my questionnaires I realised that the Thriller genre is an appealing film genre for many different ages. So I knew from this that I could not just interview one age range but at least interview two. All of the interviewees were aware that I was using the interview as part of my media assignment.

(The questions i used in the interviews)

The questions which I asked for both interviews were:

1. Why do you like Thriller genre films?
2. What is your favourite Thriller film?
3. How did the film make you feel?
4. What will you remember from the film?
5. When watching a Thriller what do you expect from the storyline?
6. Do you think certain actors with a certain film background (e.g. horror) can only do Thriller films?
7. Do you prefer viewing Thrillers at home or in the cinema? Why?
8. What’s one thing you don’t like about Thriller films?
9. Does a certain director encourage you to watch a Thriller film?
10. Is there anything else you’d like to say about Thrillers?

The first person whom I interviewed was a 17 year old female called Yazmine. These are the answers which I got to the questions asked:

1. Yeah there all right, there not my favourite though
2. Erm kill bill ? If that’s a thriller (laughs)
3. It just made me feel quite on edge cause sometimes I knew what was coming next but I weren’t sure if it was actually going to happen if you get what I mean.
4. I will always remember the scene where the Chinese lady cut the head off the man at the table and all blood started squirting out. It looked really fake.
5. I expect it to like have some sort of violence to be honest or like some sort of background that the viewers don’t know unless little like memory clips are shown in the film.
6. Erm no I think any actor can o a thriller because with a thriller you sort of have to exaggerate things and as a actor you should be able to do that.
7. I like watching it in the cinema because its nicer to view.
8. Sometimes some thrillers have such a complicated story line that it becomes boring.
9. I don’t really know about film directors to be honest.
10. Not really

The second person whom I interview was a 42 year female called Jeanette. . These are the answers which I got to the questions asked:

1. Yes I like the Thriller genre
2. My favourite Thriller film is currently “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. It’s a good film.
3. Well I haven’t watched it in a while but I remember it got me thinking.
4. I will remember all of it Chloe. Its my favourite film.
5. I expect the storyline to keep my constantly thinking and interested and not reveal the ending.
6. I think it helps if you come from an acing background where you may have done drama or horror because these genre are quite similar to thrillers. It would much more difficult for someone coming from a comedy genre background to do a thriller than someone from a horror.
7. I prefer viewing it at home because it means I can pause and rewind when I don’t get something and get proper into it without being distracted.
8. They can get quite confusing but then again I suppose that’s to get you thinking.
9. A director won’t encourage me to watch a film but I love Quentin Tarantino. He can do everything!
10. Yeah thriller films are a really good genre to watch, especially if you want something that’s going to challenge your thinking.

 Both my one to one interviews helped me to find out about thrillers from a different age groups perspective, however i would later like to conduct a one to one interview with a male as both people who i interviewed were female and i would like to see if a males view is different on the genre.

Specific Questionnaire

This is my specific questionaire based only on the Thriller Genre. I handed this out to appromixately 25 people randomly.

The questions asked in the specific questionnaire were:

1. How old are you?
2. Do you watch Thriller Genre films?
3. How often do you watch thrillers?
4. What types of thrillers do you like?
5. On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate the thriller genre in terms of entertainment (5 being highest)?
6. What do you think builds up suspense in a Thriller?
7. Please feel free to leave any other comments

(The format of the questionnaire)

(A filled out specific questionnaire)

The Results

Using pie chars and in the form of percentages i analysed the results from the questionnaires i got back.

The last question in the questionnaire was "please feel free to leave any comments", the results which i got from this was people believed that for a film to be considered a good thriller genre it needed to have a interesting story line and leave you always guessing about whats going to happen next. Some people also commented and said that many thriller genre has quite a predictable story line and "the bad guy" always gets caught in a thriller genre.

The results from this questionnaire will help me when writing the story line for my thriller sequence.

General Questionnaire

This is a general questionaire, that was given to approximately 25 people to see what they liked and disliked about films.

The questions asked in the general questionnaire were:

1. How old are you?
2. Are you male or female?
3. What is your ethnicity?
4. What genre of films do you like?
5. What genre of films do you dislike?
6. How do you watch films?
7. How many times a week would you watch a film?
8. How do you find out about new films?
9. What makes you want to watch a film?

(The questionnaire format)

(A filled out general questionnaire)

The Results
Using pie charts and in the form of percentages i analysed the results from the questionnaires i got back.

These results will help me in my production as i will be able to know what age like what films genres and also how it would be best to advertise my trailer.

Conventions of Thriller Films

A thriller genre film will always follow specific rules or “traditions” in order to build a certain effect on the audience. A thriller film will give the audience a high level of anticipation expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and terror. As well as this thrillers tend to be adrenaline-rushing and quite fast paced films.

A thriller genre film will usually have many different characters as it takes you to many different storylines. By taking up more than one storyline, the film gets the audience to think and come up with many different endings and outcomes which usually results in the audience ether being confused, lost or uncertain of what’s going to happen. However the confusion also helps the audience to pay attention to the film and follow the plot so you can still try and work out what is happening.  A thriller film will usually always have the audience wondering. There are may twists in the plot of a thriller films which will result in ironic endings but intelligent storylines.

Editing in a thriller genre tends to be fast paced in order to create the tension and suspense needed for the film. The colours black and white are also conventions of a thriller genre as they will bring a more dark and sinister feel to the movie. However not all films use just the colours black and white but sometimes just the colour black with a another bright, contrasting colour to give the same effect. Different camera angles are used in a thriller and are changed quickly in order to create that suspense and uncertainty necessary in a thriller.

Since thriller films like to use the main colours of black and white, lighting in a thriller genre film is usually quite dark, dull and dim. Shadows are a convention of the thriller genre as they create mystery in the film as a shadow may reflect one thing but be something else. Shadows also exaggerate the use of the colour black and white or the lighter tones against darker tones.

Music (mostly non-digetic) tends to be used in a thriller film. Sound and music is essential in a thriller genre as without it the right atmosphere will not be created. In the beginning of a thriller, slow paced music will be used to build up suspense or get you into the film however during a thriller film silence is also another technique used in a thriller. Silence is used because it means the audience can put all there main focus on the character instead of allowing the music to create the atmosphere for them.