Thrillers - Introductory Lesson.

In Today's lesson we were introduced to our main task. We were told that we had to make the opening sequence, not a trailer, which would last only 2 minutes, of what would be a movie based in the genre of a Thriller. First we were asked to define what we think a thriller is. We all came up with the same ideas; that a murder would usually happen; there would be a good and bad side; it has suprise, tension and mystery within the plot; it almost always has a 'damzel in distress' and some dramatic music. Then we were given a list of the top 100 thriller films according to the Radio Times, along with a definition of what a thriller is - "A thriller means a touch of evil rather than a bucket of blood; the natural beats the supernatural" it also says "the genre ranges from political intrigue to cat-ane-mouse via police procedural."
We then were told we had to know the difference between a trailer and an opening sequence, so first, we looked at 3 trailers. These trailers were 'Public Enemies', 'Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince' and 'Funny People'. From these trailers we saw that some of the plots were portrayed within the trailers; the main characters were shown; the actors/actresses that star in them, the directors, producers, writers and the companies involved were made apparent, and they were mainly made up of a montage of different scenes throughout the film and normally had sound bridges using dialogue overlapping different scenes; and music was also involved.
Then we watched the opening sequences of 'Fargo', 'Mulholland Drive' and 'The Usual Suspects.' They are all famous thriller movies and were good for inspiration and ideas on what thrillers should be like. They all had opening credits; narrative enigma; some sort of orchestral or dramatic music and introduced characters.
After doing this we knew that trailers are to interest audiences and draw them in in order to advertise and sell the film whereas an opening sequence is a start of a film that set the scene, introduce a couple of characters and give a small insight into the story in order to hook the audience and make them continue to watch.