Suspense...

What are your tips for........

.......creating suspense? This is something I'm not good at and need to learn. In your own, personal, film making experience, what tricks have you used to create suspense? And show me your footage creating this suspense (yours, preferably, not footage shot by someone else).
 
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zggWPjo2Iww

Suspense is created by suspending 'the moment'.
The moment you finally see what is really happening (while the character may or may not know it yet).
The moment the character finds out what is going on (or not: then it's the moment the character gets surprised while you saw it coming).

It also helps when a character looks scared or surprised: that's contagious.

And, before APE jumps in, SOUND can create a lot of suspension.

This is just a simple reply. There are books full to write about this subject.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zggWPjo2Iww

Suspense is created by suspending 'the moment'.
The moment you finally see what is really happening (while the character may or may not know it yet).
The moment the character finds out what is going on (or not: then it's the moment the character gets surprised while you saw it coming).

It also helps when a character looks scared or surprised: that's contagious.

And, before APE jumps in, SOUND can create a lot of suspension.

This is just a simple reply. There are books full to write about this subject.

That looked very cute. I liked that a lot. Am looking at a fantastic 'suspense' tutorial at the moment.

Will let you know what it is a little later...
 
It is likah whenah you lickah tha ladeez. You mustah dance around ze point, for as longah as you can keepah the journey eeenteresting for. Never give up all your moves at the once. :P

Fernando_Martinez.png
 
Hmm, an artistically interesting thread for a change, well done!

I don't have any concrete answers for you though, as I don't believe there are any concrete answers. This is because suspense is a perception rather than a measurable quality, it's subjective rather than objective. The art of creating suspense is therefore the art of getting as many of your audience to perceive what you've done as suspense, which leads me on to ....

Suspense is created by suspending 'the moment'.

While true, this definition is too vague to be of any practical use. In fact, using this definition alone would be dangerous advice IMHO!

The complaint most members of the general public have regarding indie films is that nothing much seems to happen, they are just plain boring. Many indie filmmakers dismiss this opinion on the grounds that they are not making a blockbuster and don't have the budget for loads of high quality CGI, lots of big explosions or high octane action sequences. This dismissal is a serious mistake IMO, what audiences say and what they mean are usually two different things! On the one hand they might be trying to be polite/diplomatic and on the other, they don't have a deep understanding of film making and are unable to accurately analyse and/or lack the vocabulary to accurately express their response. While there are some cinema goers who are only interested in wall to wall explosion fests, I don't believe this is what the majority of general audiences are referring to when they say that nothing much seems to happen. What they are referring to IMHO, is not specifically a lack of physical action but a lack of suspense, resolution, pace and shape, all of which combine to make the audience feel un-involved, uninterested and therefore bored. If one were to accept this statement then the failure of most indie films is not because of a lack of a blockbuster budget but due to the indie filmmakers' inability to manufacture, maintain and resolve suspense.

Going back to the quoted definition, the problem is that just "suspending the moment" does not by itself create suspense, it's far more likely to just be perceived as a pacing error, as "nothing happening" and therefore boring. Suspense is a type of tension which is based on expectation and context and therefore starts with the script, carries over into the filming and is honed in post. A interesting example is Paranormal Activity, if one can accept/believe the context, that one is watching "real" home-made video footage of paranormal activity, then the film is packed with suspense and expectation. If one can't accept/believe the context, then nothing at all happens for long periods and PA is one of the most boring films ever made.

Another method of creating suspense is juxtaposition, juxtaposition or contrast of edits, angles and/or of the visuals with the sound (or music). Again though, there is the real possibility of this contrast/juxtaposition just being perceived by the audience as confusing or contradictory and therefore un-involving and indicative of poor storytelling/filmmaking.

And, before APE jumps in, SOUND can create a lot of suspension.

As suspense is a perception, sound is certainly a big player in it's creation and maintenance. However, on it's own, I don't believe that sound is a particularly good creator of suspense in most instances. Certainly sound can create and maintain suspense but it can only usually do so convincingly with support from the script, acting, visuals, etc. Sound design can greatly enhance and intensify what is already there or already implied but it's not nearly so effective if it's unsupported. In other words, IMHO it would be a mistake to forget about suspense in pre-production or when filming, thinking that it can all be created and maintained in audio post.

I'm looking forward to the responses of others and to maybe adding to what I've said above.

G
 
Suspense is created by giving the audience information that the characters don't have.

In one of my upcoming shorts I have a violent character preparing to ambush someone. So before that happens, I show him standing in her front yard! I immediately establish that he is there.

Then when she exits the house and he can't be seen the audience wonders, where is he? How is he going to attack her? What is going to happen next!

And what does happen next is probably the greatest scene in the film :lol:
 
..................

While true, this definition is too vague to be of any practical use. In fact, using this definition alone would be dangerous advice IMHO!

................

Picking the first line only is destroying the context... that's the real danger here.

Obviously, boring the hell out of the audience with unrelated non-events isn't the same as suspence.

You must suspend the moment of 'resolution' in a way that leaves the audience on the edge of their seat, anxious to see what will happen, hoping the character will get away alive, get there on time, get the boy/girl/prize/justice/whatever.
Most common ways are situations where the viewer knows more than the character OR the viewer and character both know they know too little. OR the character sees/hears something the audience doesn't, creating a desire to know. Showing the character's emotional reaction increases that desire to know (at least it should) and/or give the desire a flavour of hope or despair.

So you could say that suspence creates tension in the viewers brain, because it wants to know (or in terrifying movies, it doesn't want to know) what is going to happen and how it will end.

In lots of horror/thrillers peeping/spying point of views do add suspension, because it does that: showing the viewer something the character doesn't know. Jaws is a classic example of this method.
By connecting certain sounds/music to that suspense, that same music can terrify the viewer in later scenes, as it became the premonition of things to come.

And yes, it's an abstract description. :P

Even the most elaborate and precise discription of how to create suspension can be translated into a boring scene. It's all in the execution.
 
Suspense is created by giving the audience information that the characters don't have.

In one of my upcoming shorts I have a violent character preparing to ambush someone. So before that happens, I show him standing in her front yard! I immediately establish that he is there.

Then when she exits the house and he can't be seen the audience wonders, where is he? How is he going to attack her? What is going to happen next!

And what does happen next is probably the greatest scene in the film :lol:

Do you have any examples you can show from your film making?
 
Even the most elaborate and precise discription of how to create suspension can be translated into a boring scene. It's all in the execution.

I wasn't trying to pick on you or take your statement out of context, I was merely using it to demonstrate a point. The exact point I've quoted this time! The OP has been around a while, is not a newbie and I took it as given that he's well aware of the basic concept that asking a question, prolonging the reveal and giving the audience info but not the character *can/could* create and maintain suspense. The point I was trying to make is that these basics concepts *can* create suspense rather than *do* create suspense and therefore, as you say, "it's all in the execution" and so I hoped that we would quickly get past these obvious basics and get more into the actual "execution".

Obviously, boring the hell out of the audience with unrelated non-events isn't the same as suspence.

As you say, "obviously". Slightly less "obviously", from many of the amateur/indie films I've seen, is that it's apparently almost as easy to bore the hell out of the audience with related events! Again, as you've said, it's all in the execution. So now we've cleared that up, maybe we can get on to discussing the execution, which I presume is what the OP was looking for?

Jaws is a classic example of this method. By connecting certain sounds/music to that suspense, that same music can terrify the viewer in later scenes, as it became the premonition of things to come.

Ah, now we're talking "execution"! This technique can be extremely effective, it was developed by Richard Wagner in the 1850's and is called a "Leitmotiv". I'm happy to go into this technique in more detail, if there is any interest?

G
 
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This is probably the project we played most with suspense on:

https://vimeo.com/71374301

We tried both approaches - first we give the audience more information than the character has, then we take away the audience's privileged position and leave them unsure what's happened or what might happen next. We actually constructed it as sort of an experiment to see how the audience would react to an odd structure and potentially unsatisfying resolution - and we were somewhat surprised at how well it went over with the audience and how strongly they reacted. Unfortunately I don't think it plays nearly as well as an online video - but it's surprisingly effective in a darkened theater full of people!
 
This is probably the project we played most with suspense on:

https://vimeo.com/71374301

We tried both approaches - first we give the audience more information than the character has, then we take away the audience's privileged position and leave them unsure what's happened or what might happen next. We actually constructed it as sort of an experiment to see how the audience would react to an odd structure and potentially unsatisfying resolution - and we were somewhat surprised at how well it went over with the audience and how strongly they reacted. Unfortunately I don't think it plays nearly as well as an online video - but it's surprisingly effective in a darkened theater full of people!

Really liked the initial suspense. That was strong and worked well. It illustrates the point beautifully about the 'more information' part. Then the part where you take it away - where the audience doesn't know what's about to happen. Knit this together (with character development, good cameras etc...) and hey presto... we have suspense.

It's a good illustration of execution and congratulations by the way. Great little initial idea and always worth a try.

I love really, cheap simple ideas. Really smart. Wish I had some!
 
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