Definition of suspense and collateral.

My personal definiton of suspense is when tension or anticipation has been created with the use of key elements within a film. For example, the use of music, lighting and dialouge. Also the use of jutice and injustice can help to create suspense as this rivalry can cause tension between characters which also builds tension for the audience.

To prove that my defintion of 'Suspense' is correct I will be using the film 'Collateral' as evidence to show how these key elements work.

In one scene the use of lighting was essential, as this helped to build anticipation and suspense. Within this scene, the audience see danger as 'Annie' has been left in the building by herself and is clueless of what will happen next. While her muderer 'Vicent' is secretly trying to find her, so he can eventually kill her. But this all goes down hill as 'Max' saves her. But the lighting within the building dissapears and what has been left is an office filled with a big black cloud of suspense as the audience do not know where 'Vicent' is. Also I felt anxious of what will happen next as I personally clearly couldnt see anything but could only hear voices and footsteps. We see this in the clip below between 2.48 till 6.00.

Also at the beginning of the film, the use of short clips added together creates huge tension as the audience start to see so much information within a short clip, which means they want to know why this is happening and eventually what will happen. These clips were centered around 'Max' which instantly tells the audience that this percefic taxi is involved in the main plot.


Finally another element that has been use to create suspense is sound. The non- digetic music that has been chosen, has a loud beat similar to ticking. I personally think that this resembles the heart.