The Thriller Genre

Thrillers are films, books, TV programmes that use suspense, excitement and tension as its main conventions. They are designed to make the viewer feel a high level of anticipation, expectations and anxiety. Thrillers became most popular in the 1940s (just after WW2 ended). since then the story lines have become more shocking and relevant to everyday society. The most common sub-genres of thrillers are:

• Psychological
• Crime
• Erotic
• Mystery
• Paranormal

What conventions would you typically find in a thriller?

Camerawork & Editing~ you generally find a tracking or a pan shot at the beginning of your thriller. This is to show the action and so that the audience feel like they are moving with the characters if they were for example in a high speed chase. It mainly focuses on the character/ a group of people we should pay attention to. The shot that is most commonly used is the close up. It is used so that the audience can see the facial expressions of the characters or to put emphasis on a particular object.The two most common angle that are used are the high angle and the low angle. This create a dominance/innocence towards the character. For example, if your character is begin over powered by someone, you would usually use a low angle shot to show that that person is more dominant. However if you wanted to show someone being innocent then you would just a high angle shot to show the audience that the person they are looking down upon is innocent. The editing is normally very fast pased and uses a lot of jump cuts to show different events going on at the same time. This keeps the audience more involved with the story line and make it more exhilarating for them to watch.

Mise-en-scene~lighting is one of the key conventions in mise-en-scene as it creates atmosphere and tension. You mostly find that in thrillers the rooms are never really lightly lit. They are mainly dark spaces. Having dark space makes the audience feel very uneasy as they don't know if anything is in those dark spaces. The costumes depend on what type of character the actors are portraying. If you are an officer in a war thriller then you would be wearing an arm uniform. The directors use costume to make the main characters stand out if they are in a large crowd. It can vary from colours to fittings or even the complete opposite in style. The props that are used depend again on what type of thriller it is. If you are doing an action thriller then you could have props like knives and guns. The setting of the thriller depends on the genre/sub-genre. For example if you were using film noir then it would be set in a city where it is crowded and uncomfortable. But if you were doing a psychological thriller then it might be set somewhere far away from anything (towns or cities).

Sounds~ sound is probably one of the most important aspects in thriller films. Sounds create atmosphere and tension and set the tone/mood of the scene. The non-diegetic sound is mainly music that the editing team has put in there to create a mood. Some things like dialogue can sometimes be dubbed over after filming if the speech was not clear. The most common non-diegetic sound is the soundtrack that plays during the titles of the film. Diegetic sound is sound from within the film so things like footsteps and speech from actors. Footsteps can be used in many different ways in thrillers. They create tension and atmosphere for the charatcer and the audience as someone is walking towards the character. It creates catharsis and in some situations you can feel like you empathise with he charatcer. Another non-diegetic sound is narrative. Some film openings have voice overs to introduce charatcers and story lines. This is a very interesting technique to use as the audience cannot see where the voice is coming from but they know it is a character from the film.