2. What is a Thriller?
The aim of the thriller is to create suspense and
excitement for the audience, it should keep the
audience engaged and on the edge of their seats.
The plot normally builds towards some sort of climax.
Thrillers include numerous, often overlapping subgenres.
Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent
action, and resourceful heroes who must put a stop to
the plans of more powerful and better equipped
villains.
Literary devices such as suspense, red herrings and
cliff-hangers are used extensively.
3. Characteristics
Thrillers often overlap with mystery stories, but
are distinguished by the structure of their plots.
Thrillers occur on a much grander scale: the
crimes that must be prevented are serial or mass
murder, terrorism, assassination or the overthrow
of governments.
Thrillers often take place wholly or partly in exotic
settings such as foreign cities, deserts, polar
regions, or high seas.
4. Conventions of Plot
The protagonist is at the mercy of the antagonist.
Cheap Surprise, this is an easy way to generate shock by a sudden
unexpected action.
False Ending, this is where it appears the case has been solved, but it is not.
Make it Personal, this is where the crime/plans draws in aspect of the
protagonists life or emotions to change the plot, from a professional action to a
personal quest.
Theatre of the Mind, do not show everything to the audience. This will force
them to image other things.
False accusations or mistaken identity, this leads to innocent characters being
put in the situations where they need to figure out what is happening. This
usually involves the innocent characters trying to escape, this produces an
enigma.
The build up to the climax, the climax leading up to the plot makes the
audience want to keep watching.
Enigma, a lot of the time the thriller genre uses enigma to capture the
audiences attention, there is often a question or dilemma that the target
audience can relate to that is then played around with and resolved or left
unresolved.
5. Conventions of Character
The hero is seen as an ordinary citizen who
unaccustomed to danger. The hero must throw
the plans of an enemy rather than uncover a
crime that’s already happened. The villain is
either a criminal, stalker, assassin or a psychotic.
The villains identity is typically know from the
beginning of the film. The victim is usually put in
a life threatening situation and sometimes the
victim knows the villain/villains however
sometimes they do not.
6. Iconography in Thrillers
Mirrors
Weapons
Finger prints
Knives
CCTV cameras
Running water
Confined spaces
Shadows
Street lamps which high light the villain.
Something or someone that the victim fears
7. Conventions of Mise-enScene
Camera – Establishing shot, extreme close ups and
close ups, medium/long shots, that show the villain in
relation to the victim. Furthermore, high angle shots
are seen which make the victim more vulnerable. Low
angle shots are also used to make the audience more
vulnerable and injects fear into them.
Lighting – Low key lighting will help put an effect on
the villain, which will make him seem scarier.
Costume – The villain is usually wearing dark clothing,
whereas for the innocent victim their clothes are bright
clothes with bright colours. If the victim is a woman her
clothes will be more revealing and therefore putting
her in the male gaze. This allows her to be sexualize
and thus making her more vulnerable.
8. Conventions of Editing
In Thrillers we would usually see
editing that would make the picture
dark, this would help hide the villain. In
addition we normally see a lot of
changes in the camera angle.
Quick cuts
Flash backs, in some thrillers you are
made to feel sorry for the protagonist
with the use of flashbacks.
The merging of two shots, which
causes confusion. This would be
montage editing.
9. Conventions of Sound
When there is a lot of tension building up we
usually hear orchestral non-diegetic sound, on
the other hand when the pace is sped up we
would hear eerie music.
When it comes to diegetic sound, we can
associate the sound of heavy breathing,
footsteps, creaky floor boards and slamming
doors with this genre.
10. Our film - Conclusion
In our film we want to include the majority of the
traditional conventions, however we aim to break
away from some of these conventions so that we can
achieve our idea. We do not want to include any
traditional representations of males or females, and
we certainly do not want to put the women in the
male gaze. Our film will be a physiological thriller
which will explain why we won’t be using the
conventions of character type. Our ‘hero’ won’t defeat
the villain, but he will in fact become the villain.
Furthermore, we will be using the traditional
conventions of editing, sound and mise-en-scene due
to the success of these conventions with the
audiences reaction.
