The document discusses codes, conventions, and techniques used in psychological thriller films. It focuses on how lighting, suspense, props like mirrors and knives, editing, and settings like woods are employed to create tension and unease. Specifically, it analyzes scenes from films like Psycho, Seven, and Until Dawn to show how low lighting, suspenseful dialogues, sound design, and editing pace manipulate audience emotions. Woods and isolated settings commonly symbolize fear, loneliness, and confusion in the genre.

1. {
Codes, genre and
Conventions
Teri-Anne, Han-Sun and Meredith

2. Our genre choice:
Psychological thriller
Our choice of genre was psychological thriller based around a
persons mentality, we decided to go with this as we wanted to use
our film to focus on the effects of an unstable emotional state of a
persons mind. We also chose this genre to apply the codes and
conventions into our psychological thriller based short film by
focusing on the use of symbolic codes to help create suspense and
display how our character is feeling and technological codes such as
quick or long camera movements to help create a reality/ real
identity effect.
Our film is about dissociative personality disorder which is where
someone experiences alternations in their personality and may feel
they have more than one separate personalities.

3. Psychological thriller
codes/themes
Reality- In the psychological thriller/ horror game Until Dawn which is about a
group of teenagers visiting a family cabin where 2 friends died previously resulting
of a prank by the other friends which caused their only brother to become
depressed/ unstable and used the cabin to take revenge on the group of friends. In
the game the brother ( Josh) creates his own therapist in his head who is trying to
help him and by using the players choices will change the surroundings of the
therapists office, for example if they said they were more afraid of spiders in the last
session then spiders will appear in the next. we thought this was interesting as we
wanted to introduce the uncertainty of reality of the main character into our film.

4. lighting- This is used to affect the mood of a scene, by using low lighting you can
make a movie seem more dark and a person appear more sinister and by using a
higher lighting effect can give the perception of happiness. Low lighting is often
used to emphasis abnormal behavior of a character in a scene and their inner
darkness.
Using bright lighting creates a happy effect on a persons mood in a scene making the
audiences mood neutral, however, by making the lighting darker can create
numerous effects, for example in V for Vendetta the use of low lighting and the
pouring rain makes the scene appear desolate.
In paranormal activity low/no lighting is constantly used which creates an uneasy
affect throughout the duration of the movie as it creates tension.

5. Suspense- This creates tension within a scene of a film and is a major effect to
make that scene successful. In the movie Seven which is an American psychological
thriller about detectives chasing a serial killer whose killings are based around the
seven deadly sins has a lot tension and suspense throughout the film, for example,
in one of the last scenes where a detective is asking what is in a box which they
have been lead to by the serial killer, which turns out to be his wife's head, the
killer asks the detective if he will kill him and making him wrath and to be the last
piece to his ‘work’. This scene shows suspense by the detective asking questions
like “What’s in the fucking box?” making the audience alarmed, the use of the
desert making a persons attention directly to the scene and the use of close ups to
the detectives face with the use of low colour in the scene before the detective
shoots the serial killer as it helps create the pressure between the characters.

6. Props (mirrors)- Mirrors are commonly used in psychological thriller movies
when the character is looking into their inner self and is mostly used for a dark
effect by looking into the characters ‘dark side’. Props are often used make the
audience become more connected to the character as they know their secrets
and intentions keeping them engaged into the film.

7. Knives and sound- Knives is one of the key props used in horror and
psychological thriller genres. Knives are used to symbolize death, brutality
and betrayal. One of the most iconic knife murder scenes is from a part in
the film called Psycho( Alfred Hitchcock 1960) which is about a female
protagonist after stealing a large amount of money from her last employer
with her boyfriend finds shelter in a motel during a rainstorm. The scene
consists of multiple close ups, with use of non diegetic music that slowly
builds up t create the tension of the scene, with the music stopping as you
hear the shower curtain move, you then hear high pitched music which is
much louder than before that was slow, eerie and quiet.
Before the ‘psycho’ stabs the female protagonist you can hear a loud
piercing scream which can startle the audience and fits the psycho thriller
stereotype.

8. Editing- During the shower scene in Psycho there is a lot of fast pace editing
during the shower/killing scene, with 70 fast paced cuts in around 1 minute,
this creates tension and keeps the audience interested. Although you cannot
see any of the wounds inflicted on the female protagonist, you see quick close
ups that moves from the killer, without showing his face and back to the
female and her reaction to being stabbed. When the murderer leaves the
editing slows down as she falls to the shower floor and dies.

9. Woods/empty land
In psychological thrillers woods generally represent
desolation and loneliness. When a protagonist is in the
woods it usually represents a fearful apprehension/ that
something will happen to the protagonists in the scene,
this fits with psychological theme as well due to woods
can also represent confusion for example, of the main
character is running through the woods it usually end up
with the character being unsure where to go, creating
confusion and tension within the scene.