3. What is the genre of thriller?
• “Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving
viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise,
anticipation and anxiety.”
• Alfred Hitchcock is a successful director of thriller films
4. Some of the films and TV shows we
took inspiration from include:
• Stranger Things
• The 100
• The Girl With All The Gifts
• Opening sequence of Dexter
9. Typical thriller conventions
• Low lighting/ darkness
• Eerie location and setting
• Mysterious characters, their agenda isn’t
straight away obvious to the audience
• Dirty clothes
• Menacing music
• Props used which connote danger
10. Light and color in thriller productions
• Low lighting makes the viewers feel uncertain whilst watching
• Blue lighting used, cooling atmosphere. Creates suspense and
an isolating atmosphere
• In Stranger things they often use this blue lighting to create an
isolating atmosphere for Eleven.
My sequence - 102
11. Props in thriller sequence
• We used blood in our opening credits to connote death and
danger as well as approiatley setting the scene and allowing
the audience to assign our sequence to a genre
• This similar idea is seen in the opening credits of Dexter the
Netflix original series
12. Character/ relationship conventions
• We played on the stereotype of a young girl manipulated by older man
• We have a vulnerable girl, locked in a cage. The audience can see the older
man is in control
• An extract from Stranger Things shows a similar idea
• We also have doctor/patient relationship. The camera movement, make
up, costume and gender all construct power and hierarchy within our
production
13. Camera angles in thriller
sequences
• Typically high angle shots and low angles shots are used to
connote superiority between the characters.
• e.g. murderer and young girl
• We have used this convention to create superioity and power
between the ‘doctors’ and the patients’
14. Mise en scene within thrillers
• Typically thriller use props which excite and scare the audience
• We have orientated our sequence around medical equipment, we covered
medical equipment with fake blood
• We also liked the idea of having the girls in a cage, this strips them of
human features which is typical of many thriller ideas.
• The TV show The 100 uses cages to create tension and suspense
15. Costumes in Thrillers
• We chose to use hospital gowns for our costumes. The gowns
create the idea the girls are controlled by the doctors.
• Our costumes convey the manipulation and abuse of power
between the men and the girls
• Eleven of Stranger Things wears a hospital gown at the screen
shot beginning of the series where flashbacks are shown of
her as science experiment this same idea is echoed in ours.
16. Language in our Thriller
• We wanted to create a
disconnection between the
audience and the on screen
characters
• We had our actors speak in
Russian, this meant that not
only did the girls being help
captive not know what was
going on but the audience
did not know either.
Furthering the suspense and
tension.
• This is not a typical
convention for an English
thriller. We think it enhances
emotions felt whilst
watching out sequence.
17. Challenging conventions?
• To make sure our sequence was predictable
we tried to incorporate outside elements :
• Using Russian as the language
• Not typical ‘scary’ music. The music we used is
much more relaxed and slowly menacing
• Normally the captors scream/ shout to help
themselves, our characters are passive as they
don’t know what is going on.
