Individual Research into Genre

Conventions of a Thriller

Popular films within the Thriller genre include the well known, 'Batman The Dark Knight', 'Kill Bill', 'Se7en' and the 'Terminator' sequel amongst many others. The conventions that make these films a 'Thriller' boil down into six simple categories.

Camera Movement

Camera movement is important in thriller films especially due to their well known stereotypical fast paced close-ups and frequent zooming in and out to create a action packed shot. Tracking and Pan shots are also very common in this genre of film.

Character positioning

Within most thriller films the characters will often be placed in a medium close up to extreme close up of the frame so that an audience can make out any background that may effect the narrative storyline, and any facial expressions that explain characters emotion.

Camera Angles

The framing of each shot within a film is what suggests the genre of the film. For example characters with high power shall be placed within a low angle shot (looking up) making the character intimidating to the audience. Whereas a character with low lower within a film will be filmed in a high angle shot (looking down) to make the subject look fragile and vulnerable.

Mise en Sen

When studying classic thriller movies, it is more than noticeable that the locations and props used on set project the films genre and storyline. An atmosphere is able to be built upon with the Mise En Sen that an audience can recognise, and therefore relate to.

Editing

In my personal opinion, editing is the most essential skill when creating any genre of film, not just a thriller. Editing allows an audience to either be held in suspense, by perhaps a long filmed shot. Or to be shocked by a scene of fast cut shots.

Sound

The audio of a film is also vital to the films genre. The use of silence can be used to build up tension, whereas as diagetic audio can have the opposite effect. Non diagetic audio can be used to highlight little realism in the film, for example a scifi film may use spaceship audio for this effect

I feel as our film is a mix of genres, we shall have to research further into these six categories that help to make a film, and research into actual films that have this knowledge applied in production.