Thriller

1. Thriller Films

2. Genre… • Crime is usually the core of the movie , this stimulates the viewer's moods such as anticipation, uncertainty, anxiety , suspense , excitement, tension and terror. • The word genre originates from the French language. Which basically means type. • Genre helps the audience to classify the style of the movie. This can be by the props used or the storyline. • But its not always easy to identify the movie genre as sometime it can be more than one genre in a movies, for example “National security “ by Martin Lawrence. This film is both action and comedy. • With thriller films you can easily confuse it with action films but normally thrillers are more hard-core , violence , more on the horror side than action.

3. History of the genre… Alfred Hitchcock helped shape the genre thriller, his known to be the master of thriller films. The first thriller film to be shown on the cinema screen was called “A train appears on screen” in 1895. Back in those days cinemas where new and people had never seen such things as cinemas so when they saw a train on the screen speeding towards them they thought it was an actual train coming at them. Some people flee the cinemas screaming for their lives. Thriller films promote intense excitement , suspense, anticipation ,and anxiety. Most thrillers are to create thrills and keep the audience cliff hanging at the edge of their seats. The tension normally rises when the characters are in awkward situation or in a life threatening situation where escaping seems impossible. This is usually to characters having conflicts with each other . Characters in a thriller film can include convicts ,criminals, assassins, innocent victims , characters with a dark past ,terrorist, cops, fugitives, etc. The theme of thriller films include terrorism, political conspiracy or love triangles that later on leads to murder.

4. Narrative and conventions… Narrative convention for example in thriller films are very restricted they give us very minimal information which keeps us in suspense. The human mind needs a narrative to make sense of things . In a thriller film they use events that happens in reality , This makes the audience relate to the movie. There is always a beginning , middle and end. The narrative in thriller films always twist and turns keeping the viewer guessing and at the edge of their sits. A good example of this is Inception http://youtu.be/66TuSJo4dZM

5. Characters…. Generally thriller films show justice and injustice (good and evil) fighting each other with an overall feel of suspense. A thriller film usually has a growing sense of threat or danger and there's always a clear sense of pursuit. Although they sometimes begin with a sense of equilibrium and show the overall events The story of a typical thriller film will usually be shown from a protagonist point of view, this point of view allows the audience to become more involved in the event themselves and therefore closer to the character as they see how the character interact with each other in different situations. Antagonist are usually characters such as convicts , stalkers and assassins. Some of these characters are usually very intelligent with a hidden identity.

6. Mise en scene… • Mise en scene comes from the French language meaning what is on screen. • In thriller films you typically find the following mise en scene. • Settings – ordinary places such as towns, schools hotels etc. • Costumes – ordinary costumes , this tells us a lot about the characters such as age, weather and job etc. • Props – guns, and other objects that tells a story about the character and who he is. • Lighting – de-saturated this is usually lighting that is used in murder scenes as its pale, dark and cold. Saturated light is the opposite, this is light which is brighter and looks more life like.

7. Iconography… Iconography is an important aspect of genre. We expect to see certain objects when we see a certain type of genre. This relates to iconic objects like the detective outfits. For example in thriller films it will be set in an urban city with grey , black and white colours. Thrillers can also be set in a quiet country village where everyone lives a poor not so happy life and this is often where the villain is from. Thrillers are usually based around everyday lives and occupies around situation you would not want to happen for example kidnap , terrorism and murder. This is usually from the hero’s perspective. The terrorist would be the antagonist of the film. A good example for this is Se7en http://youtu.be/1giVzxyoclE

8. Sound… There are two types of sound in films diegetic and non-diegetic. In thriller films they use a lot of diegetic sound, this are the sounds we see happening on screen. Ordinary naturally accruing sound that reflects the ordinary setting. These sounds can be screams, birds, trees, cars, people speaking etc. Diegetic sounds are natural sounds you here before editing and adding sound. Some of these sounds can be used to create suspense and tension. N0n-diegetic sounds are sounds that has sources in the frame For example this can be the music you hear in the background. This type of sound is mainly used to create unease. As the action and tension increases the music gets louder and speeds up and increase in unison. Non-diegetic sounds are sounds which are added in through post production during the editing process.

9. Editing….. Editing is part of the post production in the film making process , this involves the selection and combining shots into sequence to create the final motion picture. To some film editing is like art and way for story telling. Continuity editing is very important in films, the purpose of this is to have smooth cuts through out the whole piece, the 180 rule is part of continuity editing this is when the camera stays behind an invisible line so that the characters on the left stay on the left and the ones on the right stay on the right. Sometimes this rule does not always apply especially with thriller films. To break this rule there has to be good reasons to do so, for example some thriller films break this rule to add on suspense for the viewer and to keep them at the edge of their sits. The link bellow is an example of how the 180 rule works http://youtu.be/HdyyuqmCW14

10. Camera shots… Thriller films are full of question marks and riddles that’s usually get solved at the end of the movie to do this thriller films use specific camera shots to emphasise the sense of enigma. Form example: Extreme close ups: this usually focuses on one detail for example eyes which means the rest of the detail is hidden from the viewer. Close up: this shows the emotions of the characters ,like fear , confusion and anxiety. POV shot (point of view shot) this allows the audience to see through the character’s eyes , this allows the audience to feel the same emotions as the characters. Long shot: this gives the audience information about the characters surroundings.