Thriller

By Tiwani

What is a thriller?

an exciting, suspenseful play or story, especially a mystery story.

History of Thriller
The most common use of this subgenre to thriller are mystery, crime and psychological thrillers, however there are also many other subgenres. Thriller is also very closely coincided with the horror genre, To which both use suspense and atmosphere to cause feelings of dread in their audiences Alfred Hitchcock helped to shape the modern-day thriller genre, beginning with his early silent film The Lodger (1926), a suspenseful Jack the ripper story, followed by his next thriller Blackmail (1929), his first sound film (though also released in a silent version). However, of Hitchcock's fifteen major features made between 1925 and 1935, he only made five thrillers, the two mentioned above plus Number seventeen, The man who knew too much, and The 39 steps.

What are its conventions?

In a thriller -genre film, often the narrative will center around crime, mystery or a problem. Many popular thriller films for example revolve around a serial killer on the loose. The films try to convey a lot of action in order to 'thrill' the audience. This often involve ordinary situations where extraordinary things occur. Often the protagonist will have an exploitable weakness that the antagonist will take advantage of. This may lead the protagonist to be thrust into perilous situations in order to build suspense and action in the film.

Conventions

Thrill Climax Cliff-hangers Mystery Heart Pounding Fast/Slow pace Humour (too lighten mood) fight/chase Protagonist Antagonist Tension Excitement Unexpected Anticipation Anxiety Terror Plot twist Red-herring Motif

Examples
the ides of march political thriller http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=McCt-_yYLpo 4 3 2 1- crime thriller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7EwaRJuyiM memento psychological http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=0vS0E9bBSL0 obsessed- drama thriller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ugXe_xEXw abduction mystery thriller http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=e5k7ECYZ-ds underworld awakening action horror thriller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmH7p3OsyZM

The

ides of march

The ides of March is a political thriller. The plot: The film is based on a presidential campaign and how you have to play dirty in politics. It lives up to the convention of a thriller because it had plot-twist, it was mysterious and was centred around tension. However it did not have your usual thriller with guns, protagonist and antagonist but it did have conflict and was very unexpected in the way the storyline was developed.

4321

4321 is a crime thriller. It is based on 4 girls (friends) who had 3 days in 2 big cities to solve 1 problem. The film was very fast pace, thrilling, had your usual thriller conventions with guns, chase/fight scenes, protagonist and antagonist and also very mysterious in the way it made the audience keep guessing and also brought terror/fear.

Obsessed
Obsessed is a drama thriller based on a happy couple who's marriage became a target due to one woman's obsession with the married man. The conventions of a thriller was very much shown in this film although the antagonist was not portrayed as evil as in she was not dressed in the usual way villains are presented like in batman films the way the joker is presented we know he is evil. The film built anxiety, plottwists, unexpected situations and a lot of tension and terror.

How the conventions is presented to the audience Lighting

Usually in thriller films low lighting is mostly used to set the mood of the film, depending on the film. But it is quite typical for low artificial lighting to be used. The three films I talked about in the previous slide very much back up the conventions of lighting in thriller films.

Sound
Digetic and non-digetic sounds are both widely used in thrillers. To set the pace&mood of whatever scene the characters are presented in. for example in Obsessed the famous fight scene had digetic music being played to set the mood that they are fighting it was very fast paced and non-digetic sounds of the women screaming, shouting and panting.

Camerawork/Editing
Most popular camera work in thrillers are close-ups, point of view, shot reverse shot, 180 degree rule, mid-shot, tracking shots and hand-held cam. Sometimes birds-eye view / establishing shot if they want the audience to know where the film is shot. Camera editing such as cross cutting, cuts, flashbacks, fade in/out are also used. In films like inception and memento they used flashbacks and fade in/out to tell the story.

Mis-en-scene
Thrillers are usually set in modern day period to set that sense of realism. The characters will be in normal everyday clothes just put into terrible situations so reinforcing to the audience this could happen to you too. In films like 2012, modern day people in the film but the world comes to an end.