Conventons of the Thriller Genre

In and out of lesson I have been studying the genre of thrillers as much as possible, I have been examining the main conventions of them whilst mainly focusing on the first two or three minutes as that will be part of our main task.

Through examining these I have come to the conclusion that thrillers follow a few main conventions, my findings are as follows:

Sound and editing play a large part in creating the suspense and panick that successful thrillers cause. An example of this is quick cuts between cameras and angles, also awkward music and sound effects can create an atmosphere although classical music can also do the same.

Sounds that are non-dijetic also create an atmosphere as it leaves to the imagination of the audience what exactly is happening, if there is just a black screen with credits but screaming can be heard it asks questions in the mind of the audience. This also follows the basic conventions of thrillers as the opening of the thriller should ask questions in the mind of each audience member.

Thrillers also usually pay close attention to lighting, large, dark shadows can create an overwhelming feeling for the characters. The colours black, white and red appear commonly throughout many thrillers, this can be seen in the movie 'The number 23' and I expect to us this in my film.

There will be other conventions that I will address as time goes on however for now these are all of the cconventions that I have learnt.