Codes and Conventions of a Thriller Film

Our groups 5 minute short film takes a thriller genre. The aim of a thriller genre, is to keep the audience on the edge of their seats throughout the film. The plot in thriller films is set against a problem, an escape, a mission or a mystery. In the case of our film, a mystery is developed throughout the plot. The mystery surrounds a girl called Alice, who to all of her friends and family has completely gone off the rails. A group of media students decide to base their media project on filming Alice and her family, friends and members of the community who used to know Alice.

From my research, the Codes and Conventions of a thriller film are mainly the camera angles, sound, editing and lighting. What I mean by this is that these codes and conventions add suspense to a thriller film.

Camera Angles

The use of camera angles are a huge factor to create a thriller genre film. The camera angles help to express character's emotions and body language. Most thriller films use a range of close-ip and extreme close-up shots of character facial emotions. An example of a this is in a film called 'Band of Brothers', where a character is shot, whilst a close-up of the characters face is shown. This shows the characters pain to the audience. Another shot to follow the codes and conventions of a thriller is a Dolly shot. This shot is used in films such as 'Goodfellas'. In this film the camera quickly tracks through a room and makes the audience think something dramatic is going to take place. This 'dolly zoom' shot which is featured in the 1970's thriller film 'Jaws'. This shot put you in the mind of the man in the frame. As his emotions are expressed by his facial expression which is zoomed in on, whilst the background is sent shooting backwards. This gives a psychedelic affect to the shot and suggests that the man has just seen something strange or terrifying. The human visual system uses size and perspective cues to judge the relative sizes of objects. If the human eye sees a perspective change or a size change is a visually disturbing effect. Depending on which way the dolly zoom effect is shot, can either make the background suddenly grow in size and detail which dominates the foreground. Or in this case the foreground becomes immense and overwhelms the rest of the surroundings. would be a brilliant shot to include in our 5 minute short film. Perhaps to show the facial expressions of a character who is also experiencing something strange and unordinary.

Sound

Strong and distinctive music that adds tension is appropriate in thriller films to add suspense. Music such as strings and themes as they make a different mood and theme for thriller films. For example, the music from 'Psycho' which plays in the film's famous 'shower scene', adds the effect of anxiety to the audience, which adds to the effect of the visual footage. This can be describe as tension building music.

Editing

Editing is an important code and convention of a thriller film. Quick cuts between frames are an important feature which raises suspense and anxiety. This is shown in the 'Psycho shower scene', shown above. The quick cuts combined with the loud and piercing music makes the scene fast paced and very intense for the audience. 

Lighting

The use of shadows and low lighting are codes and conventions of thriller films, which create a mysterious environment. Low lighting and shadows are shown in the Psycho shower scene, which increase the drama and tension because of the decrease visibility. Low-level lighting and shadows are closely linked. If a character is shown to have low-level lighting or a shadow covering half of their face for example, this shows the audience the character has a split personality and that they’re mysterious. This gives the audience the determination to find out why the character is mysterious and motivation to carry on engaging in the film.


This mind map shows more codes and conventions of a thriller genre film on a wider scale...

http://www.mindmeister.com/219500572/codes-and-conventions-of-a-thriller-film

To summarise the codes and conventions of a Thriller genre film, this is a list of effects and features our group will use in our 5 minute short film:
Low-level lighting, shadows, rapid editing, sudden changes in camera angle, high-tension music, flashbacks, use of photographs/images/articles and black and white colouring.

Rapid editing increases the shock and horror of an event that is happening on screen.

High-tension music creates a high level of suspense and makes the audience feel awkward and out of their comfort zone.

Flashbacks can relate to a shift in time and confuse the audience, which represents the characters confused thoughts or horrific past life.