What is a thriller?
Dictionary definition: A novel, play, or movie with an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage.



A thriller is a genre of film and its purpose is to thrill the audience. It uses elements such as suspense, tension and excitement this is to effect the audience's emotion a few examples would be: anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and/or terror. Thriller films tend to be adrenaline-rushing, gritty, rousing and fast-paced. Thrillers also tend to within the literary end on cliff hangers, involve red herrings and constantly use plot twists this would be to keep the audience on the edge of their seats in anticipation.

Sub-genres of thrillers:


- Conspiracy
- Crime
- Disaster
- Mystery
- Political
- Psychological
- Religious
- Supernatural
- Techno

* Thriller sub-genres. These are the sub-genres of the thriller genre which gives more detail to how a thriller should be laid out, in addition to giving specific examples of specific films for each sub-genre category.

For our thriller we chose mystery as it is a popular topic and the story we had created seemed to fit appropriately with this sub-genre. This genre relates to a lot of crime thrillers as it uses the conventional detective to solve the mystery. This also includes the plot twist. The audience follow the main character as they try to discover the clues and what they mean with the character, with this sort of interaction created a more intense effect and made the audience want to know what the crime is.

For our thriller opening the audience follow the two main female characters and get an inclination that they are trapped, the stalker however remains masked, it isn't clear what their gender is or what they want with the girls which is what starts the mystery. Another question in the audience's minds is why the girls had to meet the stalker. This creates immediate effect of mystery. We don't have a detective as it there hasn't been a crime, yet, the audience follow the two girl's story with cuts to the stalker to show what they are doing. We found getting the grasp of a mystery while shooting quite challenging at times as we were unsure it would fit with the criteria of a mystery.

The typical setting for a thriller is usually in an urban area or city. As well as this they can be set in quite villages which are in the middle of no-where with a lot of surrounding space. With the main colours black, white and grey this would help to emphasise the vulnerability of the victim. With the use of these colours it makes the setting seem dominant and over whelming as well as being quite fierce towards the victim, they also imply to the audience that the victims are in danger.

This opening shot of the Island from the film Shutter Island shows the secluded space which is bleak and empty. It also follows the colour scheme of dull and dark colours for a typical thriller convention.
A recurring colour which is used prominently in most thrillers is red, this colour shows; danger, evil, blood, lust and warning. It sometimes shows that characters are going to die or it helps emphasis the climax of the scene. In our thriller we used a lot of dull colours and we used dull settings where there wasn't much colour, we also edited the re-wind section of our film so it was in black and white. Therefore we have used this convention

This poster show the title in red which is another typical convention of a thriller and warns the audience to expect danger, blood or death.

Camera shots for thrillers usually pan they are very steady or still. For dialogue between two characters in a scene the camera man will use a close up shot to show the characters in the situation whether it is part of the build-up, climax or just a conversation section of the film. In our thriller we used a lot of close up shots for the two girls.

This is a two shot in the opening sequence of Shutter Island where you can see the two characters having a conversation which is part of the build-up.

The characters are set in a small, dull room where the only colours are dark blue, white and black. With the shot from this angle the light coming in from the window is behind her which leaves a shadow on both girls’ faces. This leaves both characters in the dark which gives a hidden depth of what might become of them.


 

If in the scene the camera is moving around it is most likely for an action scene, we use this with the chase from behind the girls and when the camera is looking up at one of the girls face as she's running. We found this effective and definitely created tension in the scene. Another reason for camera movements is when the scene needs a sense of vulnerability or when something has gone wrong this is used to increase the suspense. Filming in low or dimmed light on a character is often used to make the audience think there is more to a character than they originally thought as well as if the villain is seen in a dimmed light it adds to the mystery and suspense. Props used in thrillers are usually big or easily identifiable like knifes or guns. We didn't use any props for our thriller as ours wasn't a murder it was more of a torment and mind games thriller. Thrillers are based often on what society is most afraid of or worried of for example: kidnapping.