Generic Codes and Conventions of the Thriller Genre
- 1. GENERIC CODES AND CONVENTIONS By Lucy Pritchard
- 2. THRILLER • Low key lighting • Quick cuts • Shadows • Tension music • Changes in the angles of shots • Diegetic sound of breathing • Black and white shots • Montage of shots • Protagonist is being dictated to by the antagonist
- 3. CHARACTER • The protagonist (hero) of the movie tends to be a strong-willed male who seeks to regain the equilibrium. In our film the protagonist role is split across two girls. They are young school girls and so are quite opposite to the convention of the film genre. • The antagonist (villain) of the movie tends to want to get revenge on the protagonist from a previous event. The antagonist can sometimes have a hidden identity that the audience discover as the movie goes on. In our film the antagonist is a mysterious male.
- 4. SETTING • The setting of a thriller film tends to give a lot away as to what the film is going to be like and helps the film to add tension in slight ways. For example, if a thriller film was set in a house, you would expect certain things to happen. • Our film is set in a school but I don’t think this will give much away as to what will happen as most films set in a school don’t tend to be thrillers. Therefore perhaps our film doesn’t come across as a very conventional thriller film but then that could be what sets it aside is the fact that there are no other films like it.
- 5. SOUNDTRACK • A convention of sound in thriller is that it is tension building and creates suspense. • In our film we use the soundtrack in the background to set the mood and give a clear indication of what kind of thing is coming up next. For example, when leading up to a key part of the film there will be tension building music to add to the effect of the film. The music can be used to control the audiences emotions for example, tension building music would be to make the audience feel scared.
- 6. CAMERA MOVEMENT • A convention of camera movement in the thriller genre is that there are quick cuts and changes in angle of shots. • In our films a variety of different angled shots and quick cuts are used and therefore this makes it come under the category of a thriller film. There are several changes in angles in our shots for the film which makes the film a little bit more interesting simply because they are different and each give off contrasting moods.
- 7. EDITING • A convention of editing in thriller movies is a montage of shots. • This is true to our film as well as our film is composed of several shots all put together in order to make the film flow well but also keeping the idea of different scenes.