Conventions Of Thriller Films

A thriller film will always have the same conventions or traditions to create suspense and have an effect on the audience. The thriller genre uses unpredictability, surprise, and excitement to get to the audience. There are many times of thriller sub genres, such as crime, love, action these are just the main ones. Thrillers tend to be quite fast paced so they can get the audience engaged and thinking.

The key concepts of a thriller movie will be the mise-en-scene so everything within the frame cosutme, location, props, lighting and camera angles. Representation of social groups also comes in to this as well as ideology so the views and messages behind the film, maybe there is a moral to the story that the director is trying to get across to the audience. The audience is also a very important factor so they who the target market is and who it is aimed at.

Thriller genre has many different characters that will have to play different play roles to get the audience confused and thinking what is happening and what is going to happen. The camera movement involved in thrillers are normally tracking and pan this is done so it shows the audience know who is involved and the main characters in the movie. Jump cuts are commonly in most thriller movies, this is because a number of things are happening that we are unaware of and the jump cuts fill us in and let us know about certain characters and what the story will be about. Dark colours are also used in thrillers to create an edgy feeling and a tense atmosphere this giving the film a thrill.

Music and sound (mostly non-digetic) are almost used in thriller majority thriller films. Sound and music is a key convention to the thriller genre as without it the right atmosphere will not be created. In the beginning of a thriller, music tends to be slow paced and will be used to build up suspense or get you into the film however during a thriller film silence is also another technique used in a thriller. Silence is used because it means the audience can put all there main focus on the character instead of allowing the music to create the atmosphere for them.

In conclusion there are many key aspects and key conventions in a thriller movie and if you meet them all you will have a good movie, which will attract a wide audience and will be big hit.