Genre Essay

To what extent does your thriller conform to traditional forms of structure?

My production group and I created a thriller opening sequence, in which we also had a sub genre of mystery. We used different forms of theories within our thriller to show the mystery, tension and suspense that we wanted to capture the audience with.

Our thriller was very structured and had generic characteristics placed within the sequence. For example our Mise-en-scene was rather typical, giving the audience the visual style of a traditional thriller. We made sure we shot our thriller in London, we did this to show famous landmarks and show that the characters were in a modern and mature location. Our thriller was based upon a blackmailing between a male and female, so we wanted to show the blackmailer being done in a well known location, this would show the audience that the characters were adults as they worked in the capital of the country.

Our lighting was dark and we also added a black and white filter when editing in final cut pro to create more tension as the audience watched, we didn't want to distract with bright colours and we felt that would break away from the mood we was trying to create. The only colour we did show was red (this being shown on our main character and also props - red telephone boxes)

Again we kept with the typical sound design for a thriller. When creating our soundtrack and foley on garage band we decided to kept the beat of sound quite low and we wanted to create tension that would keep the audience of edge. Also our foley was rather loud, we did this to show importance, for example our main character was wearing high heels. We made this foley loud so the audience would know that she was the main focus and the actions she was doing in that scene would cause a consequence for either of the character by the end of the sequence.

Our thriller argued against different types of boundaries, this would of changed the views for our audience by the sequence not following the normal stereotype rule. In our thriller we decided that we wanted to show a woman blackmailer instead of a male, we did this to show how stereotypes can be broken and that either sex's can manipulate a situation to get what they want. 

We showed different types of pleasures. I felt the main on we produced was emotional pleasure. Our main male character was being blackmailed, this would have an effect on him, causing the audience to hold sadness and pity for him. We showed him as the weaker character by him being shown with a high angle, almost as if the blackmailer was looking at him while he was travelling on a train to work after he had received a call from the female villain.

Also we showed intelleotional puzzles, by using an enigma code to create queries and questions for the audience. We didn't really show the character was being blackmailed until the near end. We also created suspension, tension and fear.

I think our thriller shows both traditional and non-traditional forms of structure. I felt it was shown as a traditional thriller by the way we used costume, props and location. For example our costume expressed that our thriller was traditional. Showing the female character wearing a dress and smart coat and also our male character wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, in traditional thriller business/smart costume is shown, so we kept to the rule that applied with that. The main colours we used were red, blacks and greys, we used these colours to create a dark mood, this would have created suspense for the audience. Again we went along with the traditional concept by the location being set in central London. The we used were also again were traditional to form of thriller structure, we included phones and sim cards, showing there was an effect of black mail happening between the two main characters.

The only thing I felt that was an non-traditional form of structure was that we broke the rule of stereotypes, to which we dismantled it to produce a thriller that was our own. We decided to use a female villain instead of a male. In traditional thrillers it is the other way around.