The Thriller Genre is made up of a range of sub-genres. These include:
Spy Thrillers
Political Thrillers
Military Thrillers
Conspiracy Thrillers
Technothrillers
Eco-Thrillers
Erotic Thrillers
Legal Thrillers
Forensic Thrillers
Medical Thrillers
Psychological Thrillers
Horror Thriller
Disaster Thriller
Serial killer Thriller
Romantic Thrillers
Supernatural Thrillers
Action Thrillers
Crime Thrillers
I am particularly interested in the Psychological Thriller Sub-genre. Films I have seen like Psycho, Memento and The Talented Mr. Ripley have inspired me to possibly focus on this sub-genre of thriller. I really want to see Fight Club as soon as I can and I have been advised by Jennifer to see Mr. Brooks. These Thrillers strongly focus on character and there is usually an emphasis on the characters mind, what they are thinking and their mental state.
Genres allow us to place a film into a category and to create conventions. They are very helpful to both the film industry and audiences. Genre conventions allow the film industry to know what is successful in a particular genre and to give familiarity to the audiences. Audiences use genre to help make a guess of what they will and wont like. If an audience liked a particular genre, then they can make decisions easier on what films they think they may like. They would like the familiarity of genre conventions, and would begin to have expectation of a genre based on genre conventions. Conventions can be broken down into the categories:
Characters
Narratives
Themes
Iconography
Typical Thriller Characters:
Psycho
Detective
Assasin
Victims
Criminals
Typical Thriller Narratives:
Death (pre-determined, murder, accidental, suicide)
I've been watching the Thriller projects from previous Latymer media groups. They have been a big help in my initial ideas to my own thriller opening sequence. My favourite was called 'Exposure'.
I think my first main attraction to it was the use of sound. All the sounds are very exaggerated, and really emphasise all the small details bringing our focus to every small action creating suspense. The fact there is no speech also really adds to the suspense as we do not know whether the character is our protagonist or antagonist. The emphasis on his fast breaths, quick footsteps, the rustling of keys, and him shoving clothes into the bag adds to the mystery and suspense since we wonder what has caused him to want to get away so quickly. Also his actions are typical conventions of running away, packing his bags in a hurried mess, running to the medicine cabinet etc. I especially liked the very fast paced short sequence where there is a montage of clips where he zips up his coat and puts his bag down etc. which then stops at him with his hand on the door ready to leave. This hesitation brings great tension at this point, Why has he stopped? At this point the music then starts and the pace becomes very slow. The eerie music mixed with this unexpected slower pace also brings suspense and the camera tracking his footsteps adds to this and makes us ask the question, Where is he walking to? The suspense also builds when we (the camera) enter the room but it is too dark to make out anything. Once the light is flicked on, some of our questions are finally answered and the story of the film has been set, without giving much away. I love the idea of all the photographs in the room, and i also love the lighting in the room, it looks very unnatural and makes the scene look quite eerie. Overall I think this is a very good opening sequence as the techniques were carried out very well, and the thought going into every small detail makes you want to watch on, completing the task of an opening sequence.
