pre production research.

What is a thriller?

Thrillers are designed to keep the audience on edge with anticipation, tension and suspenseful action, achieved by the use of conventions being mainly location, narrative and the characters. However the genre ‘thriller’ is a vague title as it has a vast amount of sub genres, differing the conventions used. Sub genres are hybrids of which two genres are used together, intensifying the exhilaration for the audience as the director often makes them to be more relatable with the use of the hybrid conventions. Some examples are: action-thrillers, disaster-thrillers, serial killer-thrillers, medical-thrillers, religious-thrillers and historical-thrillers.

Key conventions for a thriller:

Narrative:

• Often based upon mystery and the un-known. Physiological technique to keep the audience engaged making them want to find out more leading them to carry on watching.
• Twists are commonly used, creating confusion and naivety upon the audience enabling them to relate to an unfortunate and often unrealistic event depending on the sub-genre.
• Climax is achieved by the number of unfortunate events leading to the revilement of the cause.
• There is never a set location for a thriller; it is dependant on the other half of the sub-genres stereotypical surroundings for the audience’s recognition.

Location:

• As the genre is still a thriller, the location still has to maintain a sinister, unnerving surrounding, even if it is somewhere unexpected, it adds to the relatable factor for the audience and the mystery. Although the thrill is often created mainly by the use of codes, semiotics and mise-en-scene.

Characters:

• The characters are similarly dependant to the other half of the sub-genre. Whether this means they’re a life saving surgeon in a medical-thriller or a detective officer in a crime-thriller.

• Like most genres, thrillers commonly have ‘good vs. evil’ characters, being the protagonist against the antagonist who is often the cause of the thrill and problems. However, thrillers often use an antagonist as the leading role, apposing to most genres, intensifying the thrill upon the audience.