All On Thrillers…

THRILLER MOVIE TIMELINE

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Se7en(1995)          Sin City(2005)          The Dark Knight(2008)

Inception(2010)   Gravity(2013)  Murder on the Orient Express(2017)

Knives out(2019)         Tenet(2020)            Dune(2021)

Does the genre exist in a range of medias as well as film?

Thrillers exist in many medias, especially books, TV shows, and films and games. These medias really like thrillers because it makes the audience/reader/player really hooked up with the storyline which would make them want to keep on watching/reading/playing.

How has the Thriller genre changed over time?

Thriller is a popular genre in literacy so when cinematography came out, it is hard to avoid films directed in this field. At the beginning, the films are all based on the written texts. They just simply create the imagery of the texts so the storyline are all very similar. Later on, these films start to add in elements of their own media, things that literacy cannot achieve.

The first thriller was written in 1903 by Erskine Childers called The Riddle of the Sands. Most of the readers back then were men so there were no female characters in the storyline. It was around the 1980s when writers start to add minor female characters in.

Thrillers became popular in the same time period with the western and detective novel. They were all male-oriented fiction so they all had conventions like idealized male protagonists, physical danger, explosive violence, escalating threat to cathartic endings, etc. These all helped to shape the first thriller movies. The elements of thriller films during that time forms a repetition since there is such a limited amount of storylines to make movies with. However, as thrillers develop, it breaks into many sub-genres which are quite different from each other. This is when the “subversion” in Steve Neale’s theory starts to enter the thriller genre. Later on, probably to interest the readers, they start to mix up and combine the elements of each. For example, detective with danger and violence, psychological suspense with mystery, etc. By the early 21st century, the range of thrillers form a spectrum that runs from pure violent to cozy puzzle mystery with all kinds of mixed-genre along the way.

In recent years, females became lead characters, readers, and writers on a much more equal basis as male. This creates a gender break in thrillers because women have a different taste from men. However, the split has faded nowadays since the range of thrillers creates are not based on men’s taste of conventions anymore.

What are some sub-genres / hybrids of this genre?

-Thriller of murderous passions

-Political thriller

-Crime thriller

-Mystery thriller

-Thriller of acquired identify

-Psycho-traumatic thriller

-Spy thriller

-Thriller of moral confrontation

-Innocent-on-the-run thriller.

-Action thriller

-Science fiction thriller

Other Known actors: Lon Chaney, Vincent Prince, Bela Lugosi, Anthony Hopkins, Steve Buscemi, David Thewlis

Known directors: David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Alfred Hitchcock, Karyn Kusama

Who is the target audience for the genre?

EVERYONE LIKES THRILLERS!!! For psychological thrillers, the target audience tends to be 25-45 years, because of the amount of mystery and the depth of the plot. Whereas the horror thriller film tends to be aimed towards the younger male gender due to the amount of gore and blood.

However, generally both men and women likes thriller so there is not a very big gender bias in this genre of film. However, about 5% more men tends to watch thrillers because some films still put in scenes that men prefer to watch. For example, the masculinity of men and them overpowering or saving a women.

How/why does the genre appeal to audiences?

Thrillers get the audience thinking. The main appeal of thrillers is their suspense, fear and excitement. They are intended to have intense effects on their viewers, causing them to feel anything from uncertainty and surprise to extreme terror. Also, a person would enjoy a thriller more if it relates to them. For example if someone is afraid of water they may enjoy ‘What Lies Beneath” because of the scene in the bath. They would be better in creating the imagery of the ”thrill” in the film.

How and why genres help different people

For Filmmakers and film industry:

Genres can help filmmakers see what conventions and technical codes they should put into their films because all genres have their own set of rules. This would then reduce the costs and maximize the profit of producing films because they know what the audience would like.

For Audiences:

It helps the audience have the choice of choosing what they like because there are so many films produced nowadays, finding a film that they like without a tag of genre is hard.

Thriller Examples…

BRICK

Mise-en-scene: ​

-The costume in this movie is worth noting. The character named Brandon(the detector in this movie), always wears a very casual costume which helps him hide his thoughts and ambitions toward the other characters. The character named Emily(the girl murdered), had very messy and dirty clothes before she was murdered. It fully helps indicate that she encountered misfortune and was not able to recover from it. The character named Laura(the girl interested in Brandon), wears Chi-pao in her first appearance. Chi-pao is often a sexual symbol in cinematography so it helps hinting that this girl has suxual intentions towards Brandon.

-Dark makeup for Laura, the “antagonist”

-The dark car suggest power and influence

-School based detective movie so not a lot of weapons/high tech is used

Sound:

-Leitmotif, a very noticeable music is a jazz music that starts whenever Laura and Brandon appears together. It creates a very ambiguous atmosphere.

-Most of the noise is added afterwards. For example: the loud echoing when walking through the water tunnel, the ”bang” sound when the man crashes into the street light, the sound of car racing fast scraping the floor, etc.

-Dramatic pauses were used to show Brandon’s authority in the film.

-There was not a lot of dialogue.

-Trills are used when something creepy is about to happen.

-Unusual Instruments like xylophone are used.

-Double-Entendre, some of the things said had two meanings

-Low pitch means threat while high pitch means anxiety

Camera:

-Establishing shots were used frequently to present the location and closeups were used to show the facial expressions of the characters which increases the tension of the movie. -POV shots are used to make the audience feel that they are in the position of the character which helps us stand and know what they are thinking.

-A lot of handheld shots were used to show strong movement and action.

-Worm’s eye view is used to record the motion of feet and cars which creates suspension because only the motion is shown on the screen.

-There were close-ups and detailed shots on important objects.

Editing:

-There were a lot of quick cuts

-The movie starts with the middle where the girl died and jumps to the start again. This is to create suspense for the audience.

-Low saturation

-Cool lighting

-There was a use of dissolve between some of the scenes.

DUNE

Mise-en-scene:

-The whole movie is based on a fictional world thousands of years later so the setting is very airy and futuristic. A lot of the scenes are based in the desert which is the most inhuman and unhabitable space on planets like earth.

-A lot of special effects(fire, aircrafts, machinery, space) is used throughout the film to create the feeling that it is not in the same era as us.

-There are two main types of people in the movie, the local indigenous(Fremen) and the intruders. The locals wear very middle eastern costumes which looks poor while the intruders have advanced helmet to survive the bad conditions in desert during spice production. The contrast of the Fremen and the intruders’ costume shows that the intruders were more advanced and they overpower the Fremens.

-Warm (sun) lighting is generally used in outdoor shooting while cold blue lighting is used in spacecrafts and dark areas.

-A lot of the props are designed perfectly to fit an ancient civilization with technology.

Sound:

-After small silences, a pentatonic melody is used to build up tension.

-Drums are used in violent/war scenes, it speeds up and create tension.

-High pitch string sounds create tension.

-Multi-layered, syncopated in distorted harmony voice is created for the sound of god. It could be easily recognized and differed from normal voice.

-Radio voice explains the questions created by the opening.

Camera:

-The opening scene is an establishing shot and its focus transits from deep to extreme shallow.

-For the first few minutes a lot slow motion is used to exaggerate and build up the tension. In most conversations, dirty singles are used to make the audience understand who is communicating since there are a lot of characters.

-Close-up insert shots are used for things like the spice because it is an important object in the movie.

-Low angled shot is used to show the grandness of things.

-Crowd shots are frequently used to show either a conversation of many people or an argument between two groups.

-There are some blurred shots to creat mysteriousness.

-Moving in closer to a character builds subtle tension.

-Some dis-orienting shots are used to make people feel uncomfortable. Racking focus of the sand.

Editing:

-A J-cut(when noise is heard with a blank screen) is used at the start of the movie to create hollowness.

-Mexican filter implies hard living conditions and danger.

-Eye-line editing, makes sure that the audience feel that they are looking at each other

-Futuristic font is used for the movie title

Birdman

Mise-en-scene:

-Starts off naked which indicates that he is a person that has personality

-The opening starts with a special effect of meteorite landing on earth, this forshadows that there will be supernatural things happening later

-the lighting is dim in his room which gives him a creepy, dirtiness, and in-organized character

-the theater light is blue with neon lights, it gives a huge contrast to other scenes as if it is a totally different world

-his daughter’s makeup is very “mascara”and she has tattoos which indicates her personality and that she’s on drugs

-the birdman’s facial expression is very exaggerated

Sound

-the man’s voice is slow and low, speaking about some philosophy that makes the audience curious on what he’s talking about

-drums and other band instruments start as he enters his working place

-a lot of swear words were used to express the anger between characters

Camera

-the camera dolly zooms in on the man slowly and pans to the left, following the man’s movement towards the computer

-POV shots

-close up is used to show the main character’s facial expression.

-a long hand held shot follows the character which gives us a view of what the setting (theatre) is like

-At the table, the camera goes around it to give the sense that the four people are in a conversation

Editing

-the opening scene is the man floating above the ground which indicates that he has some kind of supernatural power.

What are the conventions repeated?

-Many things are used to create tension

-The lighting is very important in indicating the atmosphere of the scene.

-When there is strong action, it is mostly handheld shots

-Music/Background sounds change with the mood

How has watching many openings and trailers shaped your understanding of a thriller film?

I did not know that there were many sub-genres of thrillers before. I considered violence and mystery the only two types of thrillers. Watching these different films helped me find a set of technical codes linked to thrillers that I was interested in which would benefit me when I make a thriller opening myself.