Welcome back! The next genre we decided to work on was thrillers. The thriller genre is one of gripping suspense, unpredictability, and uncertainty, which, unlike horror, focuses on the less gory aspects of scaring an audience. Using the same method as before, we'll take a look into what makes up a thriller and determine whether or not we can use its conventions in a work of our own.
Camera Angles, Movement, and Shots:
In the thriller genre, the director's primary intent is to unnerve the audience without resorting to gore to do so, granted, while this may mean that they sometimes resort to cheap jump scares to creep out the audience, I would say that their use of camera angles and shots is also quite effective in getting the audience on edge.
Eye-level shots are the most used within the thriller genre and can be seen during normal conversations or when a subject looks off-screen in fear of an unspecified threat. I believe that the latter of the two could potentially be something that we use in our final task that may not be as scary as completely leaving the audience in the dark. Moreover, it also keeps us from wasting time and money in designing some sort of menacing figure, as opposed to simply leaving our audience questioning the truth behind it all, which is more effective being that we are producing an opening scene that we wish to use to draw the attention of our audience in. High angles are typically used to make a subject seem impotent in the face of something much greater than them, creating a sense of impending doom. One specific example was in 2010, with the movie Shutter Island, where a doctor is pushed into a desk by Leonardo Decaprio's character and then quickly begins to scramble for incriminating documents to present to him.
In addition, dutch tilts can be used for a multitude of reasons, either to make it seem as though a subject has gone insane, to generate unfamiliarity in the sense, or even to create tension as seen in Law Abiding Citizen (2009) where a character is strapped into a bed as they await a lethal injection. This sort of shot was something my group and I particularly liked due to its simplicity in filming and its versatility. When it comes to camera movements, both tilts and pans are used for dramatic reveals as they effectively obscure the entirety of the scene and build up to a release in tension. Close-ups and extreme close-up shots are used to give the audience an authentic view of the character's feelings, which are usually ones of sorrow, hence why the backgrounds of said shots are often blurred as to not remove the focus from the emotion that is building up during the scene. Over-the-shoulder shots are used in thrillers to make conversations seem more impersonal and cold, like in Parasite (2019), where a mother and the CEO of a pizza company engaged in a tense discussion. Tracking shots are used in thrillers to simulate the effect of a character being stalked or watch, whereas point-of-view shots are used to give the audience an understanding of how helpless a subject feels, giving them the opportunity to empathize with them. Even zooming in can be used in the thriller genre as it works to convey a moment of realization for a subject, a turning point that they can no longer return from.
Sound:
When it comes to sound, diegetic noises that are commonly attributed to thrillers, such as sobbing, screaming, footsteps, whispering, and banging are all good ways to keep the audience, like the subject, always on guard, especially when the sounds occur unexpectedly and are able to frighten viewers. As for non-diegetic sounds, stings are used to add suspense as they used high-pitched string instruments and piano keys to make unsettling sounds. When something bad is about to happen in a thriller, the background music, if any, will begin to adopt a quickened pace, which can either mislead the audience by building up to nothing, or by creating a sense of heightened tension that is eventually released with a well-planned scare.
Editing:
Despite editing techniques often being used to make transitions between scenes smoother, in the thriller genre, they seem out of place. This is because they break up the build-up in tension in the film. Now, while you might see an occasional shot-reverse-shot when the situation warrants it, during a conversation for instance, or a cutaway when the need to shift focus between two points overshadows an action sequence, that's about it in the editing department.
Mis-Én-Scene:
Costumes and makeup in thrillers often consist of more casual, everyday wear as they discuss events that can occur to real people. Oftentimes, one might see someone wearing a typical psychiatrist outfit consisting of a pair of glasses and neat clothing, as in the case of a psychological thriller for example.
With lighting, thrillers are often dark, which is done purposefully with the intent to limit the audience's view of the entire scene, as to build suspense.
As for acting, subjects in thrillers are often shown going crazy and losing sight of themselves, so out of place laughter and smiling are common, along with more serious interactions between characters. Now, while the dialogue can reveal important aspects regarding the context of the film, it should not be heavily relied on, being that said elements should instead be incorporated into the set itself, as a way to optimize screen time and provide small hints to the audience. Therefore, while the twist in a thriller is unexpected, it still makes sense.
In thrillers, props including knives, masks, and even cellular devices are relied upon to drive the story along and make it more relatable to the audience, as they might've chosen to use the same everyday items as the subject in the film to protect themselves for example, and have faced a similar somber fate.
Finally, the set of thrillers varies widely being that the genre can be subdivided into a myriad of different categories, but thrillers are frequently shown to take place in locations that are familiar to both the subject and viewer, for example within a household. This is done to remove any sense of comfort or solace that the subject and audience could've found, by stripping away their feelings of safety in what was once a sanctuary, something that we could also do in our final task.
Takeaways:
The thriller genre is quite nuanced in the sense that it has very particular aspects that set it apart from the rest of the genre line-up. Therefore, we were able to pick out certain conventions that we would like to include in our final task, such as eye-level and close-up shots, tilting, panning, dark lighting, and perhaps an occasional cutaway.
Since we're posting so late, I feel as though the King of Pop himself would've said, "...this is thriller, thriller night" (Michael Jackson 1982).
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