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The thriller genre
genre
• Genre is a concept of which is defined as a
term for any category of literature, whether it
being art, music, culture or in this case films
The psychological crime thriller genre
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A thriller is a film that is designed to keep the audience on edge, its a film that is
used to excite you, fill you with tension and even scare you.
A psychological thriller is a thriller of which there are psychological elements EG a
serial killer. Psychological thrillers are meant to give an insight into how people
think, even just ordinary people it doesn't have to be a psychopathic killer. The
psychological thriller is also a genre that is made to make you think about the plot,
being that the key conventions of a psychological thriller stems down from the
mystery genre. Unlike a normal thriller the characters power does not come from
their physical strength but rather more from their ability to mentally harm their
enemies/victims. A typical psychological thriller genre’s suspense usually comes
from two main characters preying upon the other characters mind.
A crime thriller, is a thriller with a story revolving around a crime being committed
and the main characters being detectives trying to solve this crime whether its a
murder or worse. A crime thriller will usually involve a hero policeman/detective
who is trying to crack down on a criminal usually one who has a lot of social
presence and lot of power.
Over all the genres together make a psychological crime thriller, where there are
detectives in pursuit of a villain who has committed crimes in a psychological
manner EG a serial killer, or has psychological issues EG split personality disorder.
History of the psychological crime
thriller genre
• The history of the psychological thriller dates back to
some very historical old films such as psycho in 1960
other notable psychological thrillers would include
panic room 2002 and phone booth also in 2002
• The crime thriller genre has been around for a very
long time as well, however some of the most famous
and most notable crime thrillers are fairly recent. Films
like se7en 1995 and silence of the lambs 1991 this film
also sets into both psychological and crime thriller
which makes it a very reliable past film to look at for
inspiration.
Narrative conventions
• The narrative is the traditional way that the plot of a film is set out, in a
thriller film it always follows the same pattern, todorov discussed the
ideas of a narrative.
• The conventions of a narrative are as follows the film follow a tradition
plot sequence of events
• The plot sequence will usually start with an equilibrium, where all is fine
nothing is wrong.
• This equilibrium will then be disrupted by something, for example
someone gets murdered
• Then the hero characters will make an attempt to restore the equilibrium
an example being that they try to catch the murderer
• This usually follows with a situation where they try to restore the
equilibrium but fail in doing so, for example they try to catch the murderer
but he slips away
• This is then followed up finally by restoration of a new equilibrium, which
usually involves the catching or killing of the murderer.
Character representations
• In a psychological thriller, the villain characters will usually be represented
as powerful, even more so than the hero. This is usually a case in all
thrillers, but with psychological they will be more powerful by having a
more sound or more intimidating psychological state
• The hero character will usually be represented in a psychological crime
thriller, as a cop but with a strong mental state, a very head strong
character who can talk their way out of most situations, without having to
be violent like most cops are represented in these genres.
• In almost all thriller films there will be a helpless girl, someone who is
completely innocent who somehow gets dragged into the huge battle
between the good guys and the bad guys. This girl will usually be
represented as stunning and usually young and blonde. Sort of like the
blonde helpless bimbo.
• We will be representing the two hero cops as tradition stereotypical
detectives, they will be wearing the traditional grey or brown trench coat
with the top or bowler hat.
Mise en scene
• The mise en scene is basically everything you see on
the screen
• In our mise en scene of our movie you should expect to
see two detectives in trench coats and hats, the
setting would usually be wide open field spaces, you
would see police warning tape taped around trees and
posts, for props you would have body bags with victims
of the murderer in them. The lighting would
presumably be light as it will be set in the day time. You
would also see a news room with a smartly dressed
man in a suit reading out the news sitting at his desk
with news written on it.
Hybrids and sub-genres
• Hybrids are a mixture of two or more genres, for
example psychological thriller
• Sub-genres is the name given to a genre that is a
thriller but has conventions of another genre for
example crime thriller
• Our film presentation is a hybrid sub-genre called
a psychological crime thriller.
• The fact that it is a sub-genre means that we can
incorporate more ideas and more interesting
characters and plot twists.
Camera work and editing
• Ideas for camera work would include a lot of close ups and
a lot of long shots to show all the detail in the scene. The
close ups could be used to show the psychological
appearance of the two main characters. And the long shots
would be used to show detail in the huge wide open spaces
where the murders have been committed to show where
the body is, what the location is and maybe give the viewer
and insight into the murderers methods/thinking etc.
• For editing cutting from long shot to close up between on
screen titles which will be on a black background, this could
show the un-steadiness of the characters and represent
that there is something out of the ordinary going on in the
plot of this movie. So sort of in a sense trying to get you to
guess the rest of the story by the opening.
Sound and music
• For sound and music it will be a fairly quite clip, it
will have voice over from the news reader and
occasional speaking from within the clips of the
murder scenes
• For the music track, something slow and rising
maybe, like its getting more and more tense.
Music that will sort of have the feeling as its
getting closer, for example the jaws theme tune.
But much softer, very quiet so the diagetic sound
of the speaking is actually much louder than the
soundtrack.
Audience expectations
• For this genre the audience should be expecting a very
catchy story line, with very easy to fall in love with heroes.
• The audience should also expect lots of tension, this movie
will be designed to build tension almost all the time, right
up to breaking point, so therefore you will not get bored of
the film and you will always be on the edge of your seat.
• Another huge expectation of this genre would be that the
audience should be waiting for huge twists and turns in the
narrative, this is a psychological thriller so they should be
looking to see great plot twists.
• Being that this is also a crime thriller the viewers should
expect lots of police detective drama, the tension built by
not being able to catch the villain, and then the realisation
of who villain really is.
Target audience
• Our films age classification will be a 15
• This will make our target market audience to be late teens
and adults so ranging from 15-40
• This is because of the nature of the film, not only will this
film be very gripping and compelling that people will not
want to leave as they are too excited and want to see how
it comes to a close, but it will also be a film that’s intriguing
and includes a lot of interesting plot twists which will most
probably interest a more older audience.
• The rating of 15 is purely down to the levels of
psychological depth the film will go and the nature of the
murders committed, this may disturb younger audiences of
course, so a 12a is not optional.
Similar products
• Films similar to this would be psycho
• Psycho is a film made in the 1960’s and was the 1st really
famous thriller film, it was unique in a sense that the main
female character was murdered at the start of the film. This
film made by Alfred Hitchcock, was to be fair the un-official
start into the mass interest of the thriller genre.
• We have gained inspiration from this film being that it is a
psychological thriller, involving a very psychologically
disturbed individual who is murdering loads of people who
come to stay at his motel. The use of the iconic music tracks
in the movie psycho has also inspired us, very low tone
violin music that slowly rises that is used in the opening
titles.
Similar products ideas for final piece
psycho:
• Psychological thriller, murder with serious psychological
issues
• Breaking the rules, Hitchcock had the leading female hero
killed off near the start of the film, this had never been
done before, we would like to do something similar that
disrupts the ordinary narrative and conventions of a thriller.
Se7en:
• the ideas of a cop duo could be interesting
• the fact that this is also in a sense a psychological crime
thriller could give us inspiration, as the criminal is of highly
powerful psychological state.
Initial ideas for opening
• Overall initial ideas would be a news report based film
• The news report would show news stories of two
detectives at the site of various different murders
• The killer will be a serial killer, with serious
psychological issues, for example split personality
disorder
• I got these ideas for the narrative from my observing
studying previous films released in my chosen genre,
these studies have given me inspiration to create
something new and fairly unique with lots of plot
twists and heart pounding tension.