Genre Research: Thriller

One genre that my group was interested in was thriller. My group and I found thriller an interesting genre to do because there are endless ways to use the genre to our advantage and to interest the audience. 

Some common camera angles used for thrillers are close-ups and low angle shots. Close-ups are used to show the emotions on someone's face. Usually their faces are scared. This helps to engage the audience as they anticipate seeing what is making the characters fearful. A low angle shot is mainly used to show someone is above someone/or something else. Such as being in an authoritative role. 

A common editing technique used in thrillers is using jump cuts. Usually to interrupt a scene in order to break up the scene and to make the audience feel weird about the abrupt change. Another technique used is to cut certain parts of a scene out of the final product. This is to keep the audience interested as the scene is very high paced and usually/sometimes action packed. The parts that are cut are usually the ones that are not contributing to the action/are not part of the excitement. Editors may also speed up or slow down a scene/a part of a scene to keep the audience at the edges of their seats/anticipating what is about to happen. 

Common Mis-en-scenes use includes the location of the film. A lot of times the setting of thrillers is used to distinguish what the movie is going to be about and to help create the suspense/fear. Lighting is also used in thrillers for this exact reason (to create suspense/fear). Lighting is often kept low to achieve this. Usually cooler/darker colors are used however, in the start of the movie  sometimes warmer colors may be used. The use of colors is also used in the costumes of characters. For instance, darker colors are often used on the “good guy” or the character whom the audience is supposed to root for. Lighter colors are often used on the “bad guy” or the character who the audience is supposed to root against. 

Sound or the absence of sound also plays a crucial role in thrillers. Digetic and nondiegetic sound both can be used to help convey the intended feeling/feelings of a particular scene. Digetic sounds such as footsteps can be used to show the audience that the antagonist is approaching the protagonist. This can help to elevate the audience's anticipation and fear for what is to come. The same can be said for the use of non-diegetic sound. Usually music is used to do this instead of sounds from inside the characters world. The absence of sound can be equally as important. Without sound the audience does not know what will happen which helps one of the most crucial aspects of a thriller.

Some examples of this genre are Nightmare Alley, Nobody, and Old. 

Some aspects of this genre that we like are the use of diegetic sound to convey that something is about to happen or is happening. Such as footsteps to convey things such as people walking. Another thing would be using color to our advantage. In things such as the lighting and costume choices. 

On the other side, some things that we would not really like to do would be the absence of sound. The only reason being is that we thought it would be harder to edit out all sound together from a shot. An additional part of this genre that we do not like is the use of jump cuts in order to abruptly cut up a scene.