Genre Conventions Task:11

Narrative and Representation:

Within a Crime film there is a lot of action. The film will often revolve around the criminal himself or the storyline will follow the criminals victim. Within both styles we can see a lot of fast paced action, unknown storylines and mystery upon what is going to happen next.

For a Thriller there is a climax which ends that story with links throughout the film that adds suspense.Throughout a few Feature Thriller films, I can see a buildup of suspense which is followed by a ultimate climax to the story.

Although both genre's are precent in most Feature films we will try our best to incorporate key aspects into our Short. For example this could mean that we have to write the script in such a way that it builds suspense very quickly to match our 5-10 minute suggested film length.

 For characters, I believe we will need 2-4 main character as there can't be to many otherwise they wouldn't fit into our short. However we do need the main protagonist as we need to follow them through the film to add tension and storyline. Furthermore we will need an antagonist to keep this tension building as making the audience on the edge of their seat.


Roland Barthes Stated "The way tension is built up and the audience is left guessing what happens next" (The Enigma) 2007.

This is very relevant to our genre as the idea is to have the audience guessing throughout the film. This is a commonality of thriller/ crime films as their is a progression and the audience are always left guessing.


Media Language:

Within in certain films I can see that long cuts or quick cut shots are the best for adding tension to the film which also gives a sense of urgency to the characters and therefore the audience.

A film famous for keeping the audience on their toes is psycho by Alfred Hitchcock. He uses slow long cuts within the film with his main characters to add tension which builds to the climax of the film. We will be looking at a few films by famous people to decide how we want to build to our film in terms camerawork.

Following on from the Camerawork, Editing is a key part to allow the work you have done in scriptwriting and Camerawork to come together in the final edit. When deciding the camerawork we will be able to all come together and give ideas for editing we have gained from other famous films. However at this point I haven't decided what exact style of editing we want.

Another key aspect is Mise-en-scene, this is important because no matter how good the filming is if we shot the film in a place that opposes our script then it would not be successful. After writing our script we will be able to narrow down each part that we require. In other tense films, they show dark and dull colours to set the scene. Dull colours are used as they are a key part in thrillers that adds tension to the film. We will have to look at this and other parts when setting up.


Sound And Music:

In many thriller films their is a strong tense instrumental sound added to make the atmosphere match the scene. However in other films the lack of music is beneficial as music is not necessary and therefore wouldn't hint to the climax of the film. Personally I find that some lower budget films over use typical songs and music which allows me and the audience to know something is about to happen.

In addition to this the lack of music and the silence within the cinema etc gives a sense of unexpectedness to whats going to happen. Due to this I believe that music although beneficial if used right wouldn't be necessary to make our film better.  Another fact is that our film is short, therefor the time of the music would have to be perfect to match the pace of the film. From this I can tell that we will need to research and experiment further down the line with music in our short. This will come later which is good as it will allow us to further build upon our script without this wall in the way.