What is a Thriller?

A thriller is a genre of literature, film, and television that uses suspense, tension and excitement as its main elements.

Some subgenres of thrillers include:

Horror (Psycho - 1960

Spy (The Bourne Identity - 2002)

Psychological (Black Swan - 2010)

Thriller conventions:

• Low key lighting
• Quick cuts
• Shadows
• Tension music
• Changes in the angle of shots
• Diegetic sound of breathing
• Black and white shots
• Montage of shots
• Protagonist is in the mercy of the antagonist

Cinematography of a thriller:

There will be a lot of close ups and extreme close ups of the protagonist character, this is often to show their emotions, also it can be used to focus on props to aid the narrative.

The shots of the antagonistic character will be cut quickly and will aim to hide their identity, e.g. A shot of the back of them, a low key shot, the silhouette, or shadow of the character.

How this will help me to make my thriller opening:

This research allowed me to find out what the typical conventions of different thriller films are. This has means that when I choose my thriller genre I will have an idea of what will work well and what won't.