Codes and Coventions for the thriller genre

When we decided on the genre of thriller for our opening sequence, we discussed the codes and conventions of a thriller film, aided by our questionnaire. Before writing and planning our opening sequence we had to decide what an opening sequence of a thriller film consisted of. When researching this we realised that there was different types of thriller films; there is action thrillers, horror thrillers and sci-fi thrillers.

However we found that in all of the thrillers the location of the opening sequence is usually hard to distinguish, this may be to make the characters feel more singled out and scared (such as Saw and The Bourne Identity), or so it makes the setting more mysterious which creates tension (such as The Machinist). This was something we considered when producing the idea for our film, as the protagonist character in our opening sequence is unaware of where she is, and so is the audience.

In all thriller films we found that there was a villain and victim character, like the Joker and Batman in Batman The Dark Knight. These two characters are most common and well noticeable in thriller films, as the thriller genre is produced upon the excitement and mystery between the two oppositions. We have used this idea of a villain and a victim within our opening sequence, as the girl who regains consciousness is obviously the victim, and her attacker is the villain. We also found that the villain character was quite often disguised, unknown, or had their identity hidden for the opening sequence of the film, for example in Saw and Se7en.

Another convention of thriller films we took into account when deciding on our opening sequence was the plot. The general plot for a thriller film is mystery and excitement surrounding good trying to stop evil. However we learnt that in an opening sequence it is usually evil which wins or appears to be winning, this is because this will attract the audiences attention and make them watch the rest of the film as they do not want evil to win the battle. In our opening sequence we have also achieved this, as the girl has been attacked at the party, showing that the villain is winning.

Iconography is another factor we considered, and have made great use of in our sequence. We found that in an opening sequence clues are given to what may happen in the film, or what has already happened in the opening sequence. These are achieved through the visual sector of a film, maybe through certain features of the opening sequence being highlighted. This can also be achieved through the use of camera angles in the opening sequence, as close ups and extreme close ups are very common in thriller opening sequences.