Conventions of a thriller - Miss Miller

Conventions of a genre are very specific, they are important as they make the film identifiable to its genre, they are what the audience would assume would be in that particular scene when watching a film. Conventions help set the mood, setting and feel of the overall scene, all the conventions add suspense and keep the audience engaged and on the edge of their seat. Typical thriller conventions include, low key lighting, point of view shots, close ups, damsel in distress, hidden identities scary non diegetic music and hand held shots. Iconography is also a factor that makes films conventional to their genres. Knives guns and weapons all create suspense and keeps the audience wondering what will happen next.




In the clip Saw V survival of the fittest low key lighting is used through out the clip this is conventional to a thriller as the darkness helps to create the mysterious scene build tension. Low key lighting is used throughout the clip, this is right from the beginning through to the end where light flashes occasionally. This helps create fear as the audience cant see clearly what is happening which adds an element of danger. This sis conventional to thrillers as danger is associated with darkness and therefor brings danger to the scene. This helps build a relationship with the audience as they can imagine being in the situation themselves and therefor feel more involved with what's happening building an attachment with the characters as they start to feel the same emotion.



Another convention used in this particular Saw scene is the fact that innocent victims are made vulnerable, they are either made to be killed or go through a series of tourchering events. In this scene there are many jumpy scenes. In this short scene we see all of the innocent victims be in the survival of the fittest which is conventional as they are all innocent and helpless which makes the audience feel sympathy for them. These victims look like ordinary people as they are wearing everyday clothes they also look and act like any normal person would when put in a situation like that. It also makes the scene more relatable to real life, which makes the audience feel like they are part of the scene.

Tension and suspense are also conventions of a thriller films as these are the parts that create the over all mood of the scene. They make the audience more eager to watch the film and find out what happened next. By creating such suspense and tension the audience start to imagine what is going to happen next as they dont know initially what is about to take place in the upcoming minutes. In the clip we see huge amounts of tension and suspense when they are instructed to smash the glass in order to find the key to open a safety pass way. They all started fighting over the key and one person will killed in the process which makes the audience question what character is going to die and which of those will survive, this makes the audience panic and are intrigued to see how they will perish. This is all conventional to thriller as the suspense and tension makes the audience feel more personally involved as they start to understand the mentality of each character and how they cope with the situation, further they will find out who's fate will end there.

Additionally there are a lot of jump cuts used and jerky camera movements and shots used through out the sequence, they are mostly at the beginning when we first see jigsaw it also happens occasionally through out. This creates a feeling of uncertainty for the audience as the clips movements change a lot, also the audience does not have a clear view of what is going on so it keeps the audience prepared to be shocked as they cant see the foreshadowing events. This is conventional to a thriller as it impresses the audience by keeping them on the edge of their seat in suspense as they are aware of what jigsaw is like and they know something bad is going to happen as the characters are careful with their movements. This creates a relationship with the audience as they feel empathy with the characters and they feel they are vulnerable and can see they are helpless.


The narrative is also very conventional for thrillers. Typically there are a group of innocent victims that are terrorised by one antagonist and are trapped into doing whatever they say. Within the clip the death of the character usually happen starting with the most vulnerable dies first. With the whole plot based around the vulnerability of the victims and the main killers manipulative behaviour. In this clip we see the characters at their most vulnerable point where we see one of the characters try and kill another one. This is conventional as the audience are made aware of how psychologically challenging being in that position is as they all turn on each other. This is stereo typical as in thrillers we usually see characters go crazy with fear, so will kill anything and anyone in their path to kelp them gain their freedom back.


Non diegetic horror sounds are also present within some of the clip, this stresses to what is taking place in the scene as the disturbing noises correspond with the clip. If there was no non diegetic sound in the clip it would become boring for the audience to watch as the dialog alone is not interesting enough. It would be un gripping for the audience to watch as it would look very ordinary and the music would not suggest uncertainty of what is about to happen. This is conventional to thrillers as the sound builds up suspense as the music builds up pace which matches the images on scene.


In my own thriller I will take into account all the different conventions of a thriller as I want my audience to be engaged and make it obvious to them what genre my film is. I want to keep them on the edge of their seat for as long as possible and not let them be bored. I know I will include jump cuts as this is a key element in keeping the audience attention and to keep the suspense level high.