Task 14- Summary of micro conventions in your chosen genre.

Summarise finding of my chosen genre conventions in film openings.

From our group discussion my group and I decide that our chosen genre is : Thriller

The aim of a thriller film is to create suspense and excitement for the audience, common micro conventions found in a title sequence for this genre are:

Camerawork:

• Camerawork in a thriller films tend to use establishing shots to show the audience where the characters are from or where the action is going to take place. Tracking movements used to follow the character around, close ups on certain part of the body are used to show emotions or what they are doing. Adding to the used of establishing shots, hight angles are used to be able to see more of the location of the films or to highlight important mies-en-scene in the frame.

Editing:

• Editing in Thriller opening sequences can involved flashbacks, quick and short shots, implying the film was set in the past. Montage editing in thrillers are used to condense time, space and information, this is a technique is where two or more layers in a film are playing simultaneously alongside one another. Its used to give the audience a sense of uneasiness and puts them on edge of what going to happen, an example of that is Se7en. Focusing around the feeling of uncomfortableness and suspense atmosphere, quick cuts and camera angles are often used which disorientates the audience and creates on screen tension.

Mise-en-scene:

• Mise-en-scene is very important within the thriller genre as many props, settings, locations can have a sinister or tense appearance. With lighting and colouring the audience can get a feeling of what the genre is by the way the lighting is displayed. Thriller films tend to have low key lighting as it creates a enigmatic and uneven feeling. Colour can be used to mirror different emotions that the character is feeling, Grey, black, red is associates with blood and death typically found in thriller genres. Referring to costumes suits are command in thriller opening sequences to represent who and what type of person they are depending if its supernatural they more and likely wear what links to their character.

                      (The Dark Knight and The Hunger Games : Grey, black&fiery colour scheme)

Sound:

• As George Lukas, director of Star Wars, said that sound is 50% and a film wouldn't be as good as it could be without it. Sound within thriller helps make the audience feel more engaged, more frightened as though they are in that situation themselves. Thriller films are ruled by non-diegetic sound playing in the background creating a sound bridge to create the atmosphere. Orchestral music is often played as it is used to build tension and sound as though some thing bad is going to happen once it reaches climax, tempo is often slow however builds up to a faster pace. With an example in another post I had done on how sound is important, some sounds are often emphasised at the point of climax, for example when blood drops on the floor.