Codes and Conventions

What is a thriller film?

Codes and Conventions

Enigma:
A mystery is always in a thriller film to help set the plot. Enigmas are used to make the audience ask themselves questions and to help engage them into the movie. For example in the film saw, the opening scene uses an enigma to keep the audiences attention to the film and make them want to watch more. Throughout the opening the enigma ensures the audience to ask themselves questions such as 'why is there a dead body? where is he and why is he there? why has he woke up drowning?' etc.

Representation of characters:
victoms are represented as being weak

Dramatic Irony:
audience know who the killer is

Intensity Sound:
going up and down dependent on the scene

Low key lighting:
creates shadows

High key lighting:
creates a happy scene

Iconography:
weapons / chains / ropes

Non-digetic sound (music the characters cant hear):
create tension and suspense

Mirrors:
Mirrors are used as a convention of a thriller film through the use of reflection of ones soul and inner self. They also represent the darkness within some characters.

Flashbacks:
Flasgbacks contribute to a sense of time and space disorientation in a thriller and this confuses the audience. It is also a convention of a thriller film because it can display what has happened in the past to give the audience an insight into the characters' pasts

Saw clip and answers

The opening sequence conveys most of the codes and convention of a thriller film, making it more clearer to the audience which genre it falls into. An enigma was mainly used within the movie constantly causing the audience to ask themselves questions such as 'why has he woken up drowning? why is there a dead body? where is he and what is he doing there?'

Main character is weak, trapped in the dark, chained to a pipe.

Setting: Dark, dirty, sewage filthy hidden broken bathroom

Sound: Gets louder and louder as it gets closer to finding something out to build sispense - intenisty sound