Research into conventions- Miss Miller

Thriller films conventions

Conventions means something that is typical, or you would normally see, within that genre. An action movie convention would be something like explosions. However a thrillers convention would be that it builds suspense and creates shock and surprise, thrillers always try to create enigma for the viewers or audience. The introductions always try to confuse the audience so that they watch the rest to understand in more detail why the thing at the start happened in the first place. For my example of the conventions, I will talk about the film the purge: anarchy and how it presents the conventions of a thriller.

As the scene starts we see that the lighting is low key as the two women run into the closet. Low-key lighting is used to give the effect that the scene is quite unclear or that the theme behind it is dark. This can be related to the audience as they cannot really see much apart from the girls as the lighting is low key therefore they relate to the characters as they are going through the same ordeal. This is conventional to a thriller because, as said before, it creates confusion.

Just a few more seconds into the scene we see some unknown people enter the room. These people are antagonists as the characters are hiding from them, and they are not seen clearly because in this scene we see them wearing gas masks covering their identity. This is conventional to a thriller as they want the antagonists to be mysterious for the audience, the audience again sympathize with the characters hiding as the audience do not know who these people are as well as the characters. This enables the audience to further build a relationship with the characters hiding at this point, and this is conventional to a thriller as they want you to feel for these characters.

There is another convention in the scene which is silence, this is when it cuts to the two girls in the closet trying to keep quiet. The effect of this is that it creates suspense as we cannot hear any of the intruders on the other side nor can we see them as the camera doesn't leave the girls, the silence is eerie and makes the audience feel uncomfortable. The audience can relate to this as the audience cannot hear the people and they cannot see them either the same as the characters in the closet, they also cannot see or hear them well, this builds up more of a relationship between the audience and the characters on screen.

There is a use of mise-en-scene with is the facial expressions of the characters whilst they are in the closet during the silence. They have lost their scared faces and it almost shows us relief. This convention is effective because the it shows us that the characters are safe. This is can relate to the audience as the silence has been for while so the people may have left, so the audience also have relief as the audience think our characters are safe, this builds a relationship with the audience and the characters which is conventional to a thriller.

The last convention is shock when the closet door swings open and standing there are the antagonists. This can be connected to the convention before as well. The effect of this convention is that it leaves the audience confused. The characters are also confused along with the audience as they thought they had gone, so this further builds up a relationship with the audience and characters which is again conventional to a thriller.

The scene creates the conventions in the thriller genre very well, it build up a relationship with the audience very well as they're supposed to feel sympathy towards these characters, the fact that the camera is with them the whole time suggests that the audience are in this situation with the characters and it also creates shock, tension and suspense which are all vital to thrillers. The ideas I can take from this is that I would like to keep the antagonist a mystery as it creates enigma for the audience.