Media As - Reseach 'What is a Thriller...?' Ms Begum

What is a Thriller & Thriller Genre ?

A thriller is a film or a book which is created to keep the audience such as readers or viewers on edge with suspenseful and sensational action. Thriller is also being produced in television program, radio, theatre productions and other media.

Thriller genre is a group of productions which affect the audience moods by stimulating the level of anticipation, uncertainty, surprise and high exhilaration. Thriller films or books intend to be unexpected & interesting which helps to engage the audience attention to find out the actions in movies or stories.

What are Genres ?

Genres are the categories that a film belongs to. It is very important for the audience to know about genres, this is because of the age certificates and each film have their own narrative and conventional that are suitable to falls into their own genre. For example :

'Saw The Movie' is a production representing Thriller with the involvement of the antagonist and protagonist. The story line of 'Saw' is about a character named Adam & a doctor wake up in a cellar, jigsaw which is the 'antagonist' tells them what they have to do, meanwhile the police think that the doctor is the jigsaw killer and responsible for the murder of his partner & other victims.

Why is it important to know this ?

It is very important to know this because there are groups of different ages between people such as children, teenagers, adults & elderly. This type of genre would not be suitable for children & elderly as they will find it not very enjoyable & even feel frightened by this genre because it involves violent, blood, and crime which would affect their mind-set. In contrast, teenagers & some adults would find this very enjoyable & they'll appreciate the fast pacing and complex plots associated with this genre.

Sub-genre of Thrillers.

Sub-genre of thrillers is when a thriller is mixed in with another genre whilst maintaining extra details to the main production and still purposely using thriller techniques. For example:

-Action Thriller:


- Crime/Gangster Thriller:

-Science Fiction Thriller:

Example of thriller films & Description of narrative.

Description:

'The Conjuring' directed by James Wan is about a married couple between Ed & Lorraine, they are what people called 'Paranormal investigators' which means using scientific and technology to report of paranormal activity. Ed & Lorraine works to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farm house.

Common themes in thriller.

The common themes that are conventional to thrillers are low key lighting, costume, mise on scene, iconography cinematography, setting & sounds effect.

Cinematography is shown in thrillers to show the audience the situations in the movie and the emotion of characters, this is why in thrillers the cinematography that you would most frequently see is close ups long shots and medium shots to and high and low angle shots. This will then make the audience feeling sympathetic in certain parts of a film.

Low key lighting is used to have a bigger effect on an antagonist and a protagonist for example in scream four the victim who is speaking to the antagonist on the phone gets scared, after the antagonist reveals her name, which makes the audience concern for her safety.

Costume is used to represent the characters in thriller and show the differences between the antagonist and protagonist. For example, the antagonist will dress with dark (strong) colour such as black, red or dark blue mean while the protagonist will dress with light colour such as white, green & light blue.

Mise on scene is a combination of all the themes in thrillers. It includes lighting, setting, costumes and iconography.

Setting is the place and location of where a movie would start off with. For example a thriller movie will be set in the wood at night time or a haunted house.

Iconography is used to show certain situations in a movie and also to build up the tension in a thriller movie. For example, a protagonist would be tied in a chair with mouth covered with duct tape, around the protagonist would have a lot of dangerous objects such as knife, hammer, saw and chains.

Sounds effect is mainly used which build up the tension created by the storyline, violins and other classic instruments. The sounds effect usually builds up to a climax to help entice the audience on intense part of the films.

Who is the general audience for thrillers ?

The main audience for thrillers would be teenagers who is 15+  because they find it enjoyable and wanting to have more experience with thrillers for example seeing interesting characters or unexpected scenes in movies that would make them feel frightened but yet still be interested in what will happen next. They also appreciate the fast-pacing and heart- pounding moments in thrillers.

 

 

 

Audience response to thrillers.

There are many different responses to thrillers depends on the age groups. For example:


 

 

Children response to thriller would be extremely frightened and concerned. For example, ‘’Child Play’’ the movie about ‘Chucky’ had quite a massive impacts on children. The movie was about an evil character that was cursed to be in a dolls body named ‘Chucky’ and was committing crimes such as murder and had quite a few disturbing scenes. As we all know children loves toy such as doll, teddy bear etc...Even though children are not allowed to see this genre but a lot of family ignored the rule and allowed their sons or daughters to see this movie. And after seeing this, a lot of children was absolute terrified & most children was in need of psychotherapist.  





Most teenagers especially students are interested thrillers simply because their curiosity wanting to find out more details about the movie and enjoy feeling heart-pounding moments. For example, when ‘’The Conjuring’’ posters & trailers was released in the street and internet, the movie was hugely successful with the amounts of views and shares online through Twitter, Facebook, Youtube & other social networks. They have also done an after-movie live reviews with some teenagers to let others know how they feel after watching the movie and whether if the movie is good or not & they get good results out of most. This was done purposely to attract more teenagers to watch the movie and find out for themselves. 

On the other hands, some teenagers would feel the opposite & wouldn't find this genre as interesting as others.

Some adults would have the same response to thrillers as teenagers because they enjoy feeling challenge and they appreciate the fast-pacing and they can handle the adrenaline in thrillers. In contrast, other adults would not be interested in thrillers at all & don't appreciate the making of thrillers.

Elderly would not be interested in thrillers because they'll find this genre disturbing and they might get a heart attack while seeing scenes that they cannot handle.

The general emotions people gets from thriller would be fear, chill-excitement and will affects them in certain ways. This is because thriller can activate the audience attentions, and to engage their curiosity to find out what the movie is about and challenge them to handle their fear and other emotions.

Conclusion.

All the information above has helped me to develop massive amounts of knowledge about thrillers and how thrillers would make such an impact to the media industry and have a huge range of different responses from different people with different opinions.