Amy Shelley Daniel Tim AS Media Coursework Blog: Research Into the Thriller Genre

This section of our blog shows the research into the thriller genre. This will enable us to gain ideas from the key conventions, sub-genres, key texts and history. We will be able to gain ideas based on the 'traditional thriller' format by looking at these different areas of research. Looking at other different thrillers that have already been made and their synopisis this gives us an idea of plots and characters thats are used in the thrillers.

Also by looking at audience, we are able to create our film for a specific audience. With the research into the classifications of films such as 15 and 18, we know what limits that these classifications have and what can be included in the beginning of our film.

The History of Thriller Genre

The thriller genre dates back to the 1920's, in which many of the early thrillers were revolved around mystery and murder. It was only through the work of Aflred Hitchcock in the 1950's that the thriller genre became very successful. Films such as Psycho, The Birds and North By NorthWest has created inspiration for many modern day thrillers. Alfred Hitchcock born 18 August 1989 had become a very successful and very influential British filmmaker. He was known as “The Master of Suspense” due to many of his techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller film genres.

Alfred Hitchcock's films show an interesting tendency towards recurring themes and devices such that one can almost feel that Hitchcock was making the same film over and over again or is telling the same story in his films. Hitchcock preferred the use of suspense over the use of surprise in his films. In surprise, the director assaults the viewer with frightening things. In suspense, the director tells or shows things to the audience which the characters in the film do not know, and then artfully builds tension around what will happen when the characters finally learn the truth. There was also a major use of dramatic irony in many of his films in which the audience would know what was happening when the characters didn’t.

Alfred Hitchcock had also made various cameo roles in each of his films. The director would be seen for a brief moment boarding a bus, crossing in front of a building, standing in an open roof bus, or appearing in a photograph. This playful gesture became one of Hitchcock's signatures.

Hitchcock had used a variety of filiming techniques in his films. In the film Lifeboat, Hitchcock stages the entire action of the movie in a small boat, yet manages to keep the cinematography from one monotonous repetition. Similarly, the entire action in Rear Window either takes place or is seen from a single apartment. Rope (1948) was another technical challenge: a film that appears to have been shot entirely in a single take. Some transitions between reels were hidden by having a dark object fill the entire screen for a moment. , Hitchcock used those points to hide the cut, and began the next take with the camera in the same place.

The Hitchcock zoom (dolly zoom) the Dolly Zoom is an unsettling in-camera special effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception in film. The effect is achieved by using the setting of a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view) while the camera dollies (or moves) towards or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. In its classic form, the camera is pulled away from a subject whilst the lens zooms in, or vice-versa.

The work of Alfred Hitchcock had then inspired many directors. Today, thriller films provide a rich feast embracing a wide variety of worlds - the law, espionage, action-adventure, medicine, police and crime, romance, history, politics, high-tech, and religion.
Thrillers are usually about life and death situations. When skillfully created, thrillers can also carry the load of bigger themes than strict realism will allow. Other examples of this genre in literature include The Da Vinci Code, The Hunt for Red October, The Day of the Jackal, and Jurassic Park.

Key Texts

There are many thriller texts, these include: