CONVENTIONS OF A THRILLER

Within the Thriller genre, sound, mise - en - scene, camera angles and editing are vitally important so that a successful thriller can be created.

Thriller is a genre of literature, film, and television programming that uses suspense, tension, and excitement as its main elements. Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewer's moods, giving them a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and terror.

PSYCHO (HITCHCOCK, 1960)MISE-EN-SCENE

The scene has no dialogue and this might be used to highlight that the woman is alone at home or it may also be to emphasise the women’s screams when she is being murdered. When the shadow of the murderer appears behind her, she has her back to it, which implies that Hitchcock didn’t want the woman to see the murderer before he kills her, therefore there is shock from the audience during her final moments.

CAMERA ANGLES

The camera is placed on the woman herself to depict her emotions of being attacked which were fear and anger. There's an eye level shot of the murderer attacking the woman in the shower and this emphasizes the fact that the audience are forced to be the woman’s place and feels like the murderer is attacking you.Hitchcock uses panning from the bath floor to the plug hole so that the audiences pays attention to her death. This continuity is maintained as a fade transition of the plug merges with the woman’s eye in a smooth rotation of the camera.

Editing is used to create suspense. At the beginning the pace of the editing is the same it has a very steady

cut making us as an audience feel like its normal it makes us feel comfortable.

The editing of a scene can help portray feeling and emotion. The editing in this clip helps make the

audience feel suspense and tension.

When the murder starts stabbing fast cuts and loud music are used to frighten to break the suspense that

had been created with the silence and slow paced editing.

EDITING

The sound can also help to evoke audience reaction. In this scene it starts very quiet we can only hear

Diegetic sounds i.e Footsteps, Pulling of the Shower curtain, the sound of the water hitting the floor of the

shower.

The sound becomes non-diagetic and very loud and both the volume and the transformation from diegetic

to non diegetic breaks the tension and creates a frightening moment.

SOUND

The opening of the sixth sense starts off with the titles and credits where we nothing a couple minutes in which it only shows a light bulb in the shot. This

suggests what type of genre it is for example it could be horror or a thriller because of the mise-en-scene as we can see a yellow light bulb with a dark background

conveying fear and enigma.

The couple are both wearing formal clothing to suggest the importance of the award that the man has gained. The lighting in the opening scene is essential

to convey particular emotions. For example, the lighting used when the couple are celebrating is

brighter and calm, as this matches the mood of the characters. However, following this scene, the lighting becomes darker as the mood intensifies as suspense is

built.

THE SIXTH SENSE (SHYAMALAN, 1999) MISE – EN -

SCENE

The close up shots are also used to present the feelings and emotions of characters. These shots are

essential to evoke emotion towards the audience.

The eye level shots are used to make the audience feel more part of the action, and create realism. An

example of the crucial part that movement plays within the scene, is when the mysterious character goes uses a gun. The camera pans away from the

character, allowing the imagination of the audience to take visualise the events.

CAMERA ANGLES

Continual Editing is used to give a sense of reality to the scene as it shows a smooth transition from one

angle to another; looking like one movement.

The camera very slowly zooms in toward the bathroom, and then gradually pans the bathroom floor

to show the clothes lying there. However when the legs of a man is seen the camera very quickly looks up to reveal the full length body. Thus representing the

way a person's eyes would survey a room when danger is present.

EDITING

The music helps to add up tension and catch the audiences attention.

From the beginning of the opening images, the non-diegetic sound is a dramatic and mystifying

background track.

The sound that is used matches the mood for example, calm diegetic sound is used when the couple are

together celebrating something. However the mood changes as the sound changes. The couple move from

downstairs to upstairs, where there use of non-diegetic sounds are used to provide suspense and

create an intensifying atmosphere.

SOUND