Research into conventions- Miss.Miller

A convention of a thriller are elements that are common with different film genres or patterns that can be seen/used in different films from the same category. The most common conventions of a a thriller film are shock,suspense, surprise and tense as they all as they all create a successful thriller film. I chose to use scream 4 as it is a typical thriller so i will be able to conduct more research in regards to the conventions that it contains.

The scene i have chosen contains one of the most typical conventions of all thriller films which is an antagonist (killer) and a victim which is primarily of the female gender however is it occasionally of the male gender too.Female victims are often used as audiences feel more sympathetic as they are portrayed as helpless. The antagonist also have a pattern in all thriller films as they all tend to be male this maybe to make the killer look more powering and daunting as the women in thriller are never able to escape as the killer are always too dominant. The vulnerability of the female character makes the audience feel more attached to the character so when they do eventually die there is greater shock and surprise. As i previously mentioned this is arguably the most typical convention of all thriller films as female victims always create more shock and surprise once they are killed.

Iconography has also been used in this scene when the killer comes out of the cupboard as he is holding a knife. This is a very common use of iconography in all films as it something that all the audience can relate with as it is very trivial in all households which adds to the authenticity of the scene as it set in a house.The use of a knife also makes the scene more frightening and shocking for the audience as they are able to see it repeatedly go in and out of the body adding some gore to the scene.The fact that character is only using a knife to kill his victims makes him seem some what more powerful then using any other type of weapon which add more influence to him in the eyes of the audience. This type of iconography is conventional of a thriller as knifes are used in almost all thrillers to create more shock and surprise as the audience are able to relate more to this method of killing.

Enigma or otherwise known as mystery is also used in this scene in regards to the killer as it he is masked. The hidden identity of the killer makes the character seem more daunting and frightening as the audience are only able to see a mask which is already relatively intimidating. To create even more enigma about the character he is wearing a clothing which is already black in color and does not give any sense of the physical features. The fact the audience have no knowledge of the physical feature of the killer it makes the character look scarier when they are trying to kill the unsuspecting female victim. Hidden identity are often conventional in thriller as they make the killer seem a lot more frightening making the audience feel more scared and shocked when they see the killer.

Low key lighting is used when the killer calls one of the characters, the lighting is focused mostly on the face of the character, the reason for this is because the audience need to focus on the facial expressions of the character. We can see that she is very disturbed and distraught has she starts to realize that the phone call may not be hoax but instead a reality. This change lighting create more suspense for the audience as they can also sense along with the character that the phone call is in fact real, this could also create a little tension as they start to see the females face change to look more dissatisfied. Low key lighting is conventional of most thriller when they want the scene to seem more dark which will make the audience feel more tense about the situation as they are not able to see what is happening clearly, it can be used as a tool to focus on something like for example in this case the characters face.

As the scene starts to progress further towards the killing we notice that the timing of shots slowly start to increase.It starts to happen when the female character picks up the phone and the male character starts to talk about about what they are watching even though he was no where to be seen, the slow timing shots were used to create suspense and shock within the audience as the male character mentions many disturbing things.As we got to the scene of the killing the timing of the shots become very quick, this shocks the audience further as they have less time to absorb the situation. The timing of shots are conventional of all thriller as they are always used in thriller to help create more suspense, shock and surprise as it can either leave the audience more to absorb the situation or less.

In conclusion i would say that the scene i have chosen was successful in terms of creating a conventional sequence as it contained conventions that were used in many other thriller films such as the blonde female character and typical use of a knife as iconography.When i create my own sequence i will most probably try to use all the conventions used in this scene however i will focus on using a variation on the timing of shots and good use of iconography.