GD Genre Analysis - Thriller

• Our chosen genre is Thriller in particular a crime thriller, A thriller tries to excite and encapture the audience by using fast paces, frequent action, high suspense and a typical hero trying to stop the enemy villain. For these heroes and villains they tend to conform to certain conventions e.g. a hero will always be courageous and rather selfless, whereas a villain will be self involved but still have traits of courage maybe, but not to match the hero. withing the genre of Thriller there are many sub-genres examples of these are crime thrillers, action thrillers, conspiracy thrillers, drama thrillers, disaster thriller, erotic thriller, legal thriller, medical thriller, political thriller, psychological thriller, spy thriller, techno thriller and religious thriller.
  
• Some films that may fit into the category of a crime thriller are The Killing (Kubrick, 1956), Seven (Fincher, 1995), Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992), Inside Man (Lee, 2006) and Law Abiding Citizen (Gray, 2009)

all of which are from different time periods and general subjects but each conforming to some typical characterstics of thrillers. Law Abiding Citizen (Gray, 2009) i found one of my favourites due to the intesity of the film and how very clever the storyline is which keeps hold of you the whole way through and this is done using typical techniques.

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• With Law Abiding Citizen (Gray, 2009) part of the story consists of the man being convicted of murder being very clever and twisting words that the law states so that he cannot get convicted for the crimes until he wants to and also uses a quote "dont make deals with murderers" which we liked the idea of so are using a quote in our film as something memorable and relevent making it seem clever.
  
• For Seven (Fincher, 1995) the opening scene seems to be very basic yet has several different cuts and clever angles and then a flash to the crime scene going from calm to surreal, from this we hope to make a contrast of calm to surreal and also use some interesting and subtle cuts and angles.


• With Resevoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992) the characters present are the anti-hero type where they may be on the wrong side of the law however you are sided with them and they are typical gangster style characters in smart suits and slick hair something which may be involved in our storyline but not our 2 minutes opening.

3. The typical narrative that comes with this genre is ultimately the hero/es fight, struggle or think cleverly their way to get their goal and to end up beating the villain and along the way creating lots of tention and twists in the story and maybe some corruption. Then generally the 'good guy' will come out on top. To keep enigma or suspense within thrillers a clever way in which they do this is buy adding in twists, but also you tend to find that some peice of information in particular is kept concealed whether its a person or what they have done and this attracts the audience to keep watching to find out how they do it.

4. Within crime thrillers there tend to be conventinal characters which are heroes and villains. An archetypal hero for this genre would be maybe a hard boiled detective, who has lots of courage and is rather selfless in the way he acts, they usually are males and tend to always have some sort of weakness. A good example of this is 'Marlowe' (Humphrey Bogart) for 'The Big Sleep' (Hawks, 1946) seen below:

The archetypal villain on the other hand will be very self involved and out to possibly harm others for their own benefit and often be corrupt and possibly mentally unstable. They will try to bring down the hero and attack the heroes weaknesses. However some villains do show aspects of courage in order to do some of the things they do yet usually come out defeated. A good example of a villain from this genre is 'Norman Stansfield' (Gary Oldman) in 'Leon' (Besson, 1994) who can be seen below:

Stock Characters may also be used and these arte characters which are typically found in the genre but not the main characters for example the family of the officer or romantic interest, the detectives assisstant or the villains sidekick. An example of this is 'Nick Rice's' (Jamie Foxx) family who are used at one point as a way of getting to him as they are his one weakness.

5. The typical settings for these films are generally inside the city with an urban backdrop where its easy to hide and find clues yet can be disorientating and exciting. Another setting could be a police station or office and even a 'lair' where the villain resides. A typical office can be seen below:

6. The iconography i would exspect in this genre would be something like a gun maybe for a detective, a chalk body outline, an important document, a police badge, a murder weapon and some death usually.

7. As for costume the most obvious thing is a suit detectives wear them, lawyers wear them and even gangsers wear them so they are definately something that would be involved in a crime thriller. As for other people costume can just be casual clothing to represent the murderer whos just a civillian. Another costume that comes to mind is a police uniform. An example of a typical suited 'Nick Rice' (Jamie Foxx) can be seen below:

8. With lighting this can be used in different ways with a crime genre. For example with 'The Big Sleep' (Hawks, 1946) this was a film noir film where clever use of shadow is used to help create mood and mystery which is good for hiding a character when black is used as you cannot see the persons face maybe because it is in shadow something which we may use. However with modern day thriller black is also used maybe for suspense as it connotes danger with the lack of visibility but lighting tends to just be gloomy and maybe only bright with a flash involved. An example of a film noir shot can be seen below:

9. A common font used within this genre is the typewriter style one and one which we are strongly considering using, an example can be seen below