Discovering Our Genre

Within my group we have each decided to research one genre and then together come up with a conclusion on which genre we would like our film to be. The genre that I will be researching is thriller. In order to understand fully what the thriller genre consists of I turned to an article on The Script Lab. 

Key elements in a Thriller:

• The genre is based heavily off anticipation and suspense
• The aim of a thriller is to always have their audience on the edge of their seats
• The Protagonist is usually set against a problem (an escape, mystery, or mission).
• focuses on emphasizing danger that protagonist is in
• the tension is built throughout the film and leads to a highly stressful climax

The thriller genre has many sub genres such as:

• action thriller (Die Hard, Kill Bill)
• crime thriller (The Usual Suspects, The Fugitive)
• psychological thriller (Memento, Taxi Driver)

Example of a well made thriller:

Dial M for Murder  (1954) (Alfred Hitchcock)

(trailer for movie, not opening)

The opening for this movie is really successful because Hitchcock managed to establish a conflict through minimal shots and dialogue. Hitchcock did not go the ordinary route to introducing a conflict and instead used only minimal shots and specific actions to create contrast and develop the conflict of the story.

After our research on all the genres, our group has narrowed our choices down to Thriller, or horror. We narrowed it down to these options because they are the genres we are the most comfortable creating content for. Since many of us enjoy watching horror and thriller films, researching and understanding how to create a successful opening for these genres will be more enjoyable and likely produce better content than doing a film opening in a genre none of us like.