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Codes, genre and Conventions

Teri-Anne, Han-Sun and Meredith

Our genre choice: Psychological thrillerOur choice of genre was psychological thriller based around a persons mentality, we decided to go with this as we wanted to use our film to focus on the effects of an unstable emotional state of a persons mind. We also chose this genre to apply the codes and conventions into our psychological thriller based short film by focusing on the use of symbolic codes to help create suspense and display how our character is feeling and technological codes such as quick or long camera movements to help create a reality/ real identity effect.Our film is about dissociative personality disorder which is where someone experiences alternations in their personality and may feel they have more than one separate personalities.

Psychological thriller codes/themesReality- In the psychological thriller/ horror game Until Dawn which is about a group of teenagers visiting a family cabin where 2 friends died previously resulting of a prank by the other friends which caused their only brother to become depressed/ unstable and used the cabin to take revenge on the group of friends. In the game the brother ( Josh) creates his own therapist in his head who is trying to help him and by using the players choices will change the surroundings of the therapists office, for example if they said they were more afraid of spiders in the last session then spiders will appear in the next. we thought this was interesting as we wanted to introduce the uncertainty of reality of the main character into our film.

lighting- This is used to affect the mood of a scene, by using low lighting you can make a movie seem more dark and a person appear more sinister and by using a higher lighting effect can give the perception of happiness. Low lighting is often used to emphasis abnormal behavior of a character in a scene and their inner darkness.

Using bright lighting creates a happy effect on a persons mood in a scene making the audiences mood neutral, however, by making the lighting darker can create numerous effects, for example in V for Vendetta the use of low lighting and the pouring rain makes the scene appear desolate.In paranormal activity low/no lighting is constantly used which creates an uneasy affect throughout the duration of the movie as it creates tension.

Suspense- This creates tension within a scene of a film and is a major effect to make that scene successful. In the movie Seven which is an American psychological thriller about detectives chasing a serial killer whose killings are based around the seven deadly sins has a lot tension and suspense throughout the film, for example, in one of the last scenes where a detective is asking what is in a box which they have been lead to by the serial killer, which turns out to be his wife's head, the killer asks the detective if he will kill him and making him wrath and to be the last piece to his ‘work’. This scene shows suspense by the detective asking questions like “What’s in the fucking box?” making the audience alarmed, the use of the desert making a persons attention directly to the scene and the use of close ups to the detectives face with the use of low colour in the scene before the detective shoots the serial killer as it helps create the pressure between the characters.

Props (mirrors)- Mirrors are commonly used in psychological thriller movies when the character is looking into their inner self and is mostly used for a dark effect by looking into the characters ‘dark side’. Props are often used make the audience become more connected to the character as they know their secrets and intentions keeping them engaged into the film.

Knives and sound- Knives is one of the key props used in horror and psychological thriller genres. Knives are used to symbolize death, brutality and betrayal. One of the most iconic knife murder scenes is from a part in the film called Psycho( Alfred Hitchcock 1960) which is about a female protagonist after stealing a large amount of money from her last employer with her boyfriend finds shelter in a motel during a rainstorm. The scene consists of multiple close ups, with use of non diegetic music that slowly builds up t create the tension of the scene, with the music stopping as you hear the shower curtain move, you then hear high pitched music which is much louder than before that was slow, eerie and quiet.Before the ‘psycho’ stabs the female protagonist you can hear a loud piercing scream which can startle the audience and fits the psycho thriller stereotype.

Editing- During the shower scene in Psycho there is a lot of fast pace editing during the shower/killing scene, with 70 fast paced cuts in around 1 minute, this creates tension and keeps the audience interested. Although you cannot see any of the wounds inflicted on the female protagonist, you see quick close ups that moves from the killer, without showing his face and back to the female and her reaction to being stabbed. When the murderer leaves the editing slows down as she falls to the shower floor and dies.

Woods/empty land

In psychological thrillers woods generally represent desolation and loneliness. When a protagonist is in the woods it usually represents a fearful apprehension/ that something will happen to the protagonists in the scene, this fits with psychological theme as well due to woods can also represent confusion for example, of the main character is running through the woods it usually end up with the character being unsure where to go, creating confusion and tension within the scene.