Research into Conventions - Miss Miller

Conventions

Conventions are elements that are specific to each genre in the film industry, they are seen as accepted ways of doing something. We began to research the conventions of the thriller genre as a class by watching clips from different thriller films and identifying which elements they each had in common. When it came to our own individual analysis, I chose to analyse a clip from the film Orphan. After watching the clip, I was able to identify conventions that had appeared in several of the films that we had analysed as a group. For example, many of the films would use the camera technique handheld in order to create a sense of panic and fear within one of the characters, usually the victim, due to the shakiness of the image produced.

The iconography in the clip is a hammer, used by the young killer to beat her victim to death. In most of the thriller films that we had looked at, the killer would use a knife to kill their victims, but nonetheless the hammer is still conventional to the thriller genre as it is a dangerous weapon that can be used to cause serious harm or, as shown in the clip, kill someone. There is a lot of force needed for a hammer to cause serious destruction, which arguably foreshadows how brutal the death of the victim is going to be. The audience will feel sympathetic towards the nun who had no idea what was going to happen to her. Suspense was created in the build up to the death of the nun as the audience did not know for sure whether the girl would go through with the killing. It was then created again after the death as they did not know whether she planned on killing anyone else. Both the little sister and audience will fear the killer as they have been given an insight to what the girl is capable of. The audience will further fear for the safety of the little sister who is now alone with the killer and they will wonder what is going to happen to her.

Another convention used in the clip is the fact that the victim is female. Men are generally seen as stronger, therefore more capable of killing another person. The audience will feel sympathetic towards the victim who is defenceless in comparison to the killer, the location emphasising that she has nowhere safe to hide or escape from her inevitable death. This is conventional to the thriller genre as
the audience may find it shocking that the young girl was able to kill another in such a violent way, but also that she put enough thought into what she was going to do to make sure that she could get away with it. In the clip, the little sister of the killer can be seen as bate, used to lure the victim in. She then had no other option to watch as her sister beat the nun to death, causing the audience to sympathise with her also, as no one should have to see something that brutal. The audience will fear for her safety as once the nun is dead, she will be alone in the forest with the killer. An enigma is then created as the audience do not know what is going to happen to the little sister, or whether she will be killed as well.

The clip takes place in an isolated setting, which is conventional to the thriller genre as it means that there is no escape for the victim. The forest can be seen as dangerous and lonely place, which is conventional to the thriller genre as suspense it created due to the audience being uncertain about what may happen and whether the killer will get caught. The isolated setting also implies that the killer is going to get away with it as the is no one else around to witness it. The audience will realise that the young girl would have planned what she was going to do beforehand in order not to get caught, therefore she is quite smart and sneaky.

The death of the victim is brutal, and as a result her clothes are covered in blood, as well as the snow surrounding her body. The use of blood is conventional to the thriller genre as it connotes the idea of death and brutality that the victim had to suffer through while she was being killed. The audience will feel sympathetic towards the victim due to the use of blood showing the pain that she would have been feeling while she was being beaten with the hammer. They will also fear for the younger sister who will be left alone with the killer with no way of protecting herself. This creates suspense as the audience do not know whether the killer is going to do anything to her little sister after the nun has died.

A high angle is used in the sequence from Orphan when the nun is crawling through the snow, away from the killer after being beaten by her with the hammer. A low angle is conventional to the thriller genre as it shows the audience the power and superiority that the killer has over their victim. This creates suspense
The audience will feel sympathetic towards the nun who appears to be defenceless in comparison to the killer.

A camera technique that is conventional to the thriller genre is handheld, used in the clip when the nun is seen crawling through the snow to get away from the killer. This is conventional due to the sense of panic and urgency that the shaky movement of the camera creates. In this clip, it is the victim who is panicking due to the knowledge that she is being followed through the forest by the young girl who is trying to kill her. The audience will sympathise with the victim who is clearly and understandably very scared, and they will hope that she will find a place to hide or that someone will appear to help her, but given the location it will seem unlikely. The audience will also view the antagonist as someone to be feared due to the brutality and determination she had for killing the nun.

In conclusion, by researching the conventions that fall into the thriller genre we achieved a better understanding of ways to differentiate the genres from each other, especially the action and horror which the thriller genre is most closest to. For example, as well as the conventions that I identified within the clip from Orphan, thriller films will usually involve a chase scene, low key lighting and a male antagonist. The conventions that we are expected to use in our opening sequence are the ones that we have spent the past weeks researching, therefore through analysing these conventions we are given a better idea of what effects they can create. An example of this is the use of the camera technique handheld, which creates panic and urgency due to the shaky movements of the camera that implies that one of the characters is either running or moving around quickly. I think it was important to be able to identify the conventions within a sequence from other thriller films as it will make it easier to identify them in other sequences that our class members will create, but also easier to identify them within our own sequence to make sure that we have used as many as we could have and most effectively.