Drama-Thriller Conventions, Iconography and Sound

Drama-Thriller Conventions, Iconography and Sound

Low Key Lighting

Low key lighting is a key theme of drama-thrillers showing a sense of danger and uncertainty and making the setting seem unsettling and disturbing for the audience.  A lot of films also use low level lighting to make the audience feel disturbed by a character, lighting only half of a character's face. Lighting only half of their face can also represent a split personality suggesting to the audience that there is more to them than meets the eye.

Claustrophobia

Drama-thriller films often use confined spaces to scare the audience and give a sense of insecurity to the audience making them feel uncomfortable when watching the film.  Within film a sense of claustrophobia is often used to represent some other fear, for example, in David O'Russel's 'Silver Linings Playbook'-2012 an extreme closeup is used to convey the protagonist's fear as he is about to go into some form of panic attack.

Reality

Reality is a key piece of iconography for the drama-thriller genre allowing the audience to empathize with characters and relate to the film.  An example of a use of reality in film is within 'The Shawshank Redemption'-1994 where the protagonist is bullied and teased by his other prison inmates.  This means that the audience is able to sympathize with the protagonist and can see the reality of the brutality of life in prisons and its consequences.

Emotional Depth

Emotional depth of character is key to the drama-thriller genre making the audience sympathize with characters and rally on their side.  Emotional depth can be created in many ways the most common ways being; the character dealing with a death, the character coping with abuse or the character trying to be someone bigger than what they are.  Within the film 'The Fault in Our Stars'-2014 the emotional backstories of the protagonist and her love interest give them more depth of character, getting the audience on there side and strengthening the impact of the films ending.

Editing

Jump cuts and cross cutting are common within the drama thriller genre,  The jump cuts allow for the plot to move rapidy whilst still making sense to the audience and the cross cutting works to build tension often indicating simultaneous action ('Inception'-2010) and sometimes being used to disorientate the audience ('Arrival'-2016).

Sound

Sound is key in most film genres, helping the audience understand characters' moods and highlighting significant events, but in drama-thrillers sound is especially important as it adds to the suspense and tension of the film.  Sound in drama-thrillers often starts slow and then builds up to make the  shots more dramatic for the audience.