My Film Genre Conventions

By Sophie Sheen

Genre
My film will be a hybrid. The genres of my film posters
will be crime and thriller. The basic plot of my film is a
group of normal teenagers break and enter, steal and
vandalise houses belonging to the rich and famous.
This is how the crime genre fits. However, after a taste
of criminal acts they decide to commit further crime
murder. This is where the thriller genre comes in.

Conventions Dramatic Music

In a thriller film the audience expects
dramatic music to support the
events and occurrences in the film.
The dramatic music compliments the
events due to the fact that events in
a thriller tend to be serious. For
example, a director would not decide
to use happy melodic music in a
thriller due to the fact that it would
be contrasting. Dramatic music
creates suspense. For example, in a
scene where somebody is about to
get shot, the music will become
louder and more frequent to build
up the piece of action.

Killings
In a thriller and crime film the
audience expects death. Thriller
films tend to possess shocking events
commonly death. Crime films tend to
possess death due to the fact that
murder is popular and is one of the
worst crimes. Killings and the lead
up to killings create tension and
suspense in the films, which is
popular with both genres. This shows
that killings is a key convention for
both genres.

Car Chases
Commonly in crime films the
audience expects car chases. The
relationship between criminal and
police is significant in any crime film.
Car chases are common and exciting
action within a crime film and
normally come along with loud
music for suspense. The audience
expects car chases because at some
point we know that the police and
criminal will come in contact. Its
assumed that the criminal would try
to escape using fast transport like a
car, resulting in a car chase.

Weapons
In any crime and thriller films
weapons are often used. In crime it
is expected that they are used in
defence and in thriller more for
harming other people. Again, in
crime films the criminal does tend to
use weapons like guns and knifes
against others due to them most
obviously possessing anti-social
behaviour because of them being
criminals. Thriller and crime films
again normally contain a lot of
violence, weapons are used and
associated with violence.

Political Conspiracy
In a crime and thriller film we expect
an evil, surreptitious and
treacherous plan formulated by
individuals. This plan would normally
contain violence in order to gain
something valuable, particularly in a
crime/thriller. It is expected in a
crime and thriller because the films
tend to contain danger and
interesting/mysterious plots.