Our film is going to be a mix of two genres; romance and psychological thriller. This is because we will have the relationship shown between the husband and wife but then the twist will be the tragedy that he murders her.
Psychological thrillers, i have found, usually feature middle-aged characters despite the fact that the audience they attract are normally the younger generation, such as 15-24year olds; which is why they are normally rated either as a 15 or 18, depending on the level of content. I think the younger audience would be attracted to this genre of film because they often contain a lot of violence for example and people like to see exaggerated versions in films because it seems more exciting than real life. However the reason for aiming it at a younger audience may be for different reasons such as; they are the largest age group viewers, they use the internet a lot and so would access information about the films very quickly and easily and so bring the most money in and also possibly due to the inexperience youth have meaning it can show them the consequences of certain actions on people's lives.
The genre psychological thriller is a sub-genre of the general thriller genre, however what makes it slightly different is that it incorporates elements from other genres too such as mystery and drama. The psychological elements are related to the mind; which could be a character's conflict of thoughts within their own mind for instance; it is often an attempt to understand an event which has occurred in their life, which is partly like ours because he was so frustrated with his wife but now has the guilt of his crime to live with instead. The thriller part of this genre usually focus's on plot to create intense scenes with physical action rather than looking into the characters mind processes. However, even though psychological thrillers are a form of a thriller, they tend to go the opposite way and focus largely on the characters, not the plot. Therefore this means the characters are mainly reliant on their mental state to overcome and obstacles they face; whether these be physical or in their own mind as previously mentioned. The characters minds are often affected by each other, with one possibly trying to destroy the other's mental state.
Psychological thrillers have come about in various different media forms over the years, but there is still a general pattern to be seen within the narratives. For example some themes to be seen are;
- Reality; Working out what is true and not true within the narrative and being able to relate to situations.
- The mind; is often where the narrative conflict occurs as characters battle with themselves to reach a new equilibrium.
- A purpose; the character's can often need to discover who they are and what role they should be taking in their life.
- Gender; males are usually the murderers and females the victims.
- Death; characters usually face experiences of death in their lives, whether it be due to their actions or not.
- Colour significance; the clothes or location characters are put in often symbolise part of their life such as white has the connotation of pure/innocence/victim. Even the weather for instance; a bright sunny day signifies happiness in a scene.
In our film we have got a lot of these conventions as well:
- We have cast the man, husband, as the murderer and the female, wife, as the victim. The men are also typically dominant and controlling in this type of film.
- Having the weather changing with the mood of the scenes; ensuring the viewer gains the total atmosphere of the film.
- We have got the twist in the plot of death because the man murders his wife and hen has to live with the guilt an the consequences of jail.
- The character's purpose of the dominant male character in our film was that he wanted to move on to a better job but his wife was always holding him back and nagging at him and he wanted to be a successful business man without the ties of being committed to a family and so he ha to find himself by taking control of his life and dramatically getting rid of his wife.
- The battle of conflict within his mind is therefore whether he should just be dominated and surrender to his wife's wishes or get his life back. After this conflict he then has another conflict about whether he should have killed her or not because he has to live with his actions.
- I think we have got two types of reality within our film because the situation of being trapped in a marriage and work are very easy to relate to and also the point of being able to realise what is real and what is not in the plot when the husband is imagining his nagging wife again, but she is dead.
Examples of psychological thrillers are;
- Lovesick Blues (2006) Short, directed by Alexander Cicak. This incorporates the themes of love and death and fatal consequences of mix ups between love and rage.
- Another film which incorporates love into the thriller is the one shown below:
Alfred Hitchcock is famous for his work on psychological thrillers often known as 'The Master of Suspense.' We can find examples of this in this film through the changes in music when he is having the thoughts of killing her, making the female the victim, and the softness and little camera movement when the romantic scenes are happening.
Another Alfred Hitchcock video shown above, Strangers on a Train, also has the suspenseful music, faster and slower editing for the different atmospheres and portrayal of romance and thriller and the female as a victim with death being a central theme.
Due to the fact that our film incorporates the romantic genre as well, i decided to look into some of the conventions for this genre as well. I found that :
- They are usually based around a couple who fall in love but there is something or someone preventing them to live the 'happy ever after' life.
- It will take place often around a house/work place and feature somewhere thought to be quite romantic; a park or beach for instance.
- To portray the mood of happiness bright lighting is used and scenes in the sunshine.
- Change in lighting; darker scenes, when they come to face the problem that is trying to separate them.
- Birds can often be heard in the background along with soft, romantic, happy music.
- Slow editing for romantic scenes, close ups are often used to show deep expression from he characters.
- The female will often be made out to be the victim if there is a break up and will be wearing bright, feminine clothes, look pretty.
- They are majorly centred on the love story, or affairs of the heart. These centre on the emotional, passionate and romantic involvement of the main characters. We follow the journey that their love takes them through, keeping the love story as the main plot focus.
Some examples i have found which show these conventions are;
In the trailer for 'Forrest Gump' above you can see that during the romantic scenes there is soft, romantic music playing, and the locations used for the romantic scenes take place in the sunset with the two 'love-birds' sitting on the tree. Another is where they are walking through a nice grassy park; these are tyical to the romantic genre.
Below is the trailer for the romantic film 'Ghost' by Jerry Zucker and straight away when the trailer begins you know that it is a romance because of the slow edits and fades and the slow, close, intimate movements between the characters, accompanied by romantic music.
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