Thriller Conventions

In order for our opening sequence to fit the thriller genre the best, we will have to follow certain thriller conventions. We want to follow a psychological thriller genre, so to do so, we have been looking at a wide range of thriller openings and the following are various conventions which we have chosen to follow:

• One convention we want to use will be a complex narrative structure which deals with false paths, clues and resolutions. This will be useful as the audience will not be able to guess what will happen straight away, therefore allowing them to engage more with the opening, then leaving them to want more. The film Inception deals with this convention as it has many false leads and personally I couldn't make a solid guess onto what would happen next which made me sit on the edge of my seat. This is what I would like our opening sequence to do. Below is the end scene of Inception which portrays the complex narrative structure: 

• Another Thriller convention we will use will be that there is a crime at the core of the narrative. The crime will be the cult murdering young females which the detective is investigating. This will give our opening and if we were to film the entire film a main story to work with. Shutter Island deals with this convention as it has a patient who is supposedly murdered, however it allows other stories and leads to progress along side it, therefore fitting with the first convention of a complex narrative structure. 

• The Thriller convention where the protagonist has a fatal flaw will also be used in our opening sequence. In this case, the fatal flaw of our protagonist will be the death of the detective; his inability to cope with his daughters death and how he keeps having visions of her so he can't tell what's real. This is his flaw. Then if we were to film the entire film this flaw will be exploited by the antagonist later on. The film Black Swan uses this convention as the female protagonist develops a split personality which ends up with tragic consequences. 

• The last convention we decided to use was our opening dealing with themes of mirroring and symbols.This convention would be used by the use of the daughter's teddy bear and the cult (the people involved with the murdering of young girls) symbol they draw on their victims. The teddy bear will be carried by the daughter in the opening clip in the forest scene and then in the car of the detective as he carries it on him at all times as he is desperately clinging onto that small part of his daughter which he has left. Then the symbols would be used throughout if the film were to be filmed completely, these symbols would also be the anti-Christ symbol (as shown below) which carry connotation of sins and death which the cult deal with.

• Below is the trailer of The Da Vinci Code which deals with this convention of using themes of mirroring and symbols very well and influenced us to use it in our own opening.