Common Conventions

The plot of Thrillers is usually a story of a good protagonist vs a bad person or problem and the plot is mainly about a villain. Common themes are ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings, mind games, psychological themes, stalking, being trapped and obsessions. The characters in a thriller always depend on the story but in most include a few of these: criminals, stalkers, assassins, innocent victims, threatened women, mentally unstable people, characters with a deep and mysterious past, serial killers, sociopaths, secret agents, escaped convicts and people in difficult relationships. In psychological thrillers, the protagonists are reliant on their resources, whether it be by battling wits with the antagonist or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind.

The editing is normally fast paced quick cuts and this is to create tension and suspense but can sometimes slow down to make the trailer even more suspenseful. The colours black and white are conventions of a thriller which emphasise the shadows and lighting bringing a darker and sinister feel to the movie. The lighting is usually low and has a gothic colours that are like the colours in the bottom few rows in the image to the right. In psychological thrillers mirrors and stairs are used quite often relating to the iconography of thrillers using things such as shadows, and confined spaces. There is also a lot of continuity editing and montage sequencing to help pass time and not elongate the storyline. There are also a lot of flashbacks to help clarify and develop the story. These are all used to keep the audience interested, explain the narrative and constantly make them think. The trailers usually include a lot of writing in between sections of scenes to make the viewer interested.

Music is very useful as it helps to build up tension using noises from instruments like the violin which get louder and higher pitched or quick loud banging sounds whenever the clip changes to a new one to make the heart beat faster. There is often ticking sounds that are played in trailers aswell to build tension and suspense. There is usually some sort of dialogue in the beginning of thriller trailers to explain some of the story to the viewer, usually the character will be shown doing something intriguing and they will then say a hook line to make the viewer interested in the rest of the trailer. Non-Diegetic Music is played throughout most trailers to give a particular mood or atmosphere and the sequence in the editing is usually cut to the beat of the music or insynchronous sounds to give a quick paced and professional effect. Sometimes there may even be contrapuntal sound which is when the sound or music doesn't fit the image you're seeing e.g. a fight scene with classical music playing, which actually does fit in an ironic way.