Thriller

In today’s lesson, we learnt about the differences between a thriller and a horror. It was a very eye opening because I personally couldn't distinguish any difference but I discovered that a thriller was more strategic, and has more of a crime element to it, rather than a horror, which is more based on paranormal activity, however these elements can be rarely found in a thriller. We first of all tried to come up with many elements; or more sophisticatedly, conventions, of a typical thriller. These were tension, eerie non diegetic sound, blood and gore; dark and mysterious mise en scene, and hyperbolic sound. As a focus for the thriller we as a class are due to create, we started to concentrate on Christopher Nolan's Memento which is about a man with amnesia and his journey to find the man who raped and killed his beloved wife, and to kill him. As we were watching, we were informed to write notes on how the director- Christopher Nolan used cinematography, mise en scene, sound and editing to create a chilling atmosphere; subsequently making sure us as viewers are constantly "on the edge".