Thriller conventions...

"Thriller is a genre of literature, film and television that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. The primary subgenres of thrillers are: mystery, crime and psychological thrillers. After the assassination of President Kennedy, political thriller and paranoid thriller films became very popular. The brightest examples of thrillers are the Hitchcock’s movies. Thrillers are mostly characterised by an atmosphere of menace, violence, crime and murder by showing society as dark, corrupt and dangerous, though they often feature a happy ending in which the villains are killed or arrested. Thrillers heavily promote on literary devices such as plot twists, red herrings and cliffhangers. They also promote on moods, such as a high level of anticipation, adrenaline rush, arousal, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and sometimes even terror. The tones in thrillers are usually gritty, slick and lurid." - Wikipedia (Oct. 2010)

This is unquestionably the only genre that my film can fit into, the elements of suspense, tension and perhaps excitement will definately be seen in the piece.

• Thrillers embody, mainly: suspense, tensions and excitement
• They often centre on a story based around: violence, menace and crime
• They prompt heavily on literay devices such as: plot twists, red herrings and cliffhangers
• They also prompt heavily on emotions such as: anticipation, adrenaline rush, arousal, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and sometimes even terror.
• The story builds toward one climax

These elements, with the basic ideas I have in my mind, appear to be the words I would use to describe specific individual elements of my film. It is hard to describe exactly how my film will be a thriller without giving examples though, and I cannot give examples without having an idea of what some of the shots will look like when complete. I do see these conventions to be the main focuses of my film however, and will more than likely, actually I will be definately writting a story idea based upon these elements and will make sure to include the key aspects such as tensions, cliffhangers and suspense, along with anticipation, uncertainty and possibly a small amount of terror.