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Genre Conventions: Sci-Fi Thriller Nathan Rawlings

Genre conventions of Sci-Fi Thriller

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Genre Conventions:Sci-Fi Thriller

Nathan Rawlings

Sound (Music) • Sound tends to coincide with the overall tone and pacing of the film. Instruments

that are associated with a genre are used in the songs, a sci-fi film would use more space age sounding music from keyboards, electric guitars etc. A film like Donnie Darko or Guardians of the Galaxy focus on a soundtrack that is specific to the main character or to the time setting. All of this together helps to pull audiences into the story and setting that the film is trying to show.

Setting• The setting of a sci-fi thriller has to appeal to both genre types and match the tone

of the film. Sci-fi is mainly associated with other worlds, space or different points in time. A great example of this setting is in the film ‘Blade Runner’ that is set in a dark and gritty vision of the future. This fits the films tone perfectly and allows the story telling to become more believable and captivating. A more grounded sci-fi thriller will be set in a more average and believable location and time-zone in order to fit with the story that the film is trying to tell.

Props• Props are used in a way that convinces the audience of the time-zone and setting

in the film. Props can reflect character information about there background, hobbies, or even their habits. Vehicles and technology are shown within scenes that help make the story and setting more believable to the audience.

clothing• Clothing is important to establish the character to the audience. The characters

social class and status can be shown to us by the quality of the clothes that they are wearing; clothes can also show the occupation of the character. In ‘Shutter Island’, the main character is dressed in clothes that would be by the audience with a stereotypical detective dressed in long trench coats with police badges. In district 9, we are shown characters dressed in bullet proof clothing and typical soldier uniform. This makes it immediately obvious that the characters shown are related to the military.

Main character• The main character dramatically varies between genres. The character must

appear as if he is apart of the world that is being built in the film. When creating the main character, the time-zone, location and character backstory should be considered. The character in many cases tends to be a reflection of the tone of the film as the film is based from their actions and perspective. The main character usually starts out with the same knowledge as the audience in order to allow the audience to learn with the character as events of the film unfold.

The Crisis• The crisis of the film is dependent on the genre of the film. A horror film will tend

to feature a murderer, a romance film will feature something that is based around a relationship and so on. The crisis of a sci-fi thriller will typically include some themes that are out of the ordinary that become something that the main character will have to overcome. The sci-fi elements to this should feature elements that fall under time-travel, space or other science fiction features. The thriller aspect should result in a tense story that may play with the audience by adding twists into the story.