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the conventions of a thriller

cliff hangers

criminals

foreshadowing

psychological

misleading scenes

danger

suspense- mystery

revealing back stories

psycopaths

journey's with characters

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Roland Barthes  (npv 1915- march 1980)- CODES THEORY

  • A galaxy of signifires, not a structure of signifieds.

signifieds meaning a set of letters/ objects, signifieds are used in films e.g a cross in the background  = signifier , the meaning of the cross which is religion and christianity is then the  signified.

what Barthers meant :

  • text is like a tangled ball of threads

  • once unravelled, we encounter an absoloute wide range of potential meaning.

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the five codes of thriller conventions:

hermeneutic code (enigma code):

the story avoids the truth

proairetic code (action):

tension

semantic code: suggests additional meaning/connotations

sybolic code: broader sets of meaning (usually with antithesisis)

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cultural code: looks at the audiences wider cultural knowladge, morealiry and ideology

the most important code for our thriller opening would be the hermenutic code because we want to have an element of surprise for the end, we want to continue hinting things and misleading our audience to different conclusions but the truth. another code that is important is the semantic code: for the same reasonings of providing other thought processes.

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