Angela Kibia
Criminal Minds is a US crime drama which has an elite group of profilers who analyze the nation's most dangerous criminal minds where they try to guess their next moves before they strike again.
The show has thriller techniques such as a complex narrative. This is seen while the profilers try and catch the criminals; it is also very mysterious as there are red herrings and clues within the show.
Another technique the show has is fast pace action. As it is a crime drama there are many times when cops are involved in a high speed chase to catch the criminal. Often they chase the criminals against time or in an effort to save a victims life.
Lighting and mise-en-scene are used effectively in the show as it would in a thriller film. The lighting is used to set the tone of the atmosphere. This tends to be quite bleak and dim while they try to catch the killer and then bright and colourful towards the end of the show when they have successfully caught the killer.
The show, much like thriller films, uses anticipation to keep the audience interested and enticed. Criminal minds does this by catching the killer right at the end of the show this makes the audience want to watch the whole show to find out who the criminal is. Within the quest of finding the criminal the show uses many red herrings to throw the audience away from the real criminal. This is seen in season 3 episode 21 where women were abducted by a male looking figure; at the end of the episode we find out it was actually a female abducting them. This is a red herring as the woman wears a hoodie causing the audience to belief it was a male.
Programmes that Give Insight to Thriller
Zahra Lesforis
One programme that gives insight to the thriller genre is The Vampire Diaries. This programme is about a group of vampires and various other mystical creatures living in a fictional town called Mystic Falls. Virginia, United States of America.
This programme includes aspects of thriller based on the conventions they use. These conventions include strange relationships. For example, when Bonnie, a witch, and Damon, a vampire, met they despised each other. As the series progressed, their relationship changed to where they considered themselves best friends. Another convention used is omens. Before the arrival of Damon, an evil vampire, a black crow appeared. The use of these conventions keeps suspension in the story and draws the audience to keep on watching.
Another programme that gives insight to thriller is Teen Wolf. This programme is about a 16 year old boy who gets bitten by a wolf and changed into a werewolf.
In this programme, they use cliff-hangers, mind games, puzzles and mysterious crimes. For example, season four was based around the idea of an unknown serial killer targeting teenage mystical beings. Throughout the season, clues of who the serial killer (The Benefactor) was, was provided to the audience. This meant that they would have to watch in an active way and would have to figure out the puzzles for themselves instead of just watching. The audiences to most thriller films are similar as some require the audience to do this.
Jordan Cassell
List of TV series that give insight to Thriller through the use of several different Thriller techniques:
- 24 - Breaking Bad
- Homeland - Criminal Minds
- Sherlock - Lost
- The Walking Dead - Prison Break
- Gotham - NCIS
- American Horror Story
All these TV series use a variety of different thriller techniques to build tension, create suspense and keep their audience engaged throughout the show. Other elements of Thriller that are commonly used by TV programs include giving their audience a high level of anticipation, sudden rush of excitement, engaging storylines and finally the use of red herrings and cliffhangers. An example of some of the techniques used to create effects such as suspense and tension is; no dialogue accompanied by non-diegetic or diegetic sounds at a high volume so its emphasised, allowing the audience to focus specifically on the visuals and the sounds.
These Thriller techniques are used to help maintain the audiences attention by creating engaging and forever changing storylines, adrenaline rushing scenes, fast paced editing and cliffhangers. The use of all these techniques makes the audience stay tuned throughout the whole series leaving them always wanting more allowing them maintain and grow their target audience.
Ethan Edwards
There are a variety of different TV shows that all contain thriller techniques. One of them is eastenders. EastEnders is a British soap opera; the first episode was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End of London. The series primarily centres on the residents of Albert Square, a Victorian square of terraced houses, and its neighbouring streets, namely Bridge Street, Turpin Road and George Street. The area encompasses a pub, street market, night club, community centre, funeral parlour, café, wine bar, various other small businesses, a park and allotments.
EastEnders uses the media technique pathetic fallacy, where they have a lot of heavy weather to foreshadow that something bad could happen. For example they will have very cold weather in certain situations, which connote in most situations that someone is cold hearted (evil). Familiar backdrops are used in EastEnders people’s homes, a café and a pub. This is so the audience can easily relate to the characters situations that occur in the particular locations. Characters homes are always present to give a more in depth, personal view into the characters’ lives and settings like the café and the pub are there to connote the social areas where all the characters can share experiences and be brought together as a community which is typically seen in the sub-genre that is a soap opera.
We analysed programmes that we thought gave insight to thrillers. We looked at what techniques that made us believe it had thriller aspects to it and thought of ways of how we could incorporate it into our work. This gave us a wider view on different techniques of the thriller genre instead of just looking at films.