Code and Conventions of a thriller

Zodiac 2007 by David Fincher



The first camera shot is used an establishing shot, showing the murder take place. In the mise en scene, we can see a shadow, dim lighting in the motorway, this give idea to the audience the character is in a deserted rural area, this create suspense on the audience, it give a feeling of loneliness.
It has used tracking to show the movement of the car moving.
In this thriller sequence, it has used an omniscient narration-showing victim driving in a car, but we do not have any shot showing the murder face, we called this restrictive shot, by not showing the face of the antagonist, it crate the theatre of the mind to the audience, therefore the audience will image how the character look like. The representation of the antagonist is represent as an American well-spoken white male, we know that by the way he talk and the used of language. The way the antagonist dress is causal, it may show the character is in a middle class and we can see his car is kind of an expensive car, but we cannot see it clearly.
The convention have used in this sequence were red herrings and cheap surprise. The red herring were we think the antagonist is a good person who helps the victim to fix the car and it came out his the murder.
Cheap surprise is used it by having a non-diegtice soundtrack when the woman stop the care and see the antagonist, this create tension on the audience, they think something goanna happened, but nothing happened until the antagonist gone then the car well came off.
It have used eye line shot to show what the victim see, therefore we do not know what the antagonist is doing to the car this give the audience an enigma code, ‘why he doing this?’ & ‘what his doing?’
This show element of a thriller.
It used a lot of closed-up in this sequence to show the face expression of character, show fears on the victim face, this may emphasize the fears on the audience.
Continuity editing, cut and fade is used in this sequence to show the murder take place and showing time is running.
The sub genre for this film it will be crime, biography, and drama, this may appeal to the audience because it content different genre.