What are the characteristics of a thriller? - Part 4 - Camera movement/angles and editing.

The use of camera work, angles and editing can really affect the way a movie is seen. You want to try and make the viewer feel as if they are part of the movie of which the story is affecting them too. But a limitation of this especially with thrillers is that you also want the viewer to feel as if they are hopeless in some ways, unable to change the fate of the character even though they want too. So the job of the camera is to make the filming seem as if it is a person in a third party perspective. Use of moving the camera around dramatically to resemble a person running away from the antagonist for example. Or over the shoulder shots of when the characters talk to each other, this makes us feel a part of the conversation. Other angles such as bird eye views hide the faces of the characters and create a mystery for the viewers but still allow them to see what is going on. Other angles such as extreme close ups to focus the viewers attention on a certain action of the character. Low and high shots establish which characters are more powerful as well.

Scene from Spider Man, showing the high shot angle technique to create the illusion of greatness.

A good example of all of this is the last dancing scene in Black Swan in 2010, this clip shows how the camera moves around frantically with the ballet dancer to create a feeling of being there with her. We also have shots from the dancer's perspective especially when she starts to die and the lights fade: