Research: Conventions of a Psychological Drama

My technical analysis of the Joker trailer

In the psychological genre and all its sub-genres, I have noticed a few similarities in the technicalities of all the samples I watched.

Most of these films comprised of slow-paced editing which fits the mood as psychological films require more thought to be put in so that they could be properly understood and enjoyed. Short, fast paced editing is quite uncommon as it does not give enough development to the scene in a psychological drama.

Another important role in psychological films is color theory and the type of color-grading that is used. The picture control in the cameras used to shoot the raw footage is set to "Flat" which reduces the contrast in the raw footage so that the colors can be easily and more finely manipulated in post-production to create a final product of much higher quality. Flat style, low contrast footage contains more data and can be manually graded to a much greater extent than the default standard style.

Lawrence Sher, the Head of Cinematography at Joker explains how a Teal hue was used for the overall cool shade of the film whereas deep yellow lights were used for lighting the subjects. The complementary colors on the color wheel (opposite sides of the color wheel) are used for creating a high amount of contrast and set a mood in the film.

Representation of some sort of ability or disability is also very common in psychological films and series. In the case of Joker, the protagonist was shown to have multiple mental disorders including psychopathy.

In the case of the TV Series Mr. Robot, a psychological thriller, the protagonist is shown to have a command over technical computer related elements yet suffers from anxiety disorder and clinical depression.

Most films in the psychological genre deliver a feat which is unconventional from other genres, the protagonist of Joker was shown painting his tongue in the trailer which is something very unusual and out of the norm.

Although the camerawork is not special in most psychological films, there may be a few scenes where handheld footage is shown with a little bit of shake to portray an unsettling situation.