Titles

Shot ideas

This is the only close we are going to use, because our story line is set in open settings. But however we chose to do a close up because we know as a group that its conventional for a thriller to have close ups.

This birds eye view shot of the main character playing the piano at the begining of our opening sequence is simple but effective. Even though we can see the character we cant see his face which adds to the suspense of meeting this character.

This high angled shot is also used so that we don't see the characters face, we want the shots throughout half of the opening sequence to not show his face because we want the audience to be drawn in by this man and to reveal too much in the opening sequence. Also this shot is a medium shot so that we get a sense of the surroundings around him.

Shooting Schedule

This is our Shooting Schedule. A Shooting Schedule is a breakdown of the filming that is needed and that is put into a schedule so that we are all organised and that we dont waste any time later on trying to figure out when everyones free, and so that we use the time we do have effectively. So even if we do fall behind we have the chance to catch up and get everything back on track. I think it is important to have a schedule because it puts everything in order and we have an idea on what days we think we would get the most effective filming done because we know when our group is there filming or not. 

Casting

Main Character:
We decided to use Jacob as our main character because we feel that it would be better if this character was male. We made this decision because in most thriller films stereotypically, the male characters are the antagonists'. We also thought about what the female characters were stereotyped as and in most of the thriller films we have seen they play the 'victim' and are seen as defenseless and at risk. I think that jacob playing the main character in the opening sequence would add a bit of competition because some opening sequences follow the victim.


The victim:
We decided that either me or libby should play the victim, because its typical of a thriller that the culprit is female. We also had to think about what way the character was going to be dressed, and the mise en scene in the background to enhance our grade, and we feel by having our opening sequence this way it would get our grades up. 

Audio research

Although all these audio ideas are copywrite and I cant use them, they help me to decide what type of music I would prefer for my thriller opening sequence. All of the music ideas I have found are all slow paced, simple and could have a meaning behind them if used in the right way. Some of them sound old fashioned, this could symbolise the protagonists personality or the way he kills his victims.

Props and Costume

Costume

I think the costumes we should use are:

The protagonist: The killer will be wearing a stereotypical suit  for everyday use, going to and from work Eg blazer, smart trousers, smart shoes and brief case. But when on the job he would wear all black clothes or dark coloured, with a hat/mask/bandanna to cover his face so no one could identify who he is, also the dark colours help to hide his identity too because if he wore ordinary day to day clothes people may recognise what he was wearing the night of the murder and realise it was him all along. With where we film outside i feel it would be easier to him to sneak up on his victim in the dark rather than in broad daylight. 

Props 

The props i think would look most effective and useful are:

The murder weapon such as a knife, gun, rope etc. These sort of props are most important in a film and/or an opening sequence so that the audience see how they were killed and with what. Another prop i feel should be used is a house phone. I think that when he's getting ready in the morning to leave and having all these flashbacks of all the killings he's done, the house phone should ring and get a close up of it and his face to build tension. He would get paranoid and scared as to who it may be and let it ring out till it goes to answer phone. I also feel there should be something that belongs to the killer and falls out when hes murdering his victim as this makes the audience ask questions like: Will the police find it? Does he know hes dropped it? How did it fall out etc. 

I feel these props should be used as they are average everyday 
props that everyone uses and we don't want anything too fake, as if 
we were trying too hard to make it work. 

• A mobile phone would be needed because the main character is rummaging around for it in the beggining. 
• A set of keys to lock his house. 
• And a mug for day to day things to make things look natural and as if theres nothing wrong with the character. 

Location Research

I feel this location would be a very unique way to show a characters history, this apartment could have some significance to either the audience or the protagonist in the opening sequence. This image of a door number to a house could lead to many other ideas, or maybe something to come back to every now and then just to remind us what happened in that area. 

This photograph was taken of an alley way late at night, as I felt it would look more effective with a low key light. This location may be used for a character in deep thought about what s/he has just done, whether its good or bad. This image gives you the impression that you are trapped and there is no way to get out. The shadows created in the image creates a spooky atmosphere and puts the audience on edge. 

This pathway could be used as a chase scene either coming towards or away from the camera, which I think would both look effective. They would either be running into the darkness or running away from it. This location and the way I edited the photograph gives it an eerie look and makes the audience ask questions about what's going to happen and why this place is so significant. 

I feel this photograph could be used effectively when the protagonist has been injured/hurt or when he's just killed his victim and maybe about to pass out. Because the vision is blurred I think it would look most effective when used in that way. 

This location is at the top of a hill, overlooking the surroundings. I feel this location would be used effectively when the protagonist is in deep thought or is feeling suicidal. To the left of this is a image there is a pathway that is either sides full of trees and bushes and i think a tracking shot would be good for this scenery. 

Plot Synopsis

For our opening sequence, we are going to be following the main steps of a thriller film. This is an uncomplicated review as to what pour story line will be. 

Our main idea was to start the sequence as a disequilibrium. To confuse the viewer and ask more questions,  because we as an audience have already seen what's happened. so we wanted to start with a man in his early/mid twenties, either in his house or a family members, and is in a rush to get ready and out the door. Although we don't know why he's rushing we watch more to find out why. Whilst he's rushing about in his very un organised house, we catch a glimpse of the flashbacks he begins to have. All of his flashbacks that relate to his everyday routine. For example when he's shaving, he has a flashback to when he slit someone's throat. and also another example would be when hes getting ready in the morning and he splashes water over his face reminds him of when he drowned someone, which makes the audience watching ask questions and immediately assume that he is responsible for their deaths. When the man leaves his house, you see in the background what sort of area he lives in. We were thinking of a rough run down estate, to show that he could have been brought up around violence. But when he leaves his house he is very paranoid about what he's done in his past and what everyone thinks about him. as he's walking you can see everyone walking normally paying no attention to him at all and treating him like an average adult, but when you see it through his eyes everyone is giving him dirty looks. its as if his thoughts are controlling his body and making things worse for him. Later on in the film we find out that all these events are all in his head or maybe it is some sort of a mental illness? From watching thus scene we get a sense of guilt from what he's done. When he arrives as to where he was going, we see that its eery, doesn't have a nice atmosphere and isolated. This then gets the audience flowing with questions such as; Why is he there? What is he going to do? Why this area? Is there a reason for this destination? And all these questions will be answered when you finally watch the whole film, and it will all make sense. 

Analysis of our questionaire through vox pops

These are the vox pops that our group (toni, jake, libby) produced in order to give us a concept of what they would expect to see in a thriller film. This audience research helps us as a group see what people prefer in thriller movies. This is a good and quick way to find out what people like and why. 

Audience Research Explanation

The first pie chart that we see, shows the age of the people answered our questionnaire, as we found out from the sources we collected, everyone we chose was aged between 16 and 24. This could also be seen as a disadvantage because they were all of a certain age group and could be biased. However this age group was proven to watch Thriller films so their data wasn't all bad.

The next pie chart that we done tells us whether the interviewee was male or female. It is important tht we get a mixture of genders so that we get fair results. We automatically stereotype males as being the 'tough guys' and are more likely to watch Thriller films, but the answers we received questioned this.

The next pie chart we see answers the question 'What types of characters are expected in a Thriller film?'. We received a variety of results from our audience and found that the most popular answer that was collected was seeing a damsel in distress. The answer is very stereotypical for the age group we targeted. It was seen that males are the more dominant and powerful sex and females are seen to be the weaker and innocent ones. Another popular answer that was accumulated was seeing a character to be a scary male an someone in danger.

What we found in our next pie chart was that most people assumed there would be eery/weird music in the background of thriller films to make the scenes tense and to build tension. This stereotype was automatically made because it is typical of thrillers to have frightful and scary audio. When watching a thriller and you hear this type of music you think something bad is going to happen, but as a group we wanted to shock the audience and steer away from the typical thriller story line.

Finally, our last pie chart shows us the general overview of what the target audience assumed would happen in a typical thriller film. Our main answers that we collected was the 'introduction of the main characters' this lets the audience know who is the protagonist and the antagonist. As a group we thought about creating a special/unique way of introducing the main characters, we want to try many different techniques and see what one suits our genre and our target audience. 

Initial Ideas for a Thriller

Conventions of a thriller

Mise en scene examples: Only a few locations should be used when making a film or opening sequence because i feel that if you have to many locations your viewer may get confused.  

Cinematography examples:many different shot types and angles should be used when making a film and an opening sequence to show power over someone using a high angled shot or close ups to refine detail.

Titles

Titles

From watching the panic room, it first showed the distribution logo; columbia. This is to show who was in charge of putting the film out in cinema's etc.

It then went onto the production company. The production company helps to create the film, it also helps with the budgeting,scheduling,scripting,casting and much more. They are responsible for searching for a director of the film and the most of the actors. But with all that to worry about they are also responsible if anything were to go wrong on the film, such as broken props and scenery etc and the safety of the characters.



It then starts with the actors, starting from the most important to the least. This shows us who is in the film and how significant these actors are.

After the main and most important actors/characters were out of the way it then got on to the title of the film.

After the title you can see the less important actors/characters. But as you can see it gets lower down on the buldings this could simbolise how low down they are compared to the main characters.

Once the actors have been shown it then goes on to the crew, from the least important to the most. This is opposite to the actors list.

 And this should be the very last bit of an opening sequence, because the director is the most important for films because they are what makes a movie, without them we would have a load of people talking.

 

The font in the titles of a film are important because they create an atmosphere and lets the audience know what type of movie they're going to watch. The font of the titles automatically tell you what genre of film you are going to be watching. For a romantic comedy you would usually use a sans serif font whereas an action/adventure film you would use a serif font.

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