The Feedback From Andrea

Andrea gave us some constructive criticism which we have worked hard to change and to make our opening sequence a to the highest standard of quality.

• Andrea informed us that we needed to focus on how we are going portray the feeling of paranoia.
  - To change this we decided to add effects to our footage when editing to exaggerate the feeling. We are also going to make sure that our camerawork and the sound we add will help create the feeling of paranoia and eeriness.
• Andrea convinced us that we should not film at night as it could be very problematic as the footage would not be of a high quality.
  -We took this into consideration as decided that for some of our shot we will film at dusk and other we shall film in the day, however when we film we shall change the brightness and contrast to create a dark night feeling. Les Tombres was a good influence on us for how we could create a night atmosphere.
  
• Andrea also advised us to develop our idea to something else than just following a girl otherwise we are at risk of boring our audience.
  - As a group we thought long and hard about how we could improve our idea. We choose to have a twist in our story, to catch the audience off card and hopefully give them a thrill which will keep their attention. Our film is going to consist of a lot of different camerawork angles and effects to reinforce that our genre is a thriller.
  

Production Roles In Detail

We have allocated production roles for each of the members of our group. The production roles we have allocated are roles that we think are suitable for each member and are roles in which they will be able to show their real potential and skill they have at their position.

Rebecca Hewings' position in the group is the cinematographer as this a position she really enjoys and has a good idea of how to use the camera to make it feel like a thriller and to make the audience feel involved and give them a sense of the 'fear of the unknown'.
Annabelle Monks' role is the main female character who is being shown in the opening sequence as the character being stalked. Annabelle is also the producer of the opening sequence as she is able to construct an idea and generate it into a good piece of footage.
Ryan Brook's job in our group is the sound engineer as he has high level of skill of being able to create music that is for a specific genre without telling the audience what genre it is.

We decided as a group that we would all take the position of being the director as we all had a huge input on the idea of our opening sequence and how it was going to shown in the footage. We also decided as group that we would all take part in the editing of our footage as this is one of the main tasks that all of us would like to participate in.

Details Of Costume with Illustrations

Costumes For Thriller Sequence




Annabelle Monks (Girl Character) - Leggings, Cardigan, Uggs. We chose this outfit for the vulnerable girl character as this is something a girl would wear as a casual everyday outfit.
Stalker - We decided on this outfit for our stalker as we thought it would symbolise a shady and discrete character.

Practice soundtrack for thriller

The Practise Soundtrack


This is my rough idea of what type of music we will have in our final thriller movie, the music starts of slow and eerie, I then included some interjections to show that something different is going on, e.g credits or a close up. The sound then becomes more vigorous which symbolises the change in mood and atmosphere.

Story board and Shot list

Other films from the sub genre physcological thriller

Here are some examples of physcological thrillers which is the same sub genre as our own thriller opening sequence we are going to create.

Fatal Attraction - Happily married New York lawyer Dan Callagher has an affair with his colleague Alex, and the two enjoy a love weekend while Dan’s wife and kid are away. But Alex will not let go of him, and she will stop at nothing to have him for herself.
Memento - Memento chronicles two separate stories of Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers. One story line movies forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time.
Se7en - This thriller portrays the exploits of a deranged serial-killer. His twisted agenda involves choosing seven victims who represent egregious examples of transgressions of each of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Silence of the lambs - a young intelligent FBI trainee has been sent to the Batlimore State hospital for the criminally insane to interview an inmate Dr. Hannibal A brilliant and renowned psychiatrist turned serial killer. She must match wits with Lecter to gain clues in the search for “Buffalo Bill” – an unknown psychopathic serial killer.

Props List for our thriller opening sequence

To create our thriller sequence we are going to need props in our footage. The props we are going to use in our film are...

• A mobile phone. The girls thats being stalked starts to realise someone is behind her and she gets scared and get out her phone to call someone and tell them she think someone is following her.
• A lollipop, This well be use to show the vulnerability and the age of the girl. She will be eating the sweet as she is walking through town to get home.
• Hoodie, the boy will be wearing a hoodie to keep his identity hidden from the audience. Wearing a hoodie is a bit stereotypical however if you were being followed by a boy in a hoodie at dusk you would get a bit worried and curious.
• Pictures of the girl, we are going to show pictures of the girl that the boy has on his possession to show that he is obsessed with the girl and that it's not just a random stalk.
• Handbag, the girl will be carrying her handbag as she makes her journey home which symbalising her finishing college and going straight home.

Final Idea

Thriller Opening Sequence

After the company credits, we plan to start off our opening with the girl sitting in her last class of the day at Long Road Sixth Form. We then create a point of view shot from 3 lads in her classroom admiring the girl from the other side of the room. This informs the audience that she is a very noticeable and likeable girl.
The girl is then filmed from behind as if she is being followed to get her bus into town. She is then followed on her way home through the grand arcade from a birds eye view. The identity will not be revealed to keep the element strong of the fear of the unknown.

Location report

We intend to film in a long road classroom, in the centre of town and the leisure park.
We are going to film at dusk to create a dark thriller feeling, but we also plan to edit the contrast to get the exact light we want to create our thriller atmosphere.
Every place we plan to film is public so we are taking into consideration the public's where abouts. When we film we will be very considerate and not get in the way of the general public.

Our schedule for final deadline of thriller opening sequence

We decided it would be a useful idea to plan our lessons productively, making sure we put aside enough time to complete every aspect of the criteria to a high level.

Soundtrack Practice

We got given a task to create a soundtrack to 5 minutes of footage from the film Taking Lives.
We first watch the footage with out any sound and had to imagine how we thought the soundtrack would be like. We then go to watch the footage with original soundtrack, which was completely different to how we thought, but gave us a good idea for our own soundtrack we were going to create.
We decided to start the sound of just as the logo's were finishing. The music we choose for the beginning was a creepy beat to give the audience an idea of what type of film they were watching. We decided to have the music build up when the action started as we thought it created a much more mysterious atmosphere.
We wanted to make the music eerie as the footage itself shocked us and itself was a bit creepy, so we thought it fitted well.


The fact that we weren't able to create 5 minutes of sound for the footage, was real eye opener to us at how long and difficult it is to create a soundtrack. We learnt from this task that we have to allow ourselves more time for our own soundtrack for our opening sequence.

Logo Practice

Thriller Thrive

Why are thrillers successful and enjoyed by audiences?
‘Thriller’ comes from the word thrill. A thriller consists of what happens in life but with a difference of emotional disturbances. A thriller gives the audience an experience that we like to call ‘shake-ups’ that gets your heart racing and your attention is fully on the screen. The thrills that you get from watching it on the big screen is artificial, however it’s the best encounter you can get with a thriller with knowing your safe and not in harms way. Thrillers are successful as they give the audience thrills during the movie, resulting in them jumping and kept on the edge of their seat, keeping their full attention on the screen. Audiences pay to see thrillers as they are able to give the viewer an adrenaline rush, which some people are addicted to as it gets their heart racing. Thrillers are able to give the audience an experience that no other film can give you. They are so unpredictable that viewer doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, they are glued to their seat dazzled by the screen itching to find out how it’s going to plan out. Thrillers use a special technique where they use a vulnerable character that they make the audience fall in love with and become attached too, before they become endangered. They then make you feel like you are a part of that person so you put yourself in their shoes. This gives the viewer a real sense of danger, even though they are in fact just sitting in a chair. Thrillers are good at showing you what’s going to happen without giving it away, this is when the unexpected appears and shocks you. The big screen is really clever at making the thriller seem like we are in great danger as we feel we’re a part of the film. However our subconscious kicks in and we are aware that we are sitting in an arm chair, safe and secure.

Pitch document

For our thriller we wanted to create a story that involved some kind of following. We had the idea of a young girl simply walking home from college like every other normal day and is oblivious to the fact she is being stalked. Starting off in a classroom with her class mates at the end of the day then the camera shots changing to mainly point of view shots to imply that she is being followed by someone. the identity of the character stalking is not revealed to sustain and create the fear of the unknown then throughout the film the identity is slowly revealed.
For the actors we are using ourselves and friends to create the classroom atmosphere and a range of suspects.
We are using Cambridge town and Long Road as our location as she is a college student and we want to use the centre of a town which is busy and also slightly dangerous.

My ideas for a thriller

I was inspired by two of my favourite films... Taken and final destination 3.


In a thriller opening sequence you need to make sure you don't give the whole story line
away too quickly. I think that we should pretend everything is fine and don't make anything
to scary, just a normal calm settled life. Then we should make things turn a bit mysterious,
maybe have a few jumpy parts when a person could be creeping up on someone or for a man to spying on a young girl before she notices. Something that will give you a bit of a thrill but not too much you know whats going to happen. I like think thats make you jump and makes you question things so we could twist the story alot. Maybe one of the characters can pretend they can see into the future or have a sixth sense.

Analysis of The Number 23

The music behind the opening was an orchestrated score which sounded eerie which created a feeling of suspense and tension. It helped to create fear of the unknown. There is shots of pieces of paper with the number 23 printed all over it. The space that the number 23 takes up on the paper gets larger and larger towards the end to also create a build up of tension. The number 23 on the page turns into looking like more of a pattern as oppose to many numbers. There is also an increasing amount of blood being shown over the paper. This also adds to the sense of tension and suspense maybe implying that as time passes more and more blood is being spilt. It is a very subtle yet very effective opening.

Conventions of a Thriller

Conventions.

Damsel in distress - there is usually a vulnerable female character who needs to be saved.
Complex narratives - non-linear films, beginning with the ending and things like flashbacks confuse the audience.
Location - putting a character in a familiar place e.g a house can give a false sense of security.
Fear of the unknown - not revealing too much keeps the audience intrigued and interested.
Protagonists - a character in danger that can adapt to the story, become interested in things that something that they wouldn't of before.
Identity - (doppelganger) having a character with a split identity.
Suspense - sound, silence and music and create a sense of suspense keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.
Lighting - dark lighting would be used in a thriller. Shadows are a good use of lighting. e.g Film noir
Objectification of women - getting pleasure from looking at something you shouldn't be.

Vertigo

The opening of vertigo included a few conventions. Initially there is a close up of a woman's eyes which is objectification of women. Her face is very lowly lit and covered in shadows, this implies something dark about her. The use of the music conveys a sense of suspension of what might be about to happen. A lot of time is spent showing colorful spirals which are implied to be inside her mind, this gives an impression that her mind may be spiraling itself.

Definitions

match on action

match on action is a type of cut that emphasizes continuity and a certain action in contrast to a straight cut. match on action is a type of invisible editing. it helps create 'reality effect'. the match cut is a contrast with cross-cutting between actions in two different locations that are occurring simultaneously or parallel editing, it links one angle of the action to another continuously.

shot reverse shot with over the shoulder shot.
shot reverse shot is filmed usually during a conversation, it is used as a form of editing known as continuity. it is usually done by filming an over the shoulder shot of one character and then switching to an over the shoulder shot of the other character to create the ........

establishing shot
an establishing shot is usually a mid shot used to portray the scene location and the props. It is used to give the audience a good idea of what is happening in the scene.

close up shot
a close up shot is used to invite the audience to become personally closer with the character or object.

long shot
a long shot is also known as a full shot or a wide shot. it's used to show the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings.