This is the practice run through for the opening sequence of our thriller. We discovered from filming this there were a number of things that we needed to change including the length of the final clip as ours was only a minute and a half. This was only filmed from a wide shot, and therefore didn't show enough of a range of shots such as an over the shoulder shot of her on the computer and show what she is doing, a high angle shot of her on the computer to show her vulnerability, close ups of her face on the computer and when she is making tea to show her emotion which in this case would be fear and anxiety. There would need to be sound effects as in this clip we had to use our voices to make the phone ring and the pop up. We will need to design the pop up for the chain mail to make it more realistic and exciting. The dialogue in this clip was unrehearsed and boring so we are going to write a script that we will give to her actress so that the final piece includes emotion.
In my thriller the young girl experiences death by poison. Below our the sources in which influenced me in my thriller ideas because we are using the poison in her drink. Breaking Bad Ricin Cigarette Searching
Breaking Bad poison trial: Woman cleared of trying to kill 'controlling' mother
Kuntal Patel was accused of spiking her mother's drink with a deadly poison, but claimed she had intended to kill herself.
In the dock: Kuntal Patel at Southwark Crown Court
A love-struck woman accused of trying to kill her mother with poison in a "Breaking Bad" inspired plot has been cleared by a jury.
Kuntal Patel, 37, went on trial accused of spiking her "controlling and selfish" mother's Diet Coke with a ricin-like poison after she banned her daughter from marrying the man she loved.
The idea was alleged to have come from an episode of the US show Breaking Bad in which someone is killed using ricin, jurors heard.
But Patel said she had intended to kill herself with the deadly toxin.
The jury of six men and six women deliberated for just over three hours before acquitting her of attempted murder, but convicted her of acquiring a biological agent or toxin.
She had already pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to acquire a biological agent or toxin at an earlier hearing.
Usually aimed at young teenagers aged 15+. This type of sub-genre is male dominated due to guns,car chases and explosions however females may be attracted due to the attractive male protagonist and vise versa.This genre is less intellectually challenging and therefore appeals to young adults and teens. An example is 'Taken' (2008).
Horror Thrillers
Aimed at 15+. This is because younger viewers might find this disturbing and violent. This sub-genre creates suspense which scares the audience. It appeals to both genders. This genre is usually aimed at younger audiences who like a sense of excitement or thrill. An example is 'The Purge:Anarchy' (2014).
Psycological Thrillers
Usually aimed at 18+. Includes extreme violence and sex scenes. This genre also touches upon psychological issues that can be disturbing for a younger viewer. . This sub-genre is intellectually demanding with complex and unethical story lines. An example is 'Se7en' (1995).
Crime Thriller
Usually aimed at 15+. Targeted by both genders whereby the male is stereotypically involved with the female actresses and vies versa. An example is 'Pulp Fiction' (1994).
Supernatural Thrillers
Usually aimed at an older audience aged between 25-45. To understand this type of genre of film they must have a certain level of intellect. Thought to attract female audiences. An example is 'The Orphange' (2008).
Political Thriller
Usually attracts an older male audience due to the stereotypical ideas about men having more authority in terms of political aspects and running a country. They are likely to include mature themes and vionece and therefore are not for young viewers. An example is 'Enemy of The State' (1997).
The target audience is defined as a particular group at which a product of advertisement or film is aimed. Our specific target audience is teenagers aged between the ages of 15-18. The reason we chose this specific group for our thriller is because we as teenagers between those ages can give our personal view on what we like to see in a thriller and therefore accurately represent an opening sequence/film that will be enjoyed by people of roughly the same age group.
In a standard 15 film the following can be found:
strong violence
frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').
portrayals of sexual activity
strong verbal references to sex
sexual nudity
brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
discriminatory language or behaviour
drug taking
Trillers are aimed at teenagers or young adults because people of that age seek excitement. Triller films offer complex story lines that are interesting and include a possibility of violence.
Here are few examples of thrillers with the same target audience as my thriller (15+):
Creating a story board for our opening sequence has helped give us a more realistic idea of how it will pan out.
It has also given us a relatively good idea about the duration of each shot and which shot we could use. It basically sets up a plan for production and can ensure you wont forget what shots you were initially going to use.
The drawings of each shot also indicates how the actual scene might look and gives an idea of the setting. A visual aid makes it easier to show and explain our idea to people. A storyboard can show exactly how our video is going to be mapped out. It also makes it much easier to understand our idea.
A storyboard also helps for editing as the editor can piece together the clip accordingly.
Before creating a storyboard, we weren't sure exactly how to position the character in the opening sequence.
This is an example of a storyboard that was made during the process of making Alice in Wonderland. It shows the step by step process of the film.
I carried out a thriller survey in order to illustrate the target age for a thriller, the favourite sub genres of thrillers, what people like and dislike about thrillers and what makes them 'jump out their skin' whilst watching them.
As a primary source I sent the survey to my friends/family and people within a work office to maximise full results and to avoid biased results.
.Here is this link to the survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6C825FZ
This is Drew Barrymore in the film Scream.
Costume has an effective way of shaping meaning. A film can be read via costume, sometimes subtextually.
The manner or mode in which the costumes are created to best interpret the mood and concept. In this thriller the costume is simple but effective.
She portrays the character of teenager Casey, which is represented through the connotations of her costume. The jumper is a standard jumper with natural colour which highlights her youth and innocence combined with her skinny jeans also emphasises her adolescence.
For my thriller I have looked into potential costumes, which are similar to that worn in this film as they are relatively similar in terms of characters and plot.
I chose this jumper because it is similar to the one she wore in Scream, however mine is bright pink. I personally think that pink is stereotypically more 'youthful'.
This jumper is similar to the jumper she wore in Scream, with the natural pale colour which emphasises her age. The girl that wears this is probably around the same age as the character which shows that this is worn by teenagers aged around 19. The simple colour also highlights her vunerability.
The Call
This is Abigail Breslin in the film The Call.
In this thriller, the costume allows the audience to understand more about the character. The yellow t-shirt carries connotations of happiness combined with the skinny jeans which adds to the teeanged look that she is portraying. The red necklace also adds elements of youth.
For our thriller, we took the idea of wearing a t-shirt as our thriller is similar to that of The Call. The white t-shirt carries connotations of ambiguity and uncertainty, which is the main theme of our opening sequence. The concept that she does not know her fate.
FINAL THRILLER IDEA - 'YOU SHOULDNT HAVE DELETED THAT'
My final idea for our opening thriller film will be based on 'Chain Mail'. The opening will begin in an empty room with dimmed, spooky lighting whilst a teenage girl is on her computer looking through her Facebook page. A pop-up of a chain mail appears on her screen, with a bold, large font saying "If you don't pass this on to your contact list within the next 30 seconds, you will die in 24 hours". Having seen plentiful chain mails before, she deleted it without a concern. Having done that, she soon after receives a phone call from a strange, deep voice on the phone exclaiming 'You shouldn't have deleted that'. She hung up straight away, very confused. The same message pops up on her screen again which she deleted for the second time slightly more anxious now. She goes into her kitchen and boils the kettle to make herself a coffee (noise of kettle creates suspicious atmosphere). The phone rings again with the same voice on the phone saying 'you shouldn't have deleted that'. The girl hangs up straight away and exits from her Facebook, worried. However, the same message pops up again on her home screen of the computer which really startles her this time and she begins to get frantic. She takes a sip of her coffee and the phone rings for the third time. This time round the voice on the phone says 'I warned you, You shouldn't have drunk that' and the line goes dead.
A possible title for this thriller could be 'You shouldn't have deleted that' as it is a recurring line the caller says which the audience becomes aware of. Another title could be 'Ctrl Alt Delete.' which creates more suspicion but already suggests a computer is involved. 'The Caller' can also be a possible title idea too.
My group and I researched into films that are similar to our opening sequence. The three films we came across were
1. Scream
2. The Ring
3.Crank
These films use the different styles and techniques that we would use in our opening sequence as well has the story lines being similar to that of ours where in Scream and The Ring, a young female character is home alone and venerable and the journeys they take of their death within the first five minutes. In Crank however, the gender is not exposed and the death of this person is not done in the opening sequence.
Scream
The opening sequencer of scream is very similar to the opening sequence of our thriller. In the film scream there is the use of which is simply removing the title sequence and beginning straight in the action. We chose to do this specific technique because we believe that it makes a film more interesting and appealing to watch as well as enhancing tension to the film in the early stages making it more exciting. The opening begins with a telephone ringing, which immediate allows the audience to know this is the most important aspect of the scene and what the film could be associated with. Our opening sequence highlights this aspect as well, as our film is about women who get threatened down the phone when she deletes chain mail. The film itself, it very similar to ours where the female is threatened down the phone by a mystery caller and eventually sent to her death. Scream allowed us to think of possible ways to start our opening sequence in order to create tension. The character they use is a venerable young blonde woman, and although we are using a young female ours is in her teens as oppose to her early twenties.
The Ring
Below is a table that shows the comparisons between 'The Ring' opening sequence and our opening sequence 'You Shouldn't Have Done That'
Crank
The opening sequence to Crank is another possibility that we had towards our opening sequence as the story line is very similar, it is situated in someones home and we are unaware of the gender, unlike the other films where the scene opens on a young girl home alone. The scene starts with the sound of a faint telephone ring which like ours allows the audience to suspect that someone is calling this person, however the audience does not know why. The use of wide shot in the opening sequence allows the audience to see where the scene is taking place but because the scene is shot in dark colours including mostly black, the bright blue light from the TV stands out as the most important object on the screen and that is where the audiences eyes are diverted to. Like in The Ring the TV plays a significant part as there is a CD with bold writing celotaped to it and immediately the audience knows this persons life is in danger. This movie uses CD as the bait to their death whereas we use a telephone call to usher our female character to their death by using a death threat.
"You
shouldn't have deleted that" - in reference to the fact she keeps deleting the
chain mail and then she receives a call saying these exact words.
"You
shouldn't have done that" - similar to the other title however this is more
general and could therefore expand our ideas during filming.
"Ctrl-
Alt - Delete" - The girl is on a mac computer and this is the typical way
something is deleted. The delete being at the end of the title increases
emphasis and focus on the concept of the plot.
"The
Caller" - typically well-known title for anything that is phone related. In our
thriller the girl receives multiple phone calls every time she deletes the
chain mail.
"The
'Anonymous Caller" - the 'anonymous' adds a sense of tension and thrill
to the title, as the audience are informed that the stereotypical killer is
unknown.
"Mystery
Caller" - the word 'mystery' adds ambiguity to the title and therefore excites
the audience to watch the movie.
"Is
anybody there?" - rhetorical question whereby the audience is left on
the edge of their seats wondering what is going to happen. This question is
famously used when lurking in dark places and adds to the eerie effect of a
thriller.
"Home
alone" -
this emphasises that something bad is going to happen, as most thrillers take
place when a young girl is home alone. e.g. scream, when a stranger calls, the
ring. This shows vulnerability of the character.
"Malice" - the definition of malice means to harm someone. A malicious act is carried out in our thriller whereby an unknown killer poisons a young girl when she is home alone.
The Final Girl The final girl is used in a thriller film
and refers simply is defined as ‘the last character left alive to confront the
killer’. The final girl has been observed in lots of films including Halloween,
Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
This is the final girl in the Scream franchise. The
character is called Sidney Prescott she is the
one solve survivor.
The term was coined [2]
by Carol J. Clover in her book Men,
Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Her concept focuses around
the idea that in every thriller film there are a series of victims who are killed
by one killer amid increasing terror and suspense and increasing climax whereby
the last surviving member, girl or women either kills the killer or gets away.
According to Clover, the final girl carries many common characteristics
including:
Typically sexually unavailable
·Always female
·Avoid death by sex or drugs
·Wont drink alcohol or smoke
·Sometimes has a unisex name
·Occasionally will have shared
history with the killer e.g. in Scream 3 the killer is the half brother of the
survivor.
The final girl is known as the
‘investigating consciousness’ of the film, which moves the narrative forward
and exhibits intelligence, vigilance, bravery and curiosity.
One of the premises of Clovers theory is
the unstable identification of gender. During the final girls confrontation
with the killer, she argues hat she becomes masculinized through ‘phallic
appropriation’ whereby she takes a weapon such as knife or gun and uses it
against the killer. This is controversial because women are not associated with
violence and therefore give an inaccurate representation of women.
The phenomenon of the male audience when
they gave to identify a young female character in a male–orientated genre usually
associated with topics such as violence raises interesting nature of ‘slasher'
films and their relationship with feminism.
Clover also argues that for a film to be
successful, if the final girl is masculine the surviving character must bee
female, this is because she is experiencing terror and viewers would reject
this if it were terror against a male.
This is the final girl from the 'Halloween' franchise.
The character is Laurie Strode.
This is the final girl from the 'Nightmare on
Elm Street'. The character is Nancy Thomposn.
This is Drew Barrymore in the film Scream.
