Further ideas

IDEAS FOR CREDITS.

We came up with the idea to add our names, candidate numbers and the Title of our film into the bible. This would make them alot more interesting to watch from the audience's point of view as many film openings let themselves down on using standard scrolling credits leaving the audience bored.

 By adding them in this way, it till keep the audience entertained, gives them a hint on the main topic of our thriller opening and allows them to look at black and white illustrations whilst also seeing who created and starred in the thriller.

By keeping the text black and white, it connotates the idea of good and evil, which is shown throughout our thriller opening through the actions and personalities of individual characters and replicates the Christian beliefs of heaven and hell.

 The black and white text also keeps the credits looking older than the actions of the characters, showing the age of the bible and Christianity in the days of Jesus against our modern day society.

Fonts

It is important to ensure that the font we are going to chose matches with the style of writing in the bible. After our first attempt of filming the credits using red pen and drawing it free hand, we discovered that it would look alot more professional to do the text on a computer as similar as possible to the real text in bibles.

 By adjusting this key element it will give our thriller opening a much more professional look and not look rushed like our first attempt at the credits.

OTHER THINGS WE'D NEED FOR OUR FILMING

The pot of pills are for the exchange between Henry and Kingston to show the sort of people they both are withint the first 30 seconds of the opening. The audience by this time will already have bad vibes off of them both and understand that they are both corrupt.
 The Rosary Beads are for Henry to wear throughout the opening to ensure the audience know that he is a character who is extremely religious.
 The Syringe and Map are what Henry uses to get the girl to come close to him. He pretends he is lost and will ask for directions where he will then inject her with a medicine sending her to sleep temporarily before tying her up and killing her. To ensure that this makes sense the audience will need to see Henry making the syringe, hiding it, asking for directions and then putting the syringe in me. This will become a very tense scene and it is vital all of our props will be remembered for the best possible outcome. 

Our Final Idea

We came together as a group and discussed the idea each of us thought was the best, taking into account the positive and negative feedback which we got back from our peers. After discussion we decided both idea 2 (hostage siutation) and idea 3 (religious dad who kills his own daughter) were both effective in different ways. Over all, we chose to merge the two ideas into a new one. This was to be different to anything people have heard about or seen before and resources to film it effectively are easily within our reach.
 Our thriller

Name:

THE DISCIPLE

3 characters

Henry- Religious man who becomes obsessed with a girl who lives near him. He is very tempted to act inappropriately when he see's the girl  as he finds it hard to control his urges. The character has a photo of the girl, she has never even seen him before and has no idea about his obsession. He is also taking drugs and needs to be shown to be a psychopath through filming.
Kingston- The drug dealer. He has a connection to the religious man but is also the boyfriend of the girl Henry is in love with. This is bad due to Henry getting the idea to kill the girl to save her from the wreckage which her boyfriend will cause in her life. Henry see's it as his responsibility to save her from her evil fate.
Hannah (me)-  The girl who Henry loves. I am clueless to who Henry is and the feelings he has towards me, I think of him to be a normal man living in my village. I am aware in our opening that my boyfriend is a drug dealer which causes continuous arguements between the two of us. However, I would never leave him due to how strong our love is.

Back ground information of the christian religion.
The ten commandments given by God are the main focus of the Christian faith. If any of these are broken they are considered unforgiveable by God. People teach them onto their children as soon as they feel they are old enough to understand.

 1. Have no other gods.
2. Have no idols.
3. Honor God's name.
4. Honor the Sabbath day.
5. Honor your parents.
6. Do not murder
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. Do not steal.
9. Do not perjure yourself.
10. Do not covet.

This photo is of the son of God and his closest friends who helped spread the word of his religious teachings. This is a very famous painting and is a clear example of just how close and religious Jesus' Disciples really were.

The last supper: Jesus and his 12 Disciples.

Definition of a disciple:

An original follower of Jesus Christ. One who embraces and assists in spreading the teachings of another.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/disciple

Henry feels by kidnapping and executing the girl, he is doing the work of God to save her from a worse fate. He feels he is being a servant of the lord and breaking a commandment of "though shalt not kill" for the greater good of the girl. By saving her, he is condemming himself to an after life of hell but is willing to sacrifice himself out of love for her. If he chose not to do so, the girl would become tortured due to the choices of her boyfriend. Henry knows that although Kingston feeds his addicitions through drugs, he would end up getting the girl into serious trouble through his careless actions and it is his responsibility to save her from the dangers of life by ending it all.

Costumes-

Henry

A smart jacket on Henry should show wealth and power within his character. The rarity of a tweed jacket now a days connotates the rarity of Henry's mind after deeper analysis. It suggests Henry goes animal shooting, showing his ability to kill with ease and shows off his skills of things such as "skinning" of the animals. By being so self sufficent in the killing of his own food, this could show the audience that his character is lonely, and that he has no other "connections" as such to find out about his mental health issues before it is too late.

Kingston

A hoody shows that the identity of the person wants to be hidden. It darkens their face and gives a mysterious vibe to the people passing. They are known in society as something which a "thug" would wear and associate them with things such as shoplifting, drug dealing and other general crimes. This ties in perfectly with our thriller and will give the audience hints as to what Kingston is like due to the stereotypical look of his hoody.

Hannah (me)

Casual modern day clothing for girls. This shows that I am just an ordinary girl living in an ordinary place, not knowing that anything has changed since I first got together with Kingston. By wearing everyday clothing it shows me to be innocent whilst expressing the girls personal clothing choices showing her to be her own person and who shouldn't have her life planned out by someone else (Henry.)

Location

Kirkby Underwood.

Google map definition: A village comprising of 80 households located around four miles north of Bourne in southern Lincolnshire, in the district of South Kesteven. The village is situated exactly 1 mile west of the main A15 trunk road. To the east is Rippingale and the Fens; directly to the south is the hamlet of Stainfield and to the west Hawthorpe.

This long straight road would be perfect to do a stalker scene, the couple could be walking and laughing and enjoying life with Henry stood a few metres behind. The innocence of the childs nursey goes against the evil of the plan created to kill Hannah.

The Kirkby church is the closest piece of religion to Henry. It would be the place where he would run to if ever he was in trouble of wanted to talk to God in a holy place. This could be where Henry goes after the crime is committed.

Sound

 Instead of having speach throughout the opening, we thought it would look more effective and be clearer for the audience if we had background music to set the scene with a voice over of Henry declaring his love for Hannah. This would let the audience know that he is mad from the things he says and will give the opening a freaky feel to it making the audience feel on edge and uncomfortable. By Henry saying things such as "I never wanted it to be like this" it gives subtle hints to the audience that what they are going to see is shocking and shows just how crazy Henry really is.

How audience feedback will affect production

If, when we look through the questionnaires, what people have said they dislike in a film are elements of the thriller which we are keen to make it will definately be a problem. NEED TO LOOK AT RESULTS

Results from our Questionnaire

  During audience feedback, we asked an equal number of males and females to ensure an unbias result. We didn't want to base our thriller around everything boys like or everything girls like as we would like it to interest a large number of both genders.

  Unfortunately, because we gave these questionnaires around school we got a large number of 15-18 year olds filling them out. This was helpful in discovering what our own age group liked but to be sure our thriller opening appeals to everyone, we should have asked an equal amount of each age category.

 The results showed us that the most popular type of thriller is a one which contains comedy.This however is extremely hard to film with the equipment we have and only few characters. We feared this would make our thriller opening look unprofessional by it not being convincing to the audience. Sci-fi, crime and action had equal scores, action and crime are both big features of the thriller genre and so we decided to focus on those two sub genres rather than attempting to film a comedy which we knew was out of our equipment ability.

  On the feedback we recieved, the response was quite mixed to which film was the over all favourite. There is no clear favourite. Donnie Darko and The Happening numberically were the most popular however this was not by a big enough amount to focus upon to take into account. When reviewing this pie chart, most people chose a film we had given rather than "other" suggesting they like the intense/dark thriller atmosphere they create giving us the idea to set the same atmosphere in our thriller opening.

  As the chart shows, eerie music is by far the most popular. By 2/3 of the participants answering the questions chosing it as their ideal music in a thriller, we will take this into account and take great care when chosing our thriller music to ensure the best intensity is created throughout.

 As you can see by the results, more people thought that a mysterious setting was the best place for a Thriller. It needs to look freaky and mysterious. The Woods came second in the questionnaire feedback with an Abandoned House clealy showing the most votes. By the people of our school wanting their thriller's to look creepy it gave us the idea to make our thriller disturbing. This will ensure we capture the right locations to maximise the potential of the mise-en-scene.

  All of the options we put forward got voted upon. The results to this question were quite scattered. This gives the impression that most of the elements we included on the list are important individual features of the thriller genre. Special effects and sound effects both came out popular, along with props. Our first priority is to keep the mis-en-scene looking very realistic and nothing being out of place. By adding the effects on the mac's afterwards we will hopefully be able to create a dark feeling throughout the thriller opening.

  Through these results, the female was shown to be the most likely to be the victim within a thriller film. As a group we expected this to be the answer as it is popular to show in existant films. Knowing this, we will create a film which shows the female to be vulnerable and in danger of another character.

  The chart shows just how large the target market for thriller films are. Most people said they watch a film of the thriller genre every two weeks to a month. A large amount of people even said once a week. Considering the amount of genres which exist, having this amount of people watch a thriller film this often is a staggering amount. This showed us just how important it is to make it effective as the competition of thriller films will be great due to the massive amount of people who want to watch them.

  Everybody who we got to fill in our quesstionnaire has had further post 16 education. This shows that people with education have filled in our results giving the impression that they have formed strong opinions on thriller films giving us reliable feedback.

  Television, magazines and the internet were shown to be the most popular sources where people discover factors of the media. Broadsheets and redtops were shown to have no impact on people of my own age discovering media through newspapers. This shows that modern day technology is over powering the older generation of media. If we were to advertise our thriller film it would be much more beneficial to do so through the television of the internet.

  Half of the participants said no to this question and half said yes. We discussed this information and came to the conlcusion that the question could have been too blunt. By people saying that they would not buy a thriller film doesn't mean they wouldn't watch them. It could just mean that renting one or seeing one on the internet or cinema would be preferable to people of our age.

 

 This question had a mixed response. The least popular were seeing advertisement in a newpaper or on the radio. Cinema television and on the internet were shown to be the most popular place for students between 15-18 to look. This gives us an insight into where teenagers research films and hear about what new releases are out. If we were to persue our film it would be best to do so through modern technology.

Looking at the Mise-en-scene

This is a film set in WW2. The mise-en-scene of this scene fits together nicely. The weather is bitterly cold and snow and ice is on the floor causing the characters to be cold. They are all costumed according to the 1930 time setting and the weather. Wooly hats and big coats are being worn, showing the cold temperatures the people in the war dealt with and by them all being dull colours, showed they were all trying to remain unoticed and camouflarge. In the background of the image, soldiers are chasing two children who are shown in the foreground of the image. This suggests the children could be English and the soldiers German or vice versa. The image shows the strong implications which war has on people through the chase of two (who we think to be) innocent children, relating correctly to the barbaric features of war time. The car machinery  fits with the time as well, the motorcycle and side car were around during WW2 and doesn't look too modern in this shot. The man in the side car is shown to be carrying an old fashioned gun and aiming to shoot at the children in the horse and cart. This shows how in war time, not even a child was immune to being killed by the opposition. The truck in the far distance also looks like a war truck helping the soldiers on the motorcycle, these trucks were very common for transporting soldiers during the war time. The horse and cart in the foreground is something we class to be old fashioned now but would have been a cheaper way to get around than a car and also less noisey suggesting the children could have been in hiding during the war to survive. Lastly, the position of the different vehicles works well together. The audience can see each machinery due to the scattered vehicles on the road and the location was chosen well due to the road being very straight, this allows us to see far into the distance, noticing everything on the childrens tail.

In this snapshoot of a scene, the mise-en-scene works well together. It shows a normal family at tea time. The clothing shows the time period to be around the 1970's and the family  appear to be wealthy. You can tell this by the size of the room, the table which they are sat at and the way they are dressed. They would be seen as an upper class family. The daughter of the family is shown in a much whiter light than that of her parents, shown by the candles. This could suggest she is the families bright future, the innocence of her age or that she doesn't know something bad, which her parents do, leaving her pure. However it could also stand for something else, she could know something, using the idea of leaving her parents "in the dark" and the truth being to harsh to look at/think about (shown by the light intensity from the candles.) The flowers on the table suggest the families money which has been spent on luxury items and the delicateness of their childs age. Although they seem a family which are close due to them all eating together at the same time, an atmosphere appears to be over shadowing their meal time, insinuating there is more going on here than what meets the eye. They are all smartly dressed and have a serious expression on their faces, this could connotate the fact that they do not feel at home with each other or that they could of had some bad news, as none of them seem to be eating the food infront of them. The camera angle shows the daughter to be the main focus of this scene with a parent on each side of her showing their equality to her.

 The mise-en-scene of this shot shows the mistreating of the "girl next door." The rips in her clothes show bad things have happened to her by somebody else as she is tied up and unable to move her hands and legs. She is laying on the ground and her body lies with mud and scrapes all over it suggesting a struggle. The girl appears alive but unconcious. The surroundings where the girl lays shows the wall to of been mistreated as well as the girl. It appears to grotty and unhygenic, which is bad for someone who has cuts and bruises at it hightens the risk of infection. Whoever put her there obviously doesn't care about her well being making us ask the question of why she has been treated in this way. Dirty sheets have been put on the floor where she is laying and she appears to be in her pajamas, suggesting that she was kidnapped during the night time and brought to this place where she is now unconcious. The place has dark holes in the wall and is very dirty. The girls appears very thin making us believe she could have been tied up for a while and is being poorly treated and un fed. The mise-en-scene works very well together with the grotty outlook of the place where she lies. In the background it is dark suggesting danger and the camera shot has been taken from above making the victim look very vulnerable to the audience.

Conventions of a Thriller opening

Camera- Many different camera shots are used within a thriller. There are several main points to focus upon.
 If a character is shown to be vulnerable, the angle of shot should be taken from high above. This makes the character look small and insignificant on the camera and gives a hint that danger could be coming. Another typical shot is, when a character is dominant in a scene, the camera is used from below. This makes the character seem powerful as they cover a large surface area of the camera lense, become the central focus and look larger than normal as they fill the space the camera can shoot.
 It is also important to keep to the 180 degree rule in order to maintain a professional look throughout shooting. If this rule was broken the characters would flip from left to right and back again throughout one conversation leaving the audience confused as to who is saying what.
 The rule of thirds should also be taken into account to give your shot a more exciting look. If a character wass put straight into the middle of a shot, they would take up most of the room. By putting the character to the left or right of the shot, it allows the camera to show the surroundings and set an atmosphere as well as show the storyline.
 By using a variety of camera shots it helps to get the storyline across quickly and gives hints to a characters personality. In example, by filming a conversation between two people in only three different shots, the audience could easily work out the sociala status of the two individuals.

In this shot, the child looks very vulnerable. She is made to look small

and the direct eye contact makes the viewer feels as though she is looking at us personally in a troubled way. By making the character a child, she is already more vulnerable than that of an adult as her personality and human skills are not yet developed, she is in more danger to be lead in the wrong direction and end up in trouble than an adult.

The man in this shot looks very dominant. He is made to look big as most of his body covers the camera lense and he is the only thing in this shot, demanding our attention. His stance suggests power as he has what looks to be a short tempered attitude by having his arms crossed. As well as the shot being taken from below, making the man look powerful, but he also has a strong physical appearence by having his muscles on display, making him look much more dominant than the child in the other shot.

Editing- In a thriller, the way in which you edit can change the whole perception of the film. Shots can be edited to make them change quickly with fast flashes of blackouts, this would be good to use in a fight scene to show the fast paced atmosphere and how each character is putting lots of effort into the fight. By using a slow arrangement of camera shots, an atmosphere could be created slowly to increase the emotion put in the footage. This could be used in a scene of romance, building up the tension slowly to show the intensity and personal feelings of the character. Fade to blacks and fade to whites are easy to add and make the film look much more effective so that it isn't jumpy when scenes change. It gives the piece a more professional vibe and ensures that the audience doesn't get confused with what is going on in the piece, for example a man couldn't be walking down the road to his car and then be in the car, but by adding a black out it would miss out the inbetween section and make sense to the audience without taking up large amounts of time, watching him get in. It is also possible to speed up the pace of a shot, or slow it down depending on how you want the shot to look and change the colour and style of the shot to make it relate to the time period of atmosphere of the film. By using many of these different editing techniques, it is possible to make the opening look as realistic and professional as possible.

Narrative- In a thriller opening you could have a narrative piece. It could happen at the start of the opening, demanding the audiences attention and causing them to become familiar with the main characters voice. As well as this it could happen throughout the opening whilst the scene is happening without sound. The characters voice becomes the story teller as well as the footage. In some openings, when two characters of the same sex are acting out a scene, it is difficult to tell which one is speaking until you hear both voices of the men. In our opening, I would rather use one girl and one boy to ensure that our audience know exactly which character is talking. The voice over needs to be planned effectively to ensure that it makes sense with the scene which is playing. For example a character could not speak about somethting which has not yet happened as it would confused the audience and lose their focus in the film.

Mise-en-scene- It is important to ensure that this fits in with your piece. If a group chose to act a scene out from say the 1920's, it would be important to ensure that what ever is captured on camera fits in with the same era.  This includes everything such as costumes, setting, speach, machinery etc. If one thing was out of place then the atmosphere would be ruined. By having the mise-en-scene wrong, the whole piece becomes unbelievable and makes the film look very unprofessional. By having so much to think about, it would be helpful to sit down in a group and discuss what would make our opening look the best and talk about things such as what time period we want to aim for, the costumes in which we could get hold of and the prime location to make everything come together. It is important to plan this carefully to in order to get the best filming we can.

Sound- Different types of sound can be added to a Thriller opening. Diagetic and non diagetic. Diagetic sound is what happens in the film, i.e. a conversation happening between two people. This must be recorded during filming to work! Non diagetic sound could consist of a range of things. Sound effects are often added to film openings to make something sound alot more exaggerated than what it would in real life (often used in fight scenes.) They could also be used to add to an atmosphere, something dark and mysterious coming to a climax could result in a crash, sound effects could give you many options to use for this, smashing of glass, the thud of someone falling over etc. All of the effects add to the final outcome of the filming to make it more believeable and tension building. Music is also very important in a thriller opening to set the scene. If done right, this could create the right environment for each individual thriller. Something mysterious could have a slow low note track where as something very fast paced and dramatic could have a fast beat music beat with percussion instroments with all manner of notes to make it fit effectively to the filmed piece.

Research of the thriller genre

  When doing background research into the thriller genre, I came across the 8 primary elements.

1) Either the villain or victim faces death somewhere within the film
2) The forces of antagonism should be stronger than the protagonist.
3) The protagonist either goes on a quest or finds a character who they cannot "put down"
4) The plot is usually a mystery. This needs to be solved by the end of the film.
5) The narrative is usually of the protagonists point of view.
6) The characters must be realistic. It shoud look natural and unforced.
7) There are two major themes for a thriller. Desire for justice, the morality of individuals.
8) Small but significant detail, the victim should portray the only flicker of innocence throughout the film, showing good humanity in a corrupt film.

 These 8 charactertistics give a basic outline as to what a thriller film should entail. By studying these closely, my group should be able to express ideas of what would make a good thriller film. The main idea is to chose an antagonist and a protagonist and discuss how each side will display whether they are good or bad. The plot, to some extent should be kept vague. We are only doing the first two minutes of a thriller film and so mystery needs to be kept after the film is finished to make the audience want to watch more. The opening of films should be one of the best parts as it is the oppurtunity to capture your audience. Usually, films put shocking footage or a flash back which the audience would not yet understand to encapture them. This will give an immediate emotion to the audience and keep their concentration on watching the story line develop.


http://www.twelvepoint.com/?q=blog/8-primary-elements-thriller-genre

Psycho; The old version of this film was created in 1960. It was and still is extremely famous for it's murder scene, filmed in the shower. Due to the fact that this film was, and still is so popular i watched the original version. The shower scene is mostly made up of close ups of the victim, highlighting their struggle for survival throughout the murder. As you can see from the mood board, the audience is hardly shown the murderer at all. The only thing we see is a silhouette of a man. By the film showing the victim to be a woman and the murderer to be a man we get the comparrison to genders. Women are stereotypically shown in thrillers as being weak, helpless and normally easily to kill off. Men are shown as dominant, the villain, strong, powerful and destructive. By including these two characteristics from two extreme ends of the scale the audience have a good idea as to who will get their way in the film.

 The mise-en-scene in this film has had a lot of time put into it in order to make it look as professional and effective as possible. The film was filmed in black and white. This could connotate the idea of good and evil throughout the film. White stands for peacefulness and purity where as black stands for evil and corruption. The shower also looks and stays very simplistic throughout this scene. This is important due to the audiences focus leaving the action and wandering onto whether the bathroom appliances are to their taste. Nothing should distract the audience from the film at this point as it is the peak of anxiety for the audience within the film and should be viewed with concentration, not distraction.

 Many point of view shots from the victims side are used in this scene. This is so that the audience see how clueless and vulnerable the victim is to have someone else in the room with her, and adds to the tension by the audience feeling it their responsibility to get involved with the film and tell the lady she needs to be careful. This gives the audience that "edge of the seat" feeling. By the victim being in the shower, it is seen as a private place where people should be alone. This plays on the victims vulnerability by the woman being naked. The fact that the character is showering, and transforming from dirty to clean plays upon the fact that a dirty murder is about to take place, resulting in the womans death. 



 Typical characteristics of Thriller films
Breaking the law comes up alot in thriller films. The audience should go through the thought process of whether they think that what the character in the film is doing is justifiable, or morally wrong.Within this genre of film, the character usually breaks the law by displaying an act of violence or even murder. Violence could occur due to many different reasons. Vengance, hatrid, competition, an unhealthy mental state, religion, etc... The audience will weigh up the pros and cons for the character commiting a crime and decide on whether they would do the same thing as the character if the situation was the same. This is a vital decision as it will change the way each individual audience member will view each action of the film. Films usually sway the audience to make a decision by showing a film from a biased angle to ensure every individual thinks the same. This will keep the maximum amount of people interested and enjoying the film by relating to the main character.

 Making a bond with a character is important during a thriller film. Usually, the audience either feels companionship towards a character and therefore supports them, or is disgusted in the way which the character has acted and feels hatrid towards them. These two extreme emotions keep the audience on their toes throughout the film and encaptures their mind. The audience will decide whether the character is purely evil, or whether they are a good person doing an evil thing for a valid reason, leaving them sympathetic.

What we did with our presentation

 When we showed our presentation and spoke about our 3 main ideas, we were keen to get feedback from other members of our class. We asked which idea they thought was the best and why they liked it. We got positive responses and discovered after peer review that idea 1 (the airfield) would be very challenging. Not only would we need to get hold of expensive outdated outfits to fit in with the idea, we thought that the modern tractors and machinery in the background would ruin the mise en scene of the film and leave the opening looking unprofessional and rushed. Without managing to make idea 1 successful, we decided that this was a definate no go and considered it a creative idea but unpractical for our time scale and resources.

 Idea 2 and 3 both came back with very positive feedback. People found the ideas to be different, outgoing, and something they'd be interested in watching themselves. This seemed very promising to us as our film is intended for the age group 15+, and so our class fitted perfectly into this. However i did hav a slight worry that a hostage thriller opening (idea 2) was very cliche and had been done many times before and not worked out to peoples advantage. However if we were able to pull this idea off, it could work out very well and be an effective opening.

 Idea 3 would have involved a girl being drowned due to her fathers religious views. We intended to make this water scene as dramatic as the shower scene in psycho. However the feedback from our teacher was that not only would this be extremely challenging to make it look good without high level equipment but people who have used a bathroom in their house before when filming their media, their class mates commented more about their modern bathroom than the event taking place in the film. We wanted to avoid taking the seriousness away from the storyline and keep it as realistic and engripping as possible to watch. We ran this idea by our class and everyone seemed to agree that this would be better for the film as they'd want to make an emotional connection and not be distracted.

After considering the points raised by other members of our class, we sat down and discussed the possibility of merging idea 2 and 3 together and seeing whether we could make a new story including elements of both ideas.
 We went through everything and came up with a story line we found to be fitting, challenging but yet doable! We started on making a story board which included all of the qualities we want our opening to have, it needed tlo be very detailed and include everything from camera shots to lighting and costume in order to work to the best of our groups ability on the day, we had to stay organised!

Our Presentation on our 3 ideas