Thriller First Draft

Conventions Of A Thriller

The Thriller genre normally would include the following conventions  

• A crime at the core of the narrative often murder, but not necessarily.
• A complex narrative structure, with false paths, clues and resolutions.
• A narrative pattern of establishing enigmas which the viewer expects to be resolved.
• A protagonist who is systematically dis-empowered and drawn into a complex web of intrigue by the antagonist.
• Extraordinary events happening in ordinary situations.
• Themes of identity, of mirroring and voyeurism.
• Protagonist with a ‘flaw’ which is exploited by the antagonist.
• Titles often reflect an aspect of the pro/antagonist’s psychological state.
• There is often a scene near the end of the film in which the protagonist is in peril.
• Mise en scene which echoes/ mirrors the protagonist’s.
• Quick pace with camera movements and sound.
• Dark and dull lighting to create suspense and to give a sinister effect

Filming Schedule

Filming Schedule

Date: 4th March 2011

Location: Bramcote

Props needed String, Tape, 3 Chairs.

Actors needed: Myself, Rosie, Daisy.

Order of shots: We are going to film all of the outside shots first in an order which is easiest for us. We will then do the inside shots also in an order best suited to us.

Date: 14th March 2011

Location: Rosie's Garage

Props needed String, Tape, Chair.

Actors needed: Myself, Rosie, Daisy.

Order of shots: We are re-filming indoor scenes in a different environment as I first environment didn't look right.

Risk Assesment

Risk	To what/ who	Risk level and how to prevent the risk
Weather risks to camera-	The camera equipment	Medium risk We cannot prevent the weather however we will take precautions to protect the equipment such as umbrella’s and a protective casing for the camera.
Damaging the camera and tripod-	The camera equipment	Medium risk As we’re shooting within the woods Damaging the camera and tripod comes at a medium risk due to the fact it may fall over, having unstable surroundings. Ways to prevent this would be to make sure the camera is securely placed and screwed onto the tripod.
Losing equipment-	All equipment	Low risk Losing the equipment would be of low risk as it will stay in contact with one of use throughout the filming process.
Falling over during the running scene in the woods-	Cast and crew	Medium risk This is of medium risk as the woods have unstable grounds and surroundings, during the running scenes this may become a risk for either me or daisy. To prevent this we should walk through the area we are going to be shooting in and take away any hazards.

Thriller Further Planning and storyboarding

We have planned our piece further and made the storyboard. First we decided to brainstorm more ideas so that we can see what we would like to do with our piece, so that we may progress further.

 After this we discussed location even though our audience seemed to want a abandoned building predominantly, we decided for our idea using a woodland area, the second most popular choice, would be better for our idea. This allows us to create a more public eerie atmosphere. The fact that anyone could be in this public place gives us a reason for all characters to be there, and also as we are setting it at night it makes it more relatable to an audience, nobody lives in an abandoned house but most people have a woodland area somewhere in their town.

We have discussed actors/actresses and decided that the two damsels in distress should be female, this is to keep the the stereotypes of a typical thriller. We also decided to fit typical themes of a thriller we should use a male stalker, or villain. So we decided Daisy and Rosie should be the victims and I should be the villain.

Thriller Questionnaire Results

For research for the thriller we have done a questionnaire to find out what our target audience would be and what they would want from a thriller. The results are as follows:

1.Male or female?
Male- 6
Female- 4

2.How old are you?
10-20- 6
21-30- 3
31-40- 1

3.Do you enjoy watching thriller films?
Yes- 4
Sometimes- 4
No- 2

4.What is your favourite sub-genre?
Action thriller- 3
Mystery thriller- 3
Psychological thriller- 1
Crime thriller- 2
Medical thriller- 0
Sci fi thriller- 1

5.Where do you like opening scenes to be shot?
Woods- 3
Abandoned buildings- 4
Streets- 1
Rivers/lakes- 0
Unrecognisable places- 2

6.What should an opening scene consist of?
Crime- 1
Murder- 3
Mystery- 2
Abduction- 3
Other- 1

7.What type of shots do you like to see?
Short and fast paced shots- 4
Long and slow paced shots- 2
Action filled beginning- 1
Calm beginning- 0
Combination- 2
Other- 1

From our questionnaires we can see that our target audience is Men aged 10-20, only 2 of the people didn't enjoy. Our audiences favorite sub-genre appears to be Action Thriller or Mystery Thriller, based in abandoned buildings or woddland areas. Our audience also would like abduction or murder in a thriller. We also researched about the camera shots, more about pace but our audience want something face paces and shocking.

Thriller Planning and Storyboarding

Monday 7th 2011

Today we decided our groups for the thriller task, as Rosie, Daisy and Myself worked well together, we have decided to work together again. We started doing minor research into thrillers, looking for codes and conventions within the genre. We started to map out ideas and storyboard. We had decided on our final idea by the end of this lesson and also talked about locations for filming.

Thriller Research

 Seven

The opening sequence for 'Seven' (Kyle Cooper) has an eerie feel to it from the start. The music starts off soft and seems to build up as the sequence continues. The music is a series of electronic or machine-like sounds that makes the audience feel uneasy. The constant beat in the background gives the whole thing a clockwork feel as though the piece of cinema is going somewhere and is going to climax. About 58 seconds in the machine-like sounds are lost and sounds resembling wind are used, when this is done the same drum beat is still kept in the background. At 1:10 this drum beat fades further into the background as the music comes in harder and has more of a rock style to it over the top. This gives the audience a feeling of fear, as they feel they feel they are being attacked.

The images and titles in this scene also portray the eerie feel that the music does. The images flash between books, disfigured body parts and a man playing with machinery. This explains the music from before. Over this we have distorted text for the titles, as though someone has scribbled them on. Later we see a pen hovering over a book and certain words being crossed out, this is an unusual thing to do, and by doing something out of the ordinary an audience would feel out of their comfort zone.

Orphan

The music for the start of the 'Orphan'(Jaume Collet-Serra) starts off hard hitting and eerie. The music does not build, but rather keeps the audience at a constant state of worry. The change in the music is with the changing title, as titles change the transition matches with a noise. An almost flickering sound to go with a flickering transition pairs the two and takes the audience away from the normality of the child's drawings they see. Over the 'normal' children's pictures we see flicker things that are not seen as normal, such as the people are suddenly on fire, or are being stabbed with scissors. This makes the audience feel uneasy. Later we see a house full of people, that suddenly with the flickering sound is up in flames with the people dead. I think this opening shows a thriller perfectly, because it takes the normality of a child's drawings and turns them into something sick and twisted.

Preliminary Editing

Editing Lesson 1 

In this lesson we started to upload our film and edit it. Our first problem was that yet again one of our members was missing so we had to figure out who would do what with editing again, this was time consuming. We had decided to split it evenly and take it in turns to play around with transitions, titles and positioning.  After we had figured out who was doing what, we had lost our tape containing all our footage, so we spent part of the lesson finding this. Luckily we found the tape, but it was very time consuming.

After finding the tape we started to edit, this didn't take very long as we had decided as a group what we were going to do already.We had sorted out our transitions and cutting of clips in this lesson and only had titles and credits left to finish.

Editing Lesson 2

In this lesson we were yet again missing one member of our group as they have been failing to turn up for most of the preliminary task. Luckily we had nearly finished the editing. Between the 3 of us we played around with the different kind of titles and credits and how to use them. We also made slight changes to the footage such as, cutting parts and changing transitions.

In this lesson we didn't have a lot left to do, so we spent the majority of the lesson making changes and perfecting the preliminary task. This is our finished piece.

Preliminary Task Filming

Filming



Today we filmed our preliminary task. We had all four members of our group in today and we started filming, because one of our members was missing last lesson we first had to get the up to speed with what we were doing, this was a problem as it took time away from the filming process. Then we had to go and find our cast as this was overlooked in the planning process, another problem as it took more time away from the filming process. After we had our cast and had got everyone up to speed, we had to get the camera and go filming.

When we were filming we figured out certain things we had put in our story board wouldn't work so we had to change this quickly, this was a problem as we then had to discuss how to change it, without changing the storyline.

Preliminary Task Storyboarding & Scripting

Storyboarding & Scripting



In this lesson we started to storyboard in our groups, and because there was 4 of us and we only needed one storyboard we found ourselves disagreeing and some of us didn't have anything to do. Due to this we decided to create a script also. This allowed 1 person to work on a different task happening at that moment, although to do the script you had to be able to see the storyboard, this was another problem we had. Also one of our group members didn't turn up to this lesson, so we struggled to get everything done. The three of us that were there worked well and got everything done. We sorted out our storyboard out, each of us had great ideas such as, to do a romcom instead of just romance, to show a more comedic side, to make the main male a heroic figure trying to help the female and what should be said in the dialogue. We worked well together after this lesson I think that 4 in a group is too many people to work with.

Preliminary Task Planning

Planning

In the first lesson today we were given our groups and start to plan and mind map ideas. The first thing we had to decide was who we went with and how many people would be in my group. I chose to work with two people I have never worked with before in media and one other, as I felt that 4 was a good group size and the two I have previously worked with I worked well with. In my group of Ellie, Daisy, Rosie and myself. We have already decided on the genre of romance, after a long discussion. We played around with other ideas and one person didn't want to do this genre, which was a problem we came across, but we decided to go with a majority vote. We have done this because we feel that we will be able to represent it well. At this point I feel we have all contributed equal amounts and as we have been brainstorming all lesson, we have all contributed equally. In this lesson we have also gone over how to use the cameras and what we should be doing in the preliminary task.