Planning the Thriller...

Actors-

In our opening title sequence we only needed one actress. We were looking for a girl around our age, who doesn't conform to any specific trends, but who represented the average teenage girl. We decided on Emma Dalton as we think she fits these specifications.

Location-

This is 1 of the 3 loctations we will be filming at, we will be using this house for all our external shots as we think it accurately portrays the kind of average family house we were looking for.

Here are a list of the 3 locations which we will be shooting at: 

• Lieth Hill, Surrey (Nursery room)
• Brookside, Cranleigh, Surrey (exterior/desserted street scenes)
• Cranleigh home (Ineterior shots)

Props List-

• Vehicles x3 (with fitted radio)
• Digital alarm clock
• Children's toys
• Toaster
• Pyjamas
• TV
• Landline phone
• Baby monitor

Narrative Action-

• Girl sleeping in bed, alarm clock states time (6.58am)
• Girl hears an alarm and hits the snooze button, but the alarm still goes on.
• Girl sits up in bed and stands to walk towards the door.
• Goes down stairs to find burning toast.
• Runs into kitchen and removes burning toast, turns off fire alarm.
• Hears the sound of baby music from baby monitor on a table.
• Picks up monitor T.V screen fuzzing in background.
• Goes upstairs and discovers the shower is on.
• Goes to babies room, Baby not there, only child's toy playing.
• Goes into street, it's abandoned, cars empty with engines on and radios going fuzzy.
• Blackout to the end.

Thriller Storyboards...

 

Group Sequence Idea..

Our final group sequence idea is based around the idea of isolation.

A girl wakes up in her house, disturbed by her alarm going off and hits the snooze button. She hits it a couple of times before she realises that it isn't actually her alarm going off, but the fire alarm downstairs. So in a sleepy daze she walks downstairs and goes into the kitchen to find some food burning. Panicking slightly she puts the food in the sink and turns off the fire alarm. This reveals the sound of a baby monitor coming from the living room. She picks it up and quickly walks back upstairs towards her baby sister's bedroom. Walking past the bathroom she hears the shower running, and pushing the door open she discovers the room to be empty. Going into the babies room she looks into the crib and sees that the music was coming from a toy, but that the baby is nowhere to be seen.

She runs downstairs and picks up the phone only to hear a crackling noise. She runs towards the front door and finds that it is open. Running outside she finds that the street is deserted, and there are cars strewn across the street with their engines on and radios making a fuzzy noise. It ends with this pan shot following her outside.

My thriller ideas...

For my thriller sequence I have come up with 2 ideas...

1. 'Hide and Seek'

The basic idea of this story is of kidnap and dissapearing. It opens with a mother and toddler playing hide and seek in a local park, the mother is filming the child on a handheld camcorder so we do not see her face, and everything is from her point of view. It seems harmless enough and everything is normal. The child runs off around an object/corner, and when the mum follows them around it, she finds that the child has vanished. The mum starts to call the childs name and starts to run, possibly dropping the camera down by her side or onto the floor, so that we can only hear her panicked screams. The screen then blacks out to the title of the film.

There is an alternative ending opportunity to this which I came up with. The child runs round the corner and when the mother turns the child is missing. She doesn't panick but thinks her child has turned the next corner. She stands still and calls for the child, beginning to panic slightly. Mostly out of view of the camera, the child appears from nowhere and jumps on the mother growling and clawing at her as if possessed. We hear the mother's screams of horror and the camera drop to the ground. The screen backs out and the title appears.

      2.   'Night Out'

This story relies on the use of close ups and match cuts. It opens with CU shots of a girl getting ready for a night out in her bedroom. She is doing normal things like applying makeup, pulling up tights, putting on shoes and putting things in her bag. These shots are interjected with shots of the same girl wiping blood off her face, picking her phone up off the pavement and taking off her shoes. She has ended up in a side alley and we don't know how or why. I want the sound to have an underlying track of heavy breathing and a heartbeat on the shots in the alley, with it still all filmed in CUs. These shots cut to black and the title.

Digipack...

Here is our design for our Digipack, mde using photos taken on the shoot and Photoshop. We wanted teh CD cover to remain coherant with the music video, and we did this throguh the use of the scribbles, polaroid and colour schemes.

Opening Sequences...

In class we have been looking at different opening title sequences for inspiration, and commenting on why they work...

The Strangers

This opening sequence builds up tension at the start by claiming that the film is based on true events. It shows the end of the film at the start, but keeps it unclear as to what has happened, only showing little snapshots of items that are relevant to the story. This allows the audience to be pulled in and when the film goes back to  the start of the story, which will allow them to find out how this items came to be as they are now. The music is eerie and quiet, and just adds to the feel of the scene. The camera is handheld, adding an element of realism to the film, and reinforcing the idea that the film is based on true events. The point of this scene is to thrill and create tension within the audience. I think that it sways slightly more to the horror genre but remains within the thriller genre.

Dead Man's Shoes

This film sequence is very different to 'The Strangers' opening title sequence, but is setting up a realistic setting and situation to pull the audience in. To set up the story, it uses a set of home movies featuring 2 small boys and their family. It resonates with the nostalgia of childhood and the non diegetic music which goes with it sets the melancholy tone. Unlike the opening sequence to The Strangers it isn't tense or scary at all. However it still works to set up the story which is revealed later on. The family videos allow you to see these characters lives and feel like you have known them for a long time, setting you up for the big reveal that the younger brother is actually dead. All this set up makes this reveal much more significant to the audience because they have some perspective on the situation, and feel like they have watched this mans entire life.

Rear Window opening sequence analysis...

For my opening sequence analysis I looked at the start of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, click here for the video link. Below are screenshots of my powerpoint presentation, which analyse it.