Planning: Opening scene narration - Miss Begum

Opening scene narration

The scene will start off with a clown in a dark room playing around doing conventional stuff such as playing around acting mysterious and trying to be funny. This is used to create a psychological on the audience as this is quite intimidating and scary. Camera shots were going to use is close-up and long shot in order to show the facial expression and to show his body. The soundtrack I am going to use is diegetic sound scary music in order to get the audience scared. The clown is going to look quite scary. Costume that he is going to wear is clown clothes and he will have make-up as well. The clown will just be playing around in a dark room for 30 seconds trying to look mysterious for the audience. The camera will zoom in on the camera from far in the beginning of the scene and will the camera will auto-focus.

The next thing that happens in the scene is the scene will fade from the other scene to a setting of a park. The clown will be walking around the park when he runs into a little boy. He asks the boy “are you lost” and the boy does not answer because he’s scared and intimidated. He tells the boy to come with him and the scene fades to black. At the beginning of the scene the shot that is used is establishing shot in order to introduce the setting of the park we are also going to use various long shot and close ups In order to show facial expression and body language. The sound I will use is on screen sound and non-diegetic sound of music. The scene will have low key lighting in order for the audience to think that something bad is going to happen.

The scene ends with clips of montages showing how the relationship between the clown and the kid developing. Eventually the clown has trained the kid into a clown himself and has made him his weapon. In the end of the opening scene you will see the two clowns walk into the distance. The lighting were going to use is dark lighting and back lighting when the two clowns walk into the distance in order to create a psychological effect on the audience because they are going to wonder what is going to happen next. The sound were going to use is diegetic sound when there is mysterious music in the end. The camera shots were going to use is extreme longshot end the end when the two clowns are walking away. And the costume is going to be that they are both wearing clown clothes.

Planning: Final idea - Mrs. Quinlan

Once we all shared our initial ideas, we all discussed our options and decided on this final idea.

Title: The clone trainer

Narrative/plot: the opening will start with a clown in a dark room sitting in the spotlight. As he rises, the spotlight gets brighter. He will mix between being a happy clown, and a sad clown. This will be edited together. Over this, we will have lots of dissolves with clown associated items like playing cards, juggling balls etc to show the credits. A fade to black will show the location of a park and the swings and round about will be moving on its own. Then we will see the clown again using the park. Sometimes he will be happy playing, sometimes he will be sad. Nursery rhymes that are slowed down will be played here. Then we will hear little voices of a child and clown talking. Child is lost, clown says ‘come with me, I’ll take you home…’

In a dark room, we see the clown as well as the child. The child is now also dressed as a clown and the older clown is helping to get the younger clown ready. We will show the young child imitating the behavior of the older clown which gets him ready to be part of this cult. The last bit will show the child and clown both dressed in their costumes leaving the house. They will walk off into the distance together which makes the audience question what their motives are.

Narrative structure: We will follow Todorov’s structure of a clear start, middle and end in the two minutes but we do not want to give away too much.

Characters: antagonist who will be the clown, child clown who will initially be the victim who turns into the antagonist’s side-kick.

mise en scene:

Location: a dark unknown room to first show him, a park as it hits twilight, a house as the two clowns get ready and a street when they walk down.

Lighting: spotlight on him at the start, the rest of the film will be in low key lighting.

Costume: Clown outfits with clown make-up. We want the clown make-up to look really scary.

Iconography: cards, juggling balls, a balloon, children’s bucket that the clown will be playing with

Body language and facial expression: will vary depending on what mood the antagonist is feeling. We want to show a mixture of this to show that the personality and actions of the clown are unpredictable.

Film influences: IT the clown, Halloween, scary or die, the dark knight rises

Why is this opening conventional to a thriller? It is conventional because the antagonists motives are not clear, and his motives with the child are also not revealed. As the child imitates him and becomes like him, the audience will questions what has happened whilst they have been together which is what makes them want to watch the rest of the film.

What themes does your thriller present? Clown, imitation, friendship

What response will you get from your audience? We want them to initially feel really scared of the antagonist as they do not know anything about his personality as it changes so much. Then we want them to feel scared when he has the child and by the end when they leave together, we want the audience to feel confused and nervous.

Planning:Developing ideas in groups - Miss Begum

Initial planning

Idea 1-Emeka

For my initial idea I have conjured up a more than basic idea and draft towards a final idea using all my research from former blogs and from the data I had collected in my questionnaires. Further research may help me in further improving my idea rather than changing the full thing and also help my group to decide on a final idea with some aspects and influence of my initial idea.

Narrative –

For the narrative of my opening I went for a character trying to run away from his mistakes and regrets which are portrayed as big men in suits with no face to the audience but to him are still just his mistakes and regrets. Which I found a good idea as most thrillers tend to have the character running from an actual thing whereas I would have made it his own problems based on the things he done portrayed through characters with no identity. The idea was based on an episode in Sci-Fi Drama, Doctor Who of which the characters were aliens in black suits called The Silence.

Title –

The title of my film was hard to decide and I had many ideas including taking the name of the characters I named in Doctor Who and calling it the Silence as his thoughts are portrayed differently to the audience which could leave the audience confused yet intrigued as to what the movie will be about. Another name I went for was Who’s Who as if to say both the audience and the character are confused and we have no idea who is who, whether his troubles are caused by him or they are caused by these men in suits is something the audience will want to pay attention to. Another name I may use for my opening thriller is ‘?’ as if to say we as a production company are speechless and don’t know what to say or what to make as the thriller title which helps to aid in confusing and adding a psychological effect to the thriller.

Sub-Genre –

Considering the many different sub-genres available for my thriller opening I came to the conclusion that I could make it whatever but to suit the purpose the sub-genres I have chosen from the possible many are first, Psychological as many scenes will give the audience a spice of authenticity in order to gain a psychological response and receive better feedback. The other sub-genre was Drama as it has the sense that is has an intention to be more serious than relaxed and comedic, with the focus of having characters dealing with realistic ordeals and emotional struggles.

Character –

For characters, I have gone for the victim of which he is to himself and has to find a way to do everything himself, he has no-one and is his own hero, due to the fact the characters face may not be seen often it will be better to make the character a bit of a subtle character in terms of noise and not action Another character is the men in the suits as his thoughts and regrets but the audience don’t know and won’t understand if they are real or just his imagination. Another character I include in my opening is a psychiatrist in which their part may be to tell him that he is alright but that character too is just in his head and isn’t apparent to the audience but to us a producers and him as it is his worries.

Theory Application –

With theory application I would use Todorov’s theory of Equilibrium, Disequilibrium and then New Equilibrium but may switch the last around to leave the audience on a cliff hanger instead of ending it there and then, this would be better as it would leave the audience questioning the motion and what just happened further making them more interested in my opening. Todorov’s theory is by far the most simplest of the four of them as for films like this where there aren’t that many characters it allows someone to make something without too much hassle or problems of what to add to a small scene. Using elements from Aristotle who centered his theories round themes and emotions. I may use his structure which consisted of the film going from an ‘Exposition’ in order to know the character. Then next in his theory was the Rising Action which is when the protagonist is able to finally understand his/her goal allowing them to start working towards it. It reaches the Climax which becomes point of the greatest overall tension; the phase in which everything goes mostly wrong. Then the climax ends and there comes the Falling Action which is the turning point of the story and is where the main character makes the decision that defines the outcome of the story, then lastly comes the Denouement which is the resolution and all mysteries are solved.

Idea 2-Umut

Narrative:

A teenager is being interrogated by an officer and is being told to wear a wire so the charges are dropped. Then the next scene we see a group of masked individuals robbing a store and fleeing from the scene via bikes. The boy wearing the wire drops and the device is visible to his group. He is chased out and caught, also murdered in a disturbing manner with a message sent to the officers in charge using the boy’s blood.

Title:

No Face No Case

Sub-Genre:

Crime, Drama

Characters:

5 Teenagers around the ages of 17-23

All big builds to look intimidating

Masks on face

Theory Application:

“Barthes theory” could be applied to my narrative because most

MES:

Lighting and colour:

Interrogation room could have high key lighting with no filters to show the seriousness and security. However the heist could be carried out in the nigh, therefore low key lighting and maybe a grey colour filter to portray danger and death.

Settings and iconography:

An interrogation room is a typical setting for a thriller film, especially for an opening scene. The store could be a warehouse or factory, which may still be really convenient to a thriller film.

Body language and facial expression:

Body language should portray strength and power so the actors would have to keep their muscles stiff. Facial expression wouldn’t be a problem as the heist is going to carried out with masks, however the other characters such as the police officer, teenager being interrogate and owner and workers of the store may be difficult to get into character.

Advantages of this idea:

·        Bikes are easy to access

·        Teenagers could be found easily as were in a school

Disadvantages of this idea:

·        Murder may be difficult to look realistic

·        Finding a device

·        Finding a store to participate

Idea 3-Abass

Narrative: a man is stalking a young teenage girl that goes to school. He does this by looking at her Facebook looking where she is at times of the day and going outside her school looking where she hangs out after school. One day he sees the girl alone in a park and attacks her until she is unstably damaged. Police and ambulance come and the man runs away and loses the police. The girls is damaged and is near death. The true motives of the man is unknown.

Title: who’s who- this is the title because you don’t know who the actual attack is.

Sub-genre: drama- as the friends and family of the victim are devastated

Psychological-because seeing the way the girl gets attacked affects the audience in a psychological way

Characters: antagonist-the man, victim-Jessica (the girl)

Themes: violence- when the man attacks the girl.

 Stalking-when the man finds out everything about the girl.

Narrative structure: todorov’s theory: equilibrium-when everything is fine and the girl is going to school. Disequilibrium-when the guy attacks the girl. New equilibrium- when the attack is over.

Advantages: the Narrative of the story has a good effect on the audience.

The story of the opening scene is good.

Disadvantages: the story is too conventional.

We might not be able to find an empty park for this too take place.

Lighting: low key lighting because it creates more fear to the audience and it affects them psychologically. If I were to use high key lighting it wouldn’t be as effective as the audience would think the guy doesn’t pose a threat.

Cinematography: close-up on girl in order to show facial expression. And establishing shot to show the environment.

Conclusion: after gathering all our ideas we decided a final idea considering all our ideas we put elements from all our ideas and made it to one idea instead of picking one specific idea.

Research: Questionnaire results - Mrs. Begum

This graph shows the gender of people that took the questionnaire. The results shows that I gave the questionnaire to more males than females. This will help me with creating my final product because I will know what the different genders like to see in a thriller opening. Seeing that there is more males doing this questionnaire want to aim it more to males but that is not to say that women won’t like it as well.

This graph shows the amount of participants of the questionnaire that watch thriller films. This graph shows that majority of the people that did this questionnaire watch thriller films. This will help me because if the person doesn’t watch thriller what is the point of me getting their feedback.

This graph shows how often participants of the questionnaire watch thriller films. The graph shows that most of the people that did this questionnaire watch thrillers often but it does also show that a few people hardly and rarely watch thrillers. This will help with my production because I will know if I got feedback of a person that watches thrillers often. This will help me with decision making because if I get feedback from a person that often watches thriller films I know that they have knowledge on thriller films and have  lot to say on how to improve it.

This graph shows me what age certificates participants of this questionnaire would like to see in a thriller film. This graph shows that majority of the people who participated in the questionnaire would like to see a 15 film. I think this is mainly because I asked mostly people from that age group. This will help me decide what age to make my opening scene and I will probably make it a 15.

This graph show what sub-genre the audience would prefer. This shows that most people would like to see action films in this thriller opening scene. This will help me decide what sub-genre to include in my thriller opening. The sub-genre I probably go to do is action.

This graph shows what the audience would prefer to see in the film whether it be dark lighting or bright lighting. This graph shows that the majority of the people voted for dark lighting. This has benefited me because now I am going to use dark lighting as only one person voted for bright

lighting.

This graph show what soundtrack participants of the questionnaire would like to see in the opening scene. The results show that majority of the people voted for rock and this is probably because it is the scariest and disturbing type of music. This will help me decide what I am going to include in my opening scene. Now I am most like to use rock music as most of the people voted for that.

This graph shows whether people would like to see gore and violence in thriller films. Results show that the majority of the people who participated in the questionnaire would like to see gore and violence in thriller films. This will help me because this will help me decide whether or not to include gore and violence in my opening scene, which I have decided that I am going to include violence and gore in my opening scene.

This graph shows whether the audience like to see the villains face hidden or not. Majority said no but also a lot said yes. This will make me decide whether or not to hide the face of the villain. Even though more people said no I am still going to make the villains face hidden as a lot of people said yes and I think it’s a good idea.

This graph shows whether the audience like seeing ‘stalking’ in a thriller film. Majority of the participants in the questionnaire said no to the question, but still a decent amount of people said yes. This will help me decide whether to include ‘stalking’ in my thriller film and right now it is in favour of not to be included in the opening scene so I am probably not going to use it.

Research: Questionaire - Miss Begum

 what is the importance of primary research? Relate to direct, specific audience feedback

Feedback from the audience is important because the audience is who you are making this for so what they would prefer in your movie is important to consider since they are the ones that watch it and judge it. The purpose of collecting feedback is to improve or increase your ideas on what to do for your movie. Feedback is also a way to learn from mistakes that you did the first time. It’s beneficial because say if I ask which lighting scares you more bright or dark lighting and they answer dark then I’d be good if used dark lighting because that’s what the audience want.

Advantages and disadvantages from a questionnaire.

Advantages

Direct feedback from audience

Relevant feed back

Allow you to handle data

Specific to idea

Make key decision

Disadvantages

There’s no way to tell that they are telling the truth

People couldn’t be asked to answer the question properly

The person might be forgetful and not think about the question if full context.

Who did I give the questionnaire to?

My thriller film will be a 15 so most of the people I asked where teenagers. I also asked a couple of young adults as a lot of them will be watching this opening scene as well. I asked mostly students because students are normally the people that go and watch thriller films with their friends

My questionnaire

In conclusion

Doing a questionnaire and getting feedback from people who will be watching the opening scene will help me decide what to put in my opening scene of my thriller. This has also helped me understand what an audience would like to see in a thriller film.

Research: Opening credits - Mrs. Quinlan

Opening credits

What are opening credits?

Opening credits are the text that are shown in the beginning of a movie showing things like the Production Company, main actors, editor and who it’s written by.  The purpose of opening credits is to inform the audience on all these things because a lot of them are interested in who is in the film or who produced it so that they know on what to expect from the film.

What is their purpose?

The purpose of opening credits is to inform the audience on who produced the movie and who stars in the movie. Opening credits also have sequences which foreshadow what is going to happen in the movie and this gives the audience a good Idea of what is going to be in the movie.

What information do they provide?

Production Company

Studio name

Producers

Actors

Editors

Soundtrack

Costume

Story board

Written by

How do they make the audience feel?

How they make the audience feel depends on what type of opening it is. If it’s just a black screen with writing on top of it the audience will get easily bored. But if the opening credits have a nice soundtrack with it and the images in the background show meaning to the movie the audience will get entertained by watching the opening credits. The opening credits are extremely important because the audience will know what to expect from the movie by seeing the opening credits.

Purge opening credits analysis

The opening scene of the purge foreshadows what is going to happen in the movie as it shows videos of people committing crimes in the night as the movie has a theme of crime. The opening credits still show conventional stuff such as Production Company, studio name actors. This opening credits does not make the audience bored so the audience will most likely continue watching the movie because the opening credits were interesting.

Conclusion

In conclusion researching about opening credits has improved my understanding on what they put on the opening credits and what is conventional to an opening credit scene. This will help me create my own thriller opening because I now have a few ideas on how I am going to include opening credits for my thriller opening.