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.