Production roles- Miss Miller

Production roles are used to provide organisation and consistency, everyone knows what role they have and can focus on that specific job. If a certain production member needs to change something or discuss a certain aspect of the film they know exactly who and where to go to do this. This results in the filming and editing becoming less tom consisting, as the film can produced as efficiently as possible. Production roles also allow the film to be consistent as each person knows how to do their job and keep at the same quality throughout, whereas if roles were not allocated then the quality of each job would be non consistent and the film would not be to a acceptable quality. The roles include:

Camera Operator - The camera operator is also known as the cinematographer who professionally operates the the film or the video camera. They are usually responsible for operating the camera and maintaining composition and camera angles throughout a scene or shot. Camera operators collaborate with directors, actors and crew members to make creative decisions.

Actors - For the audience, actors are the most visible and tangible part of the production. An actors role consists of rehearsing and reciting there line and performing them on camera. They act in a dramatic and comical way to entertain the audience and create and effect.

Editor - The editors job is to organise the footage and arranges individual shots into one continuous sequence. Every scene has dozens of different shots that have to be chosen and assembles from all the film. The editor's choices about which shots to use and the order in which to place them have a profound effect on the appearance of the overall film.

Location Manager - The location managers role is to identify and find the ideal locations for a film shoot, the arranging to film on the property. The role involves negotiating with each locations owners and once the filming has begun they are in charge of managing all aspect of shooting in each location.

Sound Technician - When sound was integrated into the film-making process, music, sound effects and dialogue became essential tools for enhancing a film's visual qualities. The sound is going to be created on garage band and plays over certain screen shots to create effect.

Storyboard Manager - A storyboard manager organizes and manages timelines to ensure work is completed on time. They plan the shots and camera angles that are going to be filmed and provides an overview plot of the story-line.
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Film Director - The job of the film director is to interpret the script and make it into a film. This can involve planning locations, shots, pacing, acting styles and anything else which affects the feel of the movie. It also involves them overseeing the cinematography and technical aspects film directs coach and direct the actors toward the required performance whilst coordinating staff on set. They are for directing the shooting timetable and ensuring the deadlines are met.

Production roles are a pivotal part of any film as they enable the co-ordination of roles within films. Our production roles were as follows:

producers - Domenico Martini; Domenico put himself forward to be producer as he was confident in doing this he done a good job in producing our opening clip.

directors - Domenico Martini, Robyn Tansley; both these were directors as they came mainly up with the narrative so I let them take control of this area as I knew I would be more confident in other areas. They both directed well and they managed to come out with a good final thriller clip

actors -  Robyn Tansley; Robyn was the actor as she is blonde and we wanted to follow the conventions of a thriller by using a blonde female victim. Robyn done well in this role as she managed to come across as an innocent female victim.

director of photography - Harry Fagan; I put myself forward to be the director of photography as I took media last year and was confident in using the tripod and camera, I also used the camera in the preliminary task so I got a feel of how to use them and felt I done a good job in filming our thriller clip by using all different camera shots.

music producer - Harry Fagan; I wanted to be the music producer as I was the editor of our thriller clip and felt I would know which music would go best with my editing, I felt I done a good job as I used music which related to my editing which was fast paced.

screenplay writer - Domenico Martini, Robyn Tansley

mes co-cordinator -  Robyn Tansley; Robyn was the M.E.S co-ordinator as she was the actor so decided what she wanted to wear and what location she wanted to film out. She done a good job as she wore clothes to come across as an innocent female victim and the setting was conventional of a thriller by being set in a forest.

editor -  Harry Fagan; I put myself forward to be editor of our thriller clip as I done media for GCSE's and was familiar to editing a thriller clip, not being biased but I changed the thriller clip a lot as the editing made the clip change from just a narrative to a jerky fast paced, gloomy opening clip. 

Planning sound- Miss Miller

Through my research I found sounds are extremely important as they add emotion and can create rhythm. It causes emotion as it can help the audience understand what is going on and it can cause suspense within a thriller film. It causes rhythm as it makes the film flow and gives the film a meaning through the music. Sound is even more important in the thriller genre as sound can create tension to make the audience scared, in my thriller clip I wanted to have sounds which would unnerve the audience and create a lot of tension for the audience, as our narrative was a girl being possessed after drinking the water I wanted the sounds to be eerie and have a whispering effect.










                                                                                                                                                At the beginning of the opening sequence the credits go over a fuzzy tv the sound which will be used is a loud crackling sound played above the eerie music which starts which you can faintly start to hear in the background. This loud crackling noise is used to straight away unnerve the audience and create the tension our group wanted our narrative to create. The sound which will be added behind this is a song which is played through out the whole opening sequence the sound is a mysterious piano played with spooky eerie whispers played over it, this sound will be good within my thriller film as it builds suspense, it has a deep and strong sound that will fit into my thriller film. This sound is conventional to a thriller film as it has a good solid bass that can go well with the rhythm of the scenes, it also creates suspense as the whispers grow louder the closer the victim gets to her death. We are also using parallel sound for the television, the glass smashing on the floor and the girls footsteps when she is walking through the forest. We are using this just to make the audience jump and to create a tense atmosphere. By using parallel sound here can help the audience build a relationship with the victim as they will feel sorry for them.  

Where are narrative is interrupted by flashing images of a flickering light or a radio the sound we will use over this is a distorted radio and mechanical distorted sounds, these sounds will be very high pitched and eerie sound, it would make the audience feel uncomfortable when watching the thriller film and it would also make the audience want to watch the film as they know something bad will happen. I would use this sound in my thriller film when the flashing images come up which interrupts the audience to unnerve them, as this is a uncomfortable feeling for the victim and i want this to show for the audience. This sound is conventional as it will make the audience feel uncomfortable when watching the film and it will fit it really well with the scene that i have chosen this sound to go with.

The sounds used in my thriller will hopefully be hugely effective as it will be a main factor for creating tension towards the audience, the sounds are all conventional of thrillers and the sounds make the audience feel for the victim as they know she is possessed by the whispers playing over the music and as the music and whispers grow louder the audience feels sympathy towards the victim as they know something bad is going to happen to her.

Planning characters- Miss Miller

The purpose of characters within films is to give the audience something to connect with and focus on, they also project the narrative to make it entertaining and give it purpose. Without characters there wouldn't be much point within films because there would be no narrative to help entertain the audience.

In a thrill it is important to make the representation clear to the audience, by doing this they will sympathises more making the effect on the audience stronger. It is conventional to show the personality of the characters in the opening of a thriller. Making a character relatable to the audience is a key in making a good thriller, this gives the audience the chance to sympathise or empathise with the character this makes the audience feel apart of the film. By creating this relationship is also makes it more tense and make the audience mirror the same feelings as the main characters. They can related from clothing, music or personality, by making the audience more emotionally attached to the character they will be much more scared in further events We want to make our character as relatable to the audience as possible to engage the audience.

Our victim will be a  blonde female,this is a very stereotypical element used within thriller films. Females are often associated with being vulnerable and innocent which is a strong representation of our victim as she will be naive and weak but also will be portrayed as an average person waking up doing her make up to build a relationship with the audience. The audience will be able to connect with this character because our target audience is of a similar age to the victim, therefore they can relate to how the victim is responding to her situation. Representing our victim as innocent also helps create emotions for our audience as they will empathise for her this means the audience will be much more engaged within the narrative.

This character planning post has been useful within our planning for our opening sequence of a thriller film because we know how to portray our characters in terms of connecting with the audience and applying to thriller conventions. This will help make our opening sequence more entertaining and technically good.

Opening Scene narration- Miss Miller

Our thriller clip starts with a shot of a fuzzing TV, this would hopefully create an enigma as it would unnerve the audience, The narrative begins with Robyn a blonde female character, we chose a blonde female because we thought it would be conventional to a thriller genre. The girl wakes up like a normal day, we see her getting ready putting her make up on this is to make her seem innocent and build a relationship with the audience as they would sympathise with her, this is suddenly interrupted by fast editing where we included jerky images of a lamp we got this inspiration from Se7en where the clip is very jerky and distorting we hoped this would get the audience on the edge. As the opening scene continues we see the girl walk into the bathroom pour water on her face then walk downstairs to get some water whilst this is happening we have included editing of jerky images to unease the audience. The scene continues with the girl starting to act weird sitting down and pouring the glass of water on the floor this makes the audience think something is up and the audience will be able to unravel that the once innocent  is far from normal, this will create suspense as the audience will know its building up to a climax. The water is being poured out of the glass we have used editing to make this slow to emphasise the water is deadly as the girl got possessed by the water. By being possessed by the water the girl is seen walking through the forest during these scenes we included jerky images as well to keep the audience still on edge and keep them engaged, we dragged out the walk through the forest to leave the audience in suspense to see how the climax ends. The girl has finally arrived at the lake after being possessed the final shot is then zoomed in on the water to show the girl has killed her self by jumping in the water.

I believe our opening scene has the conventions and elements of a good thriller clip. We tried to incorporate the idea of typical thriller conventions such as low key lighting we thought to include this idea as it emphasises the iconography of the young girl because the dark lighting, will make the girl seem brighter because what she is wearing. This will make her seem more powerful and therefore will add to the already established relationship between both the audience and the characters because it will make her possesion seem more individual and will add to the sympathy.

Filming schedule- Miss Georgiou

Film schedule is important as our whole team know what were doing, when were filming and for how long, without our filming schedule we would not have been organised and things could have gone wrong planning a filming schedule meant our group could get on with our filming to plan so we could focus on the important things such as filming the different shots for our narrative. The filming schedule is an easy guide for each member and so the whole team know what we are doing. We kept to the film schedule however we had to film more as on the day we was meant to film it rained so we had to film the forest bit again on a different day. Below is our filming schedule:

Research into Cinematography- Miss Miller

Cinematography is used in thriller films to show all the different expressions that the characters have. It is also used to show the variety of backgrounds that are used in the thriller films, which also allows the audience to understand the emotions of the characters too. The film I researched cinematography for was Taken 2.

One of the shots used in the trailer was a close up; the evidence for this is when the leaders face is zoomed into. This was shown to show the emotion of the leaders face because after the first film when the main character killed all of his sons and his close friends that were in the gang. This relates to the film because it shows what the leader of the gang is feeling and he wants revenge on the main character again. This would be expected to be found in a thriller, as there is revenge and violence and this is convectional that the audience would look for in a thriller film. This scene would be typically expected in a thriller film because it starts the story off and tells the audience what is to be expected through the film, it also gives the audience a sneak peak of what is going to happen.

Another camera shot that was used was the mid shot; this was when the main character was having a stand off with another person from the gang. 

This mid-shot was shown to show the body expressions of both people. They were both very nervous because they both didn’t want to be the one that was the first to shot.  It relates to the movie because it shows what he had to do (kill the man) to help save his family because they have been ‘taken’ by the gang. This shot would be used in a thriller a lot because you get to see what is happening with their body expressions. This shot is conventional to a thriller film because it allows you to understand the feelings of the characters that are having the gun stand-off, the mid shot allows the audience to get involved with the film and the audience would expect to see this in a thriller as it shows the body language of the characters and the back ground that is important in this scene.

The third camera shot that was used was a long shot, this was shown when the girl is on the ledge trying to hide from the gang, they use this shot to show how high up she was and the danger she was at by going up on the ledge of the hotel they are staying in. the long shot shows how scared is and what she is going through to hide from the gang, the shot also shows her body expressions. The long shot is used to show what she must be going through to hiding from the gang and trying to protect her self from getting take for a second time. This shot would be used in a thriller film to show the background and the body expressions of the person, it allows the audience to get engaged and to feel the expression that the girl is going through trying to protect herself from the gang. The audience would expect to see the background and the girl in this scene because it gets the audience on edge of their seats as well, and shows how high up the girl is and how scared she must be.

This analysis has taught me what camera shots can be used in the thriller film and it has allowed me to understand where the camera shots can be used in different ways. For example I would use a close up shot to  show the expressions of the characters face and I would used a long shot to show the body expressions of the character and the background that wants to be seen.

Risk assessment- Miss Georgiou

 During filming considering risks are important as my group and I want to be able to know what to do if we are put into one of the situations that we have wrote down. It also helps to make sure that the crew and the actors health is safe and is not going to be at risk at any point of filming.As a group we discussed different hazards that could take place and as a group we considered how we could prevent these hazards. This risk assessment will assist while filming as we have gone over all the possible outcomes of the risks and how we would deal with them.The risk assessments we wrote down makes sure that the team and actors well being is not going to be put at risk at any point of filming. The risk assessment will help us when filming as we know how to prevent dangerous things from occurring meaning that the team will be safe at all times. Below is our risk assessment table.

Planning opening credits- Miss Georgiou

For the planning of our opening credits we analysed other thriller films opening credits the film our class analysed was Se7en, this film has a good opening credit sequence as it builds suspense and gives you and idea what is going to be within the thriller film. Also it sets the scene about how the character acts and what type of person he is. The colours that are used in the opening credits of the film Se7en are black and white, this builds suspense and it makes the character be mysterious that wants to hurt or attack someone and the contrast of white and black represents the darkness and evil of a character against the innocence of another character. Other colours that are used is the colour red which symbolises blood and danger and it could symbolise that he is angry and wants to hurt someone. The style of the credits that are used is crooked writing, this shows that there may be an evil or stalking character that is in the opening sequence and also suggest that he is not a normal person, maybe mentally ill or has a crooked sense of morality. Also the writing was jumpy which shows that the film is going to put full of suspense and the film is going to make the audience be put on the edge of their seats. The fonts that they were using were also different fonts as they were having bigger fonts for the more important roles within the film like the director, which makes the names of the important people within the production stand out to the audience.

The generic conventions that are used within the thriller film credits is that it builds suspense, as there is a stalker that is cutting up pictures and colouring/writing, which also creates a mystery. The character is also mysterious as there you only see their hands and not their face or body expressions, so the film don't want to give anything away during the opening sequence, which draws the audience in and gets there attention, making them interested in the film right away. The character is sharping weapons which shows he is getting ready to attack someone or getting prepared for an attack to happen and these actions build tension, fear and suspense which makes the audience even more interested in the film. The music that is used is eerie, but there is natural but exaggerated and emphasised as it build suspense, the tempo of the is picked up when the character does things like sharping a blade which gets the audiences attention and lets them know that the action of sharpening blades is very important to the story. The emotions that this has on the audience is that they will be anxious to see what happens next. The order of appearance in the opening credits were the production company, the director, the actor, then the title of the film, I feel that if the title would have been at the end of the credits it would have been more conventional to a thriller film. Then the actors continued, casting, music and costumes. Then the editors, producers , camera operator. co-producers, producer, writer and then the director.

The film I picked to individually analyse the opening credits for was Final Destination there is a good use of colour music and lighting. The colour that is used in this open sequence is dark black and white colours as it makes the audience understand what is happening and it also makes the audience want to watch on. The black and white colours connote evil and darkness (black) and goodness and innocence (white). Also another colour that is used is the colour red at the end of the sequence as it says "this is the end" this shows that they want the audience want to see like something bad is going to happen during the thriller film.  The colour red connotes danger, evil, blood and pain, things that are all conventional to thriller films. The style of credits that have been used during this credit scene is that the writing flickers and when the credits first comes onto the screen it it has a flash of bright light going through the words/credits. Also the writing fades into the background which creates suspense and an enigma about what is going to happen for the rest of the film. When the writing comes onto the screen the background is always dark, so this shows that the film has a dark story line, which shows that it's a thriller.

For the opening credits of our group thriller film, we collectively discussed our ideas for the text size, colour and the font style. Using different films as our inspiration, we decided that we would want the font to appear fragmented (as it does in Psycho) or to flicker, (as in Se7en) as though the mind of the attacker is mentally unstable.  We also decided that the size of the font for our title should be the biggest, as this is one of the most important elements within this opening credits sequence. The size of the font will gradually decrease as the different names appear on the screen, to connote both the importance of the members of the production team, and also hold connotations about the fading sanity of the attacker, as the unstable and twisted part of his mind consumes him, just like the size of the font decreases.

The font that I will be putting forward to my group as an idea is a font that looks like dripping blood with a deep red colour to connote danger the font is distorted as well with a background shadow, I feel that this would be good to use in our opening credits as it is distorted writing and would have the effect that something bad is going to happen through the writing. This type of font gives the audience the impression that the girl is unstable and twisted, characteristics that are conventional to thriller films because characters like this create enigma's, fear and suspense, elements which are all conventional to thrillers as they draw the audience in and help the audience to feel more involved in the film. Compared to the normal font on the right (above), it stands out and has a better effect than the normal font, I would want to use this font as it will help the audience understand that the film is going to be eventful and full of suspense.

The order of appearance that we will use is:

• Production company
• Editors
• Music
• Actors
• Casting
• Storyboards / screenplay
• Costume / make up
• Location manager
• Safety manager

We will also use a mixture of natural sounds and dramatic music as the soundtrack for our opening credits. As in Se7en, the natural sounds will be enhanced, and play over the top of the dramatic music. This will enable us to make the film appear as realistic, and therefore as threatening as possible. The scary, dramatic music will give the audience an idea of how scary and dramatic the thriller will be and it will also get the audiences attention and make them interested in the thriller straight away.

Research into sound- Miss Miller

Sound is a very important element in thriller films. Sound makes a huge difference in the way a thriller film shocks the audience, without sound, thrillers would not have the same effect as they do with sound. Without sound in thrillers films the audience would not feel the emotions, that the film aims to give them when watching the film. Sound is used to create an understanding for the audience and to create a response from the audience and engage them with what they are watching. I researched how sound is used in the film Strangers Sound is used in thriller films to inform the audience of the different situations that the characters are going through and it is also used to help the audience understand the narrative of the thriller film.

One of the sounds used in the Strangers trailer are diegetic sound. It is an off screen sound because the audiences do not know where it is coming from. The evidence for this sound is when the couple are hugging and they hear a ‘bang’ sound. This sound obviously frightens the couple because they both pause in the moment and look around at the door. The sound shows that someone or something has been around and something bad is probably going to happen. The audience would expect this to be found in a thriller because it makes the movie more interesting for the audience. Because the sound is diegetic and off screen, the sudden 'bang' shocks the audience and the sound relates to the film because it builds suspense in the film as it is makes the audience on edge and jumpy, which draws the audience in.

The second sound that was used in the Strangers trailer was a on screen sound, this was when the swing was making a noise like someone had been playing around with it. It could also be seen as a parallel sound because the swing is making a noise, which suggests that there is a unknown presence around the house.  It shows that the audience know that something is there are they are ready for something bad to happen to the couple. This is a conventional sound in the thriller because it would be a jumpy sound that would be used in a thriller. This makes the audience feel more tense, scared, jumpy and on edge because they know something is going to happen and that also makes them feel more involved in the thriller.

The third and final sound that I will be analysing is the non-diegetic sound, the evidence for this is when they are in the car trying to get away from the strangers and there is creepy music in the background which shows that something unnatural is going to happen (which is normal in a thriller film). It shows that the couple and the characters that are being attacked by the stranger are in some kind of danger because they are going to be trapped in between there car, the strangers car and the house. It relates because it shows the audience that the main characters are in trouble and are very scared with what the strangers are going to do with them. This also then makes the audience scared about what the strangers will do to the victims, so the audience is drawn into the film. This is a typical narrative because it shows that something bad is going to happen and the main characters that are being attacked are in danger, so this would be typically found in a thriller film.

This analysis has taught me where sounds can be introduced in the thriller film and where would use them in different situations. For example I know when a diegetic sound is used, when you want to use a sound that is off screen, this may be used to create suspense in the thriller film.

Planning Mise-en-scene- Miss Georgiou

Settings and Iconography:

• Dark abandoned room - We decided to use a dark abandoned room because when the girl wakes up when she is tied up on the bed, it helps create an enigma to our story line. It hides the details of the surrounding making the victim and audience unaware of where about she is.
• We are going to film our clip in the dark to have low key lighting which is conventional to a thriller film we will use iconography items such as torches to be our light source. These will act as background and filler lights creating shadows make it seem mysterious. This scene also allows us to use low key lighting that hides peoples facial expressions. This is also a convention to the thriller genre and will be useful for hiding the identity of our killer.
• Iconography items such as ropes - We have chosen to use ropes to tie the victim up when she has been kidnapped and put in an isolated dark room. This is conventional because the audience can she that she is trapped and the killer has done this to her.

Lighting and Colour:

• Low-Key lighting - We decided to use low-key lighting in our thriller because it is easy to create shadows which keeps the audience in suspense. It also helps conceal the identity of the stalker which keeps the enigma of who is it.
• Colour black and white - The killer will wear a black hoody to highlight to the audience the character they play. This is conventional because the colour black connotes bad and death. To show the audience which characters are the victim they both are going to wear bright colours as they are going to be wearing bright Halloween costumes. This connotes there innocence highlighting that they are the victim in the situation.

Facial Expressions and Body Language:

• Facial expressions of shock, panic, fear - When the victim wakes up and realises what has happened and that she is tied up she begins to panic. The audience will be able to see this through the facial expressions of the character. The victims eyes will be wide open to highlight her fear.
• Body Language - The victims body language shows the audience the hierarchy of power between the characters. This will be done through making the victim curl up with her hands and feet tied giving the impression the victim is smaller than she is. This is conventional because it highlights the fact the she is trapped and has no control.

Positioning of the character and objects in the scene:

• The characters positioning - The Victim will be positioned in the centre of the screen to show her importance and the killer will be positioned at the side. This make the audience suspicious of the characters and shows who is the protagonist and the antagonist.

Costume and Make-Up:

• The victims - The victims will be dressed up in cute Halloween costumes to make the audience see that they are innocent and can cause no danger but are the victims. However when the girl wakes up tied up on the bed the victim will have dark circle around the eyes to show exhaustion and struggle. This is conventional because women are seen as the typical victims because they are perceived to be the weaker gender.
• The killer - The killer is going to be wearing black clothes and have her face covered  to hide the facial expressions to create hidden identity which is a typical convention of a thriller film,. This is conventional because it prevents the audience from building a relationship with them and shows they are the antagonist.

Overall, i think our groups mise-en-scene is conventional because all five areas have been displayed in our thriller to help keep the audience in suspense. The audience will be able to tell who the killer is and who are the victims due to the colours they are dressed in and can build a relationship with the victims through their facial expressions. Each code and convention help contribute to the suspense making the film a good thriller.

Planning editing styles-Miss Georgiou

Editing is important within a thriller film as it helps to engage the audience whilst watching the film, it helps keep the audience interested. Editing helps build tension and suspense really well which grabs the audiences attention. Editors job is to organise the footage and arrange individual shot combining them into one continuous sequence. Every scene has dozens of different shots that have to be chosen and assemble from all of the film. The editor's choices about which shots to use and the order in which place them, have a profound effect on the appearance of the overall film.

Editing is important because it creates a certain atmosphere for the audience, editing can turn a normal boring narrative into a jerky, fast paced and suspenseful thriller. Editing is where you take the best camera shots and arrange them accordingly to create the story-line also editing helps you put different effects over the clips you have filmed to make them look better.

What types of editing styles will you include in your thriller and why?

We have decided to use a number of different editing styles in our thriller film to help build suspense, surprise and shock to the audience.

• Fast Editing - We have decided to use fast editing in our thriller film because it can show a large amount of information within a couple of seconds. By using the fast editing it will make the audience nervy. It straight away creates an enigma as it is fast paced and jumpy. We also decided to use fast editing to create a chaotic atmosphere which is conventional to the thriller genre.
• Projector effect- We have decided to use this effect as over the opening scene it makes our clip look gloomy and creates a mysterious effect for the viewers.
• Dissolve cut/Flashback - We are going to use this style of editing to show the audience a flash back of  why the girl is possessed.
   

How will your editing styles make your thriller conventional?

Fast editing will make my thriller film conventional because it is at a fast speed. The quicker the pace of the film the higher increase of anxiety the audience will feel. It is also conventional because it enables us to create suspense as the fast editing keeps going away from the narrative to fuzzy tv screens or radios. This creates an enigma and makes the thriller film starts of with an unanswered question.

The Project effect is conventional because it makes the clip look dark and gloomy this is elements you always find in thriller films, this effect will help create tension and mystery for the viewers, this editing will help the audience build a relationship with the female victim as this effect makes the setting look dark and gloomy so the audience will sympathise towards the female victim.

The dissolve cut is conventional to the thriller genre as it reveals what happened to the victim and answers how she got in that predicament in the first place. A dissolve cut allows the audience to see the disorientation and confusion the victim is experience as if it is answering the audiences question of what happened.

Group storyboard -Miss Miller

Storyboards are important because they tell me roughly what should be happening during my thriller, its puts a picture in my head at how we are going to do it and what we are going to do during the thriller film. This will help our group because it sets the scene for how we all want our thriller film to be we have put all of our idea together to help make these story boards. We used everyone's ideas as we don't want just one persons ideas we want to all to contribute the thriller film.Our group storyboard is easy to understand, all our group know what were doing to create our sequence and it will help us see what we have to do. This final storyboard has used all of our group's ideas as we used Domenico's idea of having a blonde female victim and used my idea as the setting was set in a creepy house and forest, finally we used Robyn's idea of using an unseen villain.  

 

 

Individual storyboard- Miss Miller

What is the purpose of a storyboard?

A main purpose of a storyboard is to illustrate to others how the final product is to be seen. As well as this, it's helps to present and clarify a vision to the rest of the production team and gives a basic outline of the whole production scene by scene.

What does it include?

A storyboard includes a graphic revealing main action of the scene, a scene description, camera techniques and audio. The audio can consist of narration, dialogue, voice over, sound effects and/or music.

How is my storyboard going to help me?

My storyboard allows me to create a clear presentation of how I would like my thriller sequence to be. It includes all the main features and main aspects  and conventions of a thriller that I want to obtain and include. My other two members of my group have also created a storyboard, which allows us to compare and use the best ideas to format a final storyboard that will be the basis of our thriller opening. A storyboard is an efficient way of doing this and combining our ideas.

Inspirations for opening sequence- Miss Miller

Inspiration is vital before you create something as it can give you ideas and in this case it shows you the elements and conventions you need to include to make your own thriller which will make my final product as successful as possible. You can take inspiration from other successful thrillers and throughout my planning for the opening sequence of my thriller I viewed various films which showed me what conventions is vital to include to make my thriller good. I got my inspiration by going on YouTube and watching various clips from successful thrillers. Throughout analysing many clips from various thriller films, I have found out how to use techniques such as; sound, conventions, cinematography and editing. From viewing other thriller films I used this information for my own thriller and I now know how to create a very effective opening scene for my own thriller film using the elements I found in thriller films I researched. By doing this research I have developed this knowledge and without out it the planning process of my scene would have been found a lot harder than what it was with the research being taken.

I got inspiration from Halloween in Halloween there is the use of hidden identity this is common convention I found in the thrillers I researched about, in Halloween the killer is wearing a mask in which covers his identity to the victim, this creates mystery and suspense. In our opening sequence our wanted to include a killer to be hidden we done this by having a killer as a demon so you can't see the killer at all this will help the audience feel even more tense. We believe this will help create an enigma which will entertain the audience as they are unaware of how the killer looks, therefore they will be curious and engaged as to what will happen to the female victim.

I also found that sound was really important  in thrillers as by watching a thriller clip with no sound and then watching one with sound, I found the one with sound was a lot more scary, I found sound can effect the atmosphere on audience hugely finding this out I wanted to make sound a major factor in my own thriller as I now know it can make the audience tense by having jerky sounds the research for sound really brought to life just how important sound would be in my opening scene. The clip I had researched about was from Sinister, the clip used music which really got the audience on the edge of their seat as it was sharp and quick paced and was very effective as the music created an atmosphere for the whole scene. I will use this in my opening scene to do the same but, also to justify and build up key moments to the audience so they are in suspense. 

I got inspiration From shutter island the inspiration I got from this was the use of Low Key Lighting. In this shutter island I watched a scene where it shows very clearly how the changing of lighting from High to Low can have a powerful effect on the audience, the use of low key lighting has a big effect on the audience by creating an enigma, the mood of the scene is transported from a average mood to a deeply depressing mood mainly due to the sudden change of lighting. So taking inspiration from this I should consider having a sudden change in lighting even more sudden than the one in the scene so I have a more thrilling effect on the audience. I also found in many thrillers that a use of a blonde female victim is evident in thrillers blonde females are shown as weak and vulnerable so I want to include this stereotypical convention into my thriller aswell.

Target audience results- Miss Miller

I will use these results we collected to help us plan our thriller film, it will allow us to understand what age group and what gender want to see in the thriller film, it will also help us understand what age group we would want would want to target for our thriller film. I feel as if the research will help us understand what the general public want to see in a thriller film.Within this post I will be discussing and analysing why each questions results are relevant for my research into making an opening sequence for a thriller film. We will use our feedback to help create an opening sequence which will attract to our target audience. We interviewed 40 people and concluded their result to form series of pie charts with the results in. Although our questionnaire had a mixture of open and closed questions, we decided to only conduct the closed questions mainly because they are the easiest to make graphs from as they give a specific number of results.

This pie chart shows the majority of the people who completed our questionnaire was 16 years or older, 10% of people who done our questionnaire was 10 years or younger this could affect our results as our intended target audience is around the age of 15 and older as we want our thriller film to have an age rating of 15. As our target audience is around the age of 15 and older we will take the results from the age groups 16+ and 11-15 years old more seriously than the results from the 0-10 year old age group.

The second question that we asked is 'Are you male or female?'. The main reason why we asked this question was to see if our results would show the typical thriller audience which is predominately male. These results show that the majority of people who completed this questionnaire are males with 60% of the people doing our questionnaire being male. This could mean that our results may have a ‘typical’ thriller aspect as men are more likely to enjoy films that belong to the thriller genre, and are therefore more likely to choose the conventional options provided. Furthermore this may give us a different idea for our thriller, something that is very conventional. Our results showed: 

 

Our third question was about a preferred age certificate that the individual would like to see. Initially we thought to ask this question because it would provide us with the content that we would put in our thriller clip such as we would make it more gory if people wanted to see an 18. It would provide us with the vital information needed to get our clip done. These results will be useful when our group decides on the age certificate of our clip. As we can the majority of people asked would like it to be rated 18 certificate, but it is closely followed by the 15 rating. I believe even though the majority voted for the 18 certificate our group will still go for the 15 age rating to have a wider audience and the themes we are hoping to use for our narrative are not gory. The results collected were:

The next question that we asked was to see if we should include any sub-genres in our thriller clip. This question would have helped us to know which direction our thriller should go in to make our thriller clip successful. In these results we can see that drama was the category which most people chose with 35% this was closely followed by physiological with 30%. This showed us that we would need to incorporate some elements of both drama and physiological in the clip to make it as successful as we can because we can see this is what the public like most

The fifth question that was included within the questionnaire was 'What makes a thriller film effective'  the intended affect of this question was to gather a vague idea of what we should needed to included within our thriller clip. The results show that both hidden identity and camera shots were the dominant results, this would suggest to our group should use a combination of both different camera shots and a sense of hidden identity.

Collecting this data has been beneficial as it has given me and my group some help with choosing what aspects such as conventions to use in our opening clip. It has reminded me that I don't have to limit myself by using only one convention, but can use as many as I wish to. It will help me and my group when planning, as it has told us how important each aspect is, and the amount of detail we need to go in, if we want out clip to be effective. A target audience is important because then you can plan and film your thriller film aimed towards them. When planning our film and researching the genre at the start of this project we had to make sure that our story line ideas were suitable for the audience that we wished to target. As the chosen genre was a thriller  and from our questionnaire which showed that the people who watch thrillers most is 15+ so we knew straight away that we were targeting the 15+ age range. This meant that the first two minutes of our film opening needed to be suitable for a teenage/adult audience and which would also get the audience’s attention for the rest of the film.

Preliminary task- Miss Georgiou

My group consists of me, Robyn and Domenico. In the preliminary task Robyn and Domenico were acting in the preliminary task and I was in charge of the camera. Throughout this task we experimented with many different camera angles which we could possibly use in our opening sequence of a thriller movie. We used angels such as reverse shot, high angle shot, P.O.V shot, close up shot, over the shoulder shot and a wide shot.

Preliminary task: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule. This will last a maximum of one minute in length.The purpose of the preliminary task was to help us understand how to use a camera, to get use to the different camera angles that can be used and also how to upload our clip onto the computer and use the editing software. It allowed our group to understand what we would have to do in our thriller film to put it all together using the editing software that is provided, this preliminary task was vital to me understanding the editing software because the software was alien to me and it gave me a chance to play around with the tools and get used to it which helped as when it was needed to edit our thriller clip I was familiar to the software.  It also allowed our group to learn how to apply the different camera angles by using the camera for example we thought a close up would work well when we left the hall but found out the mid shot was the best to show the facial expression. We learnt that we would have to have the location of our thriller film in a quiet place because we filmed ours in the hall when people were walking past you could hear them in the background, as you can hear slight sound that was unwanted in our thriller film.

In the preliminary task I learnt how to use the camera and tripod which helped in our thriller clip this was vital as it helped me to get straight into filming our thriller clip as I was already use to the complicated camera and tripod. In conclusion I think that I was able to take some essential pointers from the preliminary task. By the end of the preliminary task we were familiar with the equipment that we were going to be using when filming our final thriller clip. The preliminary task also helped my group with our thriller film we learnt how long it would take to film our thriller film because it took us about 30 minutes to film a 1 minute clip, we had learnt various strengths from this task one of them being the first shot we chose to use may not always be the best and we did have difficulties when doing the preliminary task that we will did not do in the actual filming of our thriller film for example one of them being the noise in the background.

Group Narrative - Miss Georgiou

The three theories that were proposed are by three men Vladmir Propp, Tzvetan Todorov and Aristotle. Vladmir propps was a soviet formalist. 


Vladmir Propps theory is that characters in the sequence provide a structure for the narrative. Mainly in fairy tales the characters set the narrative. 


The typical characters he found were:A Hero- A character that seeks something.The Villain- Who opposes or actively blocks the hero's quest.The Donor- Who provides an object with magical properties.The Dispatcher- Who sends the hero on his/her quest via the message.The False Hero- Who disrupts the hero's success by making false claims.The Helper- Who aids the hero.The Princess- Acts as a reward for the hero and the object of the villains plots.The Father- Who acts to reward the hero for his effort.

His theory of narrative seemed to be mainly based in a male orientated environment and some critics would often dismiss the theory when regarding to films. Some critics may argue that Propp's strict and restrictive order of events may be an false representation of the film. 

Tzvetan Todorov theory simplified the idea of narrative theory whilst also allowing a more complex interpretation of film texts with his theory of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium. A simplified list of his theory is this:
The fictional environment begins with a state of equilibrium (everything normal, how it should be)
Then it would suffer some disruption (example of disequilibrium)
New equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative.
There are five main stages that the narrative progresses through:
1. A state of equilibrium.
2. A disruption of that order by an event.
3. A recognition that the disorder has occurred.
4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption.
5. A return or restoration of a new equilibrium.

The narrative is driven by attempts to restore the equilibrium. However, the equilibrium attained at the end of the story is not identical to the initial equilibrium. Todorov argues that narrative involves a transformation. The characters or the situations are transformed through the progress of the disruption.
Finally Aristotle observed that all films have a beginning, middle and an end. He also believed in stages in film and they were:
Exposition - Setting a scene and introducing characters.
Development - situation develops, more characters introduced
Complication - An event takes place which would disturb the life of the characters.
Climax - Involves high amounts of suspense and decisive moment reached.
Resolution - Matters are resolved and satisfactory end is reached.

The purpose of a narrative is to create an engaging entertaining experience for the viewer that will grab the viewer attention some narratives are used for different purposes and used on different themes in particular ways. They contain various characters, dialogue and also descriptive language.
My narrative-
My narrative idea is three school children go back up to school (Media class) when the students enter the class and go on the computers all the computers will switch off and start fuzzing - there will be a high angle shot of this to make the students look smaller and vulnerable. When the door shuts I will use a close up shot to show the emotion of one of the student to show they are scared which will make the audience feel sorry for them. I will keep using high angle shots on one of the students more than the others to make him look more vulnerable and suggest to the audience he is in the most danger. I want to include a establishing shot in my thriller film to show the view from the camera to give a perspective of what will follow as there will be a man outside the window wearing a mask creating mystery. When the lights turn off and on it will create tension as you expect something to appear and scare the audience, but I want to add a false sense of security to my thriller film by not having anything appear so when the audience become calm after watching the lights turn off and on and nothing happens then I will scare them by having a hand covered in blood slam against the window. Also I want to include handheld camera movements for chase scenes to create jerky images which will produce a sense of urgency and chaos making the audience know they are in danger and running for their lives.

We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of my narrative and as a group we felt the advantages of mine is we can use conventions of a thriller easily by using a blonde female school victim however we felt as a group filming at school was too lazy and would not have looked good in our scene, we decided as a group filming outside of school in two separate locations would look better and give us more variety of shots.

Domenico martinis idea-
The idea for my opening sequence is to be set in an urban area unlike many other opening scenes mainly 
because otherwise I think it will just be a stereotypical thriller film and will be boring for the audience. The plot I was thinking of a house in the city at night, they're experiencing a power cut so the lights are out. The parents are asleep and one teenage boy is still awake watching TV on the sofa, he keeps hearing movement that he can't see. He ignores it and tries to sleep on the sofa. He hears a constant peculiar knocking so goes to the back door looks out in the garden and then he sees a young girl dressed in a white gown, then she screams and it ends… The conventions that i would aim to have within my clip would be shock and tension that will continue to build throughout the progression of the clip.
The advantages of this idea is that it had a good plot and defies the conventions of the thriller by having a male victim and a young girl as a killer this could make the narrative more scary and build more tension, as a group we also liked the idea of having paranormal activity where you can not see the killer when noises are being made this has been very popular in recent films such as Paranormal Activity however as group we felt we could not have got a variety of shots using this narrative and because another group had a relatively similar narrative we did not want to have something similar so decided not to follow this narrative

Robyn Tansleys idea-
My idea of the opening scene is that this young six year old girl gets bullied at school or at home as a result she tries to murder the person therefore she ends up in a mental home. A month later she escapes and comes back to haunt the family/school and ends up killing the whole year/family.

The advantages of filming Robyn's narrative is just like Domenicos idea as it defies the conventions of a thriller by having a young female being the killer this would help create more tension for the audience however when we discussed this narrative in our group we believed it would have been too hard to film and would have needed to include a lot of actors which we were not sure we could get.


We spoke as a group and after discussing all our narratives we decided not to follow any of our narratives as we came up with a complete new idea which we felt would follow the conventions of a thriller film but also give us a chance to use more variety of shots.

Our final narrative idea was to have a blonde female become possessed by a devil this follows the conventions of a thriller film as normally the victim is always a blonde female, our narrative would be the blonde female waking up and doing her normal routine so the audience would be unexpected to what will happen, then suddenly she drops a glass of water and walks from her home to a forest- here at the forest the audience will realise something bad is going to happen but we hope we have used a twist as instead of the usual chase scene through the forest, our victim does not get chased instead she walks up to a lake and jumps in killing herself; we done this hoping to create shock for the audience. Our narrative shall follow the theory of Aristotle because there is a sense of hidden identity within our clip which would mean that our thriller clip follows that specific proposed theory. Also it builds enigma amongst the audience as they're unknown about why and how the female girl became possessed and kills herself.