The film needed a poster to which it could then be launched into the advertising world so I came up with the idea of having a movie poster that would be shown in cinemas and other advertising areas such as bus stops, billboards etc. The poster contains quotations that appreciate the film and come from well known newspapers that many people would take advise from when going to see a film. Also I have included the still picture of Amy's character laying dead on the floor which brings the ominous feeling of the movie which again would attract the thriller genre seeking fans. Again I have included the still frame of the 'deal' taking place between me and Amy so establish the gangster thriller genre to appeal to its audiences. I have deliberately used mainly the female protagonist in the pictures to show the challenge of conventions to attract the female market.
We were aiming to give our film the full potential of being a ‘big shot’ thriller film so giving it to a huge media corporation would be our best bet. Although at first we toyed with the idea of having the film launched by a British film company so it would match that of Reservoir Dogs so it would link to the idea of seedy English gangsters also like in Train spotting but ultimately we decide with a bigger institution that would make the film more well known and finally raise the amount of profit earned. Aiming for a huge conglomerate such as TimeWarner would make the marketing and producing process much quicker and especially cheaper. A huge media conglomerate can use synergy and branch off into different branches of the businesses that it owns. Such as TimeWarner that can advertise on TimeWarner Cable which is its own television channel. Also Time Warner owns AOL which again helps it advertise across the internet which at the moment is the biggest advertising plateau. Time Inc which is part of Time Warner would include the film posters in its magazines so it would entice the Time magazine readers.
Also TimeWarner has a huge global presence as its film corporation ‘Warner Bros.’ is one of the most famous film producers on the film market. It has produced classic films such as the Alfred Hitchcock collection, The Shining and The Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart. Also it has produced many recent thrillers such as One Missed Call, Gothika and The Usual Suspects that used the re-recording facilities at Warner Hollywood Studios. Also Warner Hollywood Studios has catered of video games such as Kingdom Hearts (2002) and Final Fantasy X-2 (2003) as well as many other films so the recording studios would be a monumental step forward for our soundtrack music.
As background information for our Thriller, we conducted audience research in the form of focus group and audience feedback in the style of a small premiere in which we asked for feedback on what the audience though of put piece. A focus group is used as qualitative data, we chose this type of data as we felt it was very detailed and accurate and our results would give us a much more specific overview on the thriller subject.
The participants that took part in out focus group were Simone Newton, Jeremy Williams, Joe Bailey, Mark Bansor, James Dick and Keshav Patel. We decided to ask them a series of questions to help us get a better understanding on our audience’s perception and knowledge of thrillers.
Firstly we asked “What would you expect to see in a thriller?” The group responded that they would expect to see lots of action, suspense and tension within the action and characters, sexual content, men in suits, dead bodies and an eerie musical soundtrack. The second question was “What certificate would you expect a thriller to be?” It was unanimous decisions that the certificate should be 15 to appeal to a wider target audience yet still contain more explicit and violent content. Thirdly we asked “What would you like to see in a thriller?” They answered a venerable female character, twist at the end, simple ideas but yet make you think and have physiological undertones. Next we asked what characters should be featured within a thriller, they reciprocated with a male and female couple, a mysterious character, a funny guy to create humour at appropriate times, and a bad villainous character. They also suggested that there should be a minimal amount of characters so that the plot is easier to understand. We then wanted to find out what target audience we should focus on marketing our film to. We were told to focus on mainly teenagers and particularly young adults of the 18-25 range as these are the people who have the most time and enjoyment on going to the cinema to see these types of films. It was also apparent that the male gender should mainly be targeted, as fast pace action is more appealing to them. Also another unusable concept is that adults with young children may enjoy watching thriller films, if they have put there children to bed and just want to enjoy a good film together. In addition we asked “Where would you expect a thriller to be set?” they replied with an American suburban setting, and at night. Also to create suspense the action could take place in run down areas, forests and jungles. Any areas that is isolated and silent.
Finally we asked “Do you know exactly what a thriller is?” There was a mixed response with one being “A film with everything” which showed that all aspects of genres and hybrids had to be considered. Overall it was a strong implication for a strong plot with suspense and twists. Although overall none of our participants knew what the actual definition of a thriller film was, and with that we noted that we had to include many enigmas within our own piece.
After the filming and editing process of our film, we burnt a copy onto a DVD disc and on Monday 27th April 2009 in a school lunch time decided to host a film screening of our thriller. We invited several of our friends of mixed gender and asked them to watch our thriller closely and then give us feedback and any criticism they wished to share about our project. The first response was from a group of female participants, Katherine Cunningham, Chloe Isbell, RebeccaMorement, Fiona Evans Francesca Davies and Kiesha Lynch. We mainly got a very positive reaction from all the girls with Kat mentioning on the good use of match editing. Chloe said she enjoyed the variety of shots and the way the use of levels linked together. Fran believed the film created suspense and like and Fiona commented on the good use of soundtrack used throughout the piece. Kiesha explained how she wanted to see more and wanted to know what was going to happen to the characters. Finally Rebecca remarked on the use of our created flashback saying that is was a clever way of creating confusion and enigmas for the audience. Our teacher then exclaimed this style of plot is called a MacGuffin.
Mostly used in thriller films, a MacGuffin is a plot element that catches the audience’s attention and also anything that serves as a motivation, serves its purpose. The MacGuffin can sometimes be ambiguous, completely undefined, generic or left open to interpretation. Generally a MacGuffin is the central focus of the first act of the film, this is in the case of our thriller as we have used a flashback (action before narrative) style to jeep our audience guessing.
Next we asked the male viewers; Josh Ashton, Joe Bailey, Jeremy Williams and Jack McCarthy, most who also participated in out focus group, what their thoughts were on our thriller. The feedback was again highly positive, with remarks again being on the good use of camera shots and how the film creates enigmas. Joe particularlyinputted that the music fitted each scene very well, and that the scene where a loud door closes and a close up of a glass smashes onto the floor, gave him a shock and made him jump, something he did not expect to happen within an AS media piece.
I then showed the copy of our thriller to my parents, to see what an older generations judgement would be on our film. Both informed me that it was a very good piece, that the music worked well, it had a mysterious plot and that it was edited to a high standard. Their only criticisms were that the characters needed to be spaced out more as the action happened very quickly – which is understandable for a two minute film and also that when the dialect is spoken it could not always be heard as the soundtrack over powers it slightly. In conclusion our feedback was of an extremely positive nature, it was mentioned many times that as a group we have included many excellent specific features such as camera shots, levels, and a good soundtrack. We have achieved our initial aim to create enigma’s and suspense for our audience and are pleased with all the participants comments.
As part of our research into our thriller, our class was given the task of viewing and marking students work from previous years. After watching a few films it was clear to see which ones were good and which ones were not so good. We then had to use the grade boundaries we had been given to try and guess what grades the films had got. This proved quite hard at first but after a few attempts it became easier. Throughout the films we could see that the best way to get a good grade was to keep the storyline quite simple, but also using many different camera shots.
We spent a long time choosing the locations to use for our film as we wanted to keep them within the conventions of a thriller. We filmed at three locations but only two of these made it into the final film.
We decided that we wanted to use a large suburban house as our location for the protagonists house as this is a common setting in a thriller. The house would be used as the location for the murder. This can be seen in films such as 'Scream' when the first victims house is a large, isolated house in the suburbs. We managed to find a location by using a group members relatives house.
Our second location was a small Café in a town which would be where the deal would take place. However, this did not work out and is not in the final film as we did not feel it had the right look for the overall theme of the thriller.
Our final location was an alleyway in an urbanised area, which we felt had a better feel to it for a deal to take place. We used this location as it was easy to get to and was also near the school in case we had to do some last minute shooting.
From Monday 20th April through to Thursday 23rdApril 2009, we edited our final piece of thriller footage. First we uploaded the footage from the camera directly to the Pinnacle software; this process is called capturing and loaded the recordings by individual scenes. This is because it is easier to edit, cut and change the scenes rather than have to cut down the whole recording yourself. Once all our scenes were loaded, we started to choose and insert the most appropriate and professional pieces of video. The process involved choosing match shots, so that our filming looked fluent yet still included a variety of camera shots. We had a wide range of shots and re-takes of footage so choosing the best and most fitting one became quite easy to do. We also had to consider the transitions we featured within our film, with the decision mostly being whether to add a fade or just make it a straight cut. We did not use any other fancy and complicated effects as these can down grade the quality of footage and gives a dilettante feel to the project.
We were faced with many decisions when editing the film, and as a group we all discussed and then choose the best outcome possible. One of the major parts of our film is the low angled shot of when the glass shatters abruptly on the floor, at first we wanted to add a slow motion effect onto the frame to give the film a more dramatic effect. However Pinnacle did not offer this feature, so instead we decided to lengthen the speed of the shot, making it much slower and giving the full effect we wanted to achieve. Also to show that the woman had died, and the film then moves onto her past, we used a long fade to emphasise that it was an action before narrative and we are now going back in time when she is featured alive again. After the film was put in place and finalised, we began working on the sound aspect of the project. Before the editing process, we listened to a variety of different soundtracks from legal non-copyrighted music; we then chose two specific scores of music to be placed over the footage as the non-diegetic soundtracks. We decided to position the first piece of music as the film begins, as the last title fades into the footage, we hear the quiet classical soundtrack start to play, and the outside noise of birds twittering and trees rustling to give convey a more real affect to the audience. The music continues to play but cleverly stops when the woman character turns off the running tap, to create suspense and build the tension to a climax. Then the sound of a striking “boom” sound is coincided with each shot of the characters body part to heighten the impact on the audience. We then added the soundtrack to the “deal” section of our film. This soundtrack is slow yet upbeat to match the fast paced action of the meeting and the double crossing. We had to edit the volume of the sound when the dialogue is spoken so that is was low and can be heard above the music. As the last shot plays, the music descends in volume completely and ends on a musical sting sound so the audience starts to create enigmas on where the woman character has disappeared to.
There was also the hard task of importing our “Empire production” company’s logo into the frame. We then learnt from advice that we had to simply drag and drop the image into the frame and then imply title overlays over the top to make it work. Although when we tried to burn our finish product onto disc, the image was found to be corrupt and would not let the film play so we had to exclude it from our finish piece to make sure it worked correctly.
Due to our second day of shooting not going according to plan, we decided to re-shoot scene 2. To do this we changed the location and also changed the storyline slightly, but still with the same concept.
Date - Monday 6th April 2009
Time - 10am - 2pm
Location - An alleyway off of Shenfield High Street
Scenes to be shot - Scene 2, the deal
People Present - Amy, Jack, Billy Aldous - Starring in, Rebecca and Lucy - Director's
After viewing many different examples of similar courseworks submitted by Year 12 students, we decided that we would not use dialogue in our thriller. This is because the films that were dialogue heavy lost their sincerity and looked unprofessional. We wanted our film to look as professional as possible, so we decided not to use a script.
However, we did use some dialogue in our film. When acting out the actual scene, when Amy and Jack first meet each other, we decided that a few lines were needed to establish what was happening in the scene. Jack asks Amy; "Have you got it?" which clearly illustrates to the audience that a deal is about to take place, and that Amy and Jack are supposedly partners. Amy replies; "Of course", showing the character's strong mind and implies her superiority over Jack. We felt that this converse was necessary and most importantly it didn't really effect the professionalism and overall look of the film.
We arranged the second day of shooting to begin after school on Tuesday 31st March. We wanted to quickly finish our filming so we could get on with the rest of the project. We met up with the people who were starring in our film and drove to Brentwood. The filming took place in cafe A'Moore in Brentwood. We were on a tight schedule as the owner wanted to leave at half past four, but we managed to get all the filming done in the time we had, and it seemed to run smoothly. The actors we used were Year 13 Media Studies students and we used this to our advantage. They gave us advice on the type of shots we could use and how we could do them differently and originally. At the time, we thought that the day was successful. But we did have to re-shoot a minor scene as there was a car in the shot that was not previously there, and would have caused continuity errors when editing.
When we returned to school and viewed our film, we realised that the day had not been as successful has we had previously thought. We found many continuity errors, a lack of good shots and some of our actors made accidental glances at the camera. We decided that even with editing the film would be adequate, so we abandoned this film and arranged another day of filming.
Luckily, we had left enough time to be able to do another day, but we were disappointed as we thought that the day was successful and we could move forward with our project. But these mistakes taught us a lesson, that we could use throughout the rest of our coursework. We learnt that rather than rushing things, if we worked slowly and carefully, we would not leave room for errors. We also learnt that we should check the film we had whilst on location, so we would know to re-do a scene if necessary.
To enhance the research into thriller films, i have analysed in detail a 5 minute clip, of Simon West's When a Stranger Calls (2006). Please note that the clip included is only a short clip, as the full scene was not available.
How is Sound and Mise en Scene used to create meaning in When a Stranger Calls? Scene 19 -20
Mise en scène is a French term, which means everything that is visible and put into the scene and is used by directors to encourage the audience to read a scene in a particular way; by featuring certain aspects, mise en scene can also help establish the mood. The elements of mise en scène are; settings, décor, props, lighting, costume, make-up, colour and body language and movement. These can offer information and meanings linked to the character, genre, atmosphere, place, space, mood and time. Elements of mise en scène elements can occur constantly or there can be many changes. This often leads or manipulates the audience into believing particular denotations linking with some connotations. For example, if the location used in a film is of New York City, people expect to see high-rise buildings, bustling streets and yellow taxis. This helps set a scene and builds a connection in the viewers mind.
Sound in a film is either always diegetic (sound that can be heard by the characters, e.g. dialogue) or non-diegetic (sound that can not be heard, e.g. soundtrack, voiceover). Some occasions both diegetic and non-diegetic sound are used. Sound can also connect to the film’s genre, for example the pleonastic sounds of punching and kicks in martial films such as Hero. Also comedy films such as Mean Girls and Knocked Up use more contemporary soundtracks to appeal to younger audiences that will understand why the music is funny in relation to the scene.
The film When a Stranger Calls (2006) directed by Simon West is a remake of the 1979 original with the same title. It is based on the urban legend of a young teenage baby-sitter who starts to get mysterious and disturbing phone calls, which leads to her and the children she’s looking after to be in danger. This film is moderately similar to that of Wes Craven’s Scream (1996), which begins with a young teenager waiting for her boyfriend, receives a threatening call and then is unwittingly stabbed to death. In these types of thriller-horror movies, we as audience expect to feel scared and fear the unknown and also put our selves in the victim’s position and understand how worried as a person you would be.
The film is set in the location of Fernhill in Colorado; this particular sequence is set in the residence of the Mandracases, a very large isolated house set in wood and built over a lake. The house is used as a symbol of how Jill cannot escape throughout the film, and big windows and stairs to the entrance show how intruders can be ready to be watching and waiting. These are common themes within horror movies, such as William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill (1959) which is about five people invited to stay the night in a haunted house, with the stipulation that all doors will be locked at midnight, allowing no accessible escape. Anyone who stays in the house for the entire night given that they are still alive will receive $10,000, although there are ghosts, murderers, and other terrors waiting to get them.
The section I have chosen starts with Jill Johnson (Camilla Belle) the protagonist of the film, paces anxiously around the corridor speaking with the stranger on the phone. As the camera pans 360° around where Jill is standing, the audience see part of the normal décor of the house, e.g. picture frames, lamps, a large arm chair. All these props help to enhance the realism to the audience, and relates to the audiences perception of that not only may it happen in this house but your own home too, showing an uncertainty to societies concern on who can be lurking. Also the use of low-key lighting is used to create a more tense atmosphere, and to show that someone may be hiding in the shadows, the way the camera pans around Jill shows how she is isolated within the house, her confusion to what is happening and the remoteness to her surroundings.
A quiet foreboding non-diegetic soundtrack is played simultaneously to Jill’s constant questions to the stranger, who in turn responds with heavy breathing, which synchronises with the rhythm of the music. A point of view of pictures on the walls is then shown to keep rectifying normality and as Jill turns the corner of the corridor, a sound bridge carries the music and tension onto the next shot. As Jill walks up the stairs, visibly in the background is a window with shadows of swaying trees, this heightens the creepy atmosphere of the film and makes the audience question what is lurking outside the house.
Also the soundtrack gets louder and has a higher tone which creates more suspense when Jill is walking, in addition the completely blank walls reinforce Jill’s isolation as it makes the stairway and Jill herself feel claustrophobic.
The soundscape of wind blowing and rustling noises is always conveyed in this sequence, this is used as an added effect to reflect the apprehension for the character of Jill and sets the mood and tone of anxiety and trepidation. The director uses soundscape to familiarise the audience with types of sounds that are associated with a particular time or location etc.
Jill’s costume consists of jeans and an orange top, which in some scenes show her more clearly, in the dim light. These clothes are that of a normal teenage girl, which links to the stereotype protagonist of most classic horror or thriller films. This is also relevant to the film The Little Girl Who Lives down the Lane (1979), which also sees a teenage Jodie Foster secluded and on her own fighting of the evil that lurks around her.
The camera angle is already mid shot, in the bedroom, when Jill opens the door and enters. A high angle shot looking down at her emphasises Jill’s vulnerability and gives the feeling that she is being watched. The camera then quickly shows a point of view shot of the setting of the bedroom, which contained that of normal décor and props such as a bed, lamp and chair. As a close up of Jill is continuously shown, she asks the stranger “What do you want?” and the stranger replies “your blood…all over me” This dialogue scares the audience and gives an understanding on how violent and chilling the stranger is. The volume of the soundtrack gets higher and we hear a “beep” sound to indicate that Jill has hung up.
The camera then zooms into a door creating apprehension on what is behind it. There is also a cross cut back to Jill’s emotion as she prepares herself to enter. The trickling noise that has been quiet in the background proceeds to get louder and what most of the audience presume to be rain is actually that of a shower running. As Jill enters, the pleonastic sound of the creaking door is heard, this is to emphasise the suspense on what Jill and the audience is about to uncover.
The colour of the room is that of light terracotta with dim lighting, which makes the bathroom feel claustrophobic and underlines Jill’s intensity. As she peers onto the closed shower curtain, the director shows Jill’s non-verbal communication of hunching over and stiff to be ready to defend her to help specify how very frightened she is. There is then another sharp pleonastic sound when the shower curtain is pulled back to reveal just simply a normal bathtub and running water. As Jill turns of the water, the non-digetic soundtrack also stops. West uses this manipulation as it makes the audience convinced that something is meant to be there.
This gripping scene resembles that of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and that of the famous shower scene that contains expectancy and tension until all is revealed and the woman is stabbed, unlike with this scene, it has a contrast of showing nothing after the reveal which also shows that more is about happen. West’s approach to this is effective with this as the audience expect there to be something there, when there is not, it allowed West to add the most important part of the film to be revealed straight after therefore adding more of a shock factor to the audience.
After a slight pause, that shows Jill’s confusion and disillusioned state of mind, the phone starts to ring again. With Jill and the audience manipulated by the director into thinking it is the stranger calling, as the close up of the phone shows that the caller ID is unknown. As Jill answers and shouts down the phone, her voice is overpowered by the police officer’s voice that exclaims, “We traced the call it’s coming from inside the house” A non-digetic musical sting is then played similar to that of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) which was used when a terrifying moment was about to conclude.
Jill then drops the phone to show her shock and disbelief and then the director uses the lighting in the house to show how Jill is in danger. First the room lights in the background of the bathroom turn off, a close up of the dropped phone is then shown and the screen light dims out.
An establishing shot of the remote house appears with all its lights through the windows are shown to be turned off and the house goes to dark. It then cross cuts to a long shot of the stairs and then the opposing room both shown in the dark to show how Jill is alone and isolated form help. The camera then cuts back to Jill with the musical sting still playing, the diegetic sound of another phone ringing is heard and a high angle shot is used to show Jill turning curiously to find out what the noise is. As the high angle pans the bathroom, Jill’s teenage friend Tiffany’s body is shown lying on the floor.
With the room being so dark, we see the girl’s cell phone light repeatedly flashing on her still pale face reinforcing that she’d dead. This adds to the horrifying effect and is meant to shock the audience that the stranger must be a killer. Jill then with high pitch screams falls to the floor representing her scared feelings and desperation to stay alive. From this sequence, the audience are left wondering what Jill’s next plan of action will be, and if the stranger will actually appear. The use of sound and mise en scene has helped create and establish meaning by always keeping in tone with the film’s horror/ thriller genre. The dialogue used in this sequence is key as we find out the strangers motives and the twist of the plot of the film but also the minimalistic use of dialogue in the scene helps to build the suspense of the sequence as Jill does not know how to respond to the stranger and with this believes she is in more danger. The soundtrack was also important to keep suspense and high tension flowing throughout, and mise en scene was used effectively to depict a normal looking house in a remote location that sparks fear and scared emotions, when it seems to be under threat. The main purpose of the sequence and the in reality the whole film is to convey to the audience that this invasion in the home can happen to anyone, which is a scary truth for anyone to imagine.
A title sequence is the method by which cinematic films or television programs present their title and/or key production and cast members, utilizing conceptual visuals and sound. It usually follows but should not be confused with the opening credits, which are generally nothing more than a series of superimposed text.
Title sequences play a very big part in introducing a thriller film; the title sequence can use all kinds of particular elements to draw an audience into the action or physiological prospects that the film may go on to show. As our own thriller specifically requires titles, we feel that it is important that, the style, font, colour and the soundtrack that the titles are played to be relevant to our thrillers plot and also look professional.
Many titles sequences are used to engage the audience and often can create enigmas on what the film is about and can often show who the main protagonist is. Especially in thriller/horror films this is particularly used to create suspense and tension before r character dialogue is even spoken.
One of the most influential and talented title sequence designers was American Saul Bass, who was best known for his design on animated motion picturetitle sequences. During his 40-year career he worked for some of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers, including most notably Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Amongst his most famous title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, the text racing up and down what eventually becomes a high-angle shot of the United Nations building in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that raced together and was pulled apart for Psycho.
Saul Bass’ initial objectives for all the title sequences he has created, was to set the mood and underlying core of the film’s plotline and express the story in a metaphorical way. He saw title sequences as a way of conditioning the audience so when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional and psychological resonance with it.
A piece of Bass’ work myself and my group particularly liked and felt was relevant to that of our own thriller was that of Martin Scorsese’s Casino (1995) an action packed thriller based on the themes of greed, deception, money, power and murder. All themes we have wished to feature in our thriller.
The title Sequence starts with a pitch black background and white narrow font style writing, this creates the sense of mysteriousness and intrigues the audience. The classical style soundtrack of Bach’s “Matthaus Passion” is played adding to the intensity of the opening. The visual then changes to Sam “Ace” Rothstein walking confidently out of a building and into a car which then proceeds to blow up into a fireball, Rothstein is then seen through a hyperbolized fireball and is represented to be in hell. Bass shows Rothstein’s desperate fear of losing control is reflected through his out of control freefall, and his increasing inability to maintain perspective on what is going on around him. Fire then transitions into crimson patterns portraying the lights of Las Vegas. Patterns continues to transition and are used as abstractions of Las Vegas signage and immolation's. Rothstein descends quickly over the superimpositions, then disappears entirely. Bass’ opening montage sets Rothstein well on his way to the calamitous life beyond repair Scorsese has in store for him. Bass‘ vision of hell accurately summarizes the narrative ahead, without ruining any of the narrative surprises Scorsese has in store for the viewers. Like many a great Bass sequence, the combination of image and sound urges the viewer to consider theme: Las Vegas as the most tempting hell on Earth. As the patterns continue to submerge through the screen, white titles are again show, and like Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991) that’s title sequence is also produced from Bass, the actors names dissolve from left to right across the screen, this engages the audience to read what they are watching and take in the enticing world that the characters come from. The titles then remain centre for the rest of the sequence, until a crimson-orange swirling pattern appears and a black figure is seen falling again. Suddenly burning flames shoot up from the bottom of the screen and Rothstein’s body slowly slowly descends into them, showing his way into his hellish surroundings. Once the body is eliminated from the frame, the flames quickly shot up to the top of the screen and starts to diffuse into the crimson background until the frame is full of flames, a metaphor which shows we can all be captured within some type of hell. The scene is left with “Directed by Martin Scorsese” as the strong flames flicker behind it, which leaves a lasting impact on the audience and leads firmly into Rothstein’s story. In the editing process of our own thriller, Bass’ work has been influential, as we have included the pitch black background and featured the centred white titles, which it is unfortunate that we can not transition into each other. So instead we have created an interesting and intriguing way of transitioning the frames into each other to be in keeping with Bass’ absorbing style.
We shot the second half of our film on Monday 6th April. After much deliberation we decided that our location would be at the back of Shenfield High Street, as it looks industrial. We began by meeting at Shenfield Library. One of our group members was arriving later on in the day and we were able to fit the schedule around this.
We took advantage of having the whole day to shoot, and this meant that we able to think more carefully about what we were going to do and how we were going to do it, leaving little room for mistakes. On the first day we were pushed for time. In addition to this, having the whole day meant that we could think of more experimental shots, from a variety of angles. Overall, the day was very successful.
We used a variety of different props throughout our thriller that help establish our genre and make our film look more realistic. We again followed the lines of Godfather by having formal clothing to make us look more serious and play the part to the fullest extent. Instead of having normal iconography of a thriller such as a knife or a gun we had more subtle props such as a briefcase because we didn’t want the effects of the props to be to “in your face” because we wanted to make a more mysterious plot and have more enigmatic scenes posing more audience questions.
This image shows Amy (Left) who plays the main character in the film wearing formal and “sleek” clothing. This makes her look more independent and powerful. Also the character on the right (Jack) is also wearing dark smart clothing to anchor the characters around the thriller gangster genre.
The suitcases that are shown below appear to be very plain and simple like the genre and storyline itself, also the locks on either side that are shown many times through the film resemble the secretive and diverse atmosphere of the scenes.
The broken glass shows the more horror side of the thriller genre. The glass shows the victim to be delicate and brittle. Also the glass smashing on the floor is used to symbolise the protagonist’s death and the glass shards represent danger along with the smashing sound.
After many discussions about what the storyline would be we finally come up with a solution that we have so far filmed. Our first idea was that of a kidnap showing different shots of a woman walking home through London. We choose London because it matched with the theme of a gangster thriller with an urban setting. As London was a short train journey away we thought that it would be the best solution for quick and easy filming. Although after further discussion without tutor we discovered that the idea of a kidnap and shots of a stalker would be far too restrictive in the terms of changing anything last minute and also that the idea was to “plain” and “ordinary” which was the complete opposite in what we were looking to film. We went through ideas of having it set in the local woodland but we were thinking of the setting rather than the storyline which was a bad thing as we could see that we would be thinking up a storyline at the very last minute. After further agreements we came up with a plot that seemed uncommon, mysterious and alluring which was everything we were looking to aim for. The idea was that we had an action before narrative which means we show the end if the story first and then the next scene would be set before that leading up to that event. It started off as a woman at home alone and receiving messages from an outsider asking what she was doing, we had the epiphany that using technology would bring our thriller further into the 21st century. The woman would then receive a message saying “what is your name?” through MSN which brings the ominous sense of an internet stalker. Then she replies “why?” to which the stranger types “because I want to know who I’m looking at”. That idea was strongly inspired by that of scream which to us was a very familiar and popular film. We wanted to grasp the idea of a thriller horror because we were thinking that it would be an easy process to film and also that the genre of the film would be shown better and easy to follow. The idea though of showing online messaging came across on second thoughts as a bad idea, the concept of a computer being in our thriller wouldn’t be scary or help build that tension of a person being alone as like a phone it shows connection to the outside world. Also we had a massive wakeup call that we weren’t making a million dollar budget film as again we had to scrap that idea. The shots of showing a woman on her bed on her laptop could also come across as rather comical if it wasn’t shot properly as we are looking to film a thriller and not film a comical scene of Bridget Jones Diary with a woman on her lazing on her bed. Also again back to the computer scene it could look rather cringe worthy if edited unwell or by using poor camera shots to which we decided that it was taking too much of a risk with our time. We then came up with the template that evolved into our final product; luckily we had planned well ahead so we could make minimal changes. The idea was that we keep the action before narrative for added affect and also keep the female protagonist, this time however we decided that we would scrap any idea of being stalked or kidnapped and instead take the more Godfather route of a shady deal taking place which ends in deceit and ultimately someone getting murdered. The scene would open with the main female protagonist (Played by Amy Ward) walking home, nothing is known of the character at this point but a ominous feel is present from the sound track but other than that the scene is very ordinary. There are many precise shots of the character showing her formalness and our attention to detail, such as the shot of Amy taking off her shoes. Then a small scene showing the character taking a tablet, the tablet is there to show that something is wrong and it’s not just her feeling unwell, also it shows uneasiness and builds tension. Then suddenly a load bang is heard and the character turns around quickly and a glass is smashed on the floor. The glass is there to show that someone has hit the character leading to her demise, and then the scene fades to black. That was the first half of our thriller and we had much speculation over the second half. There were two routes to which we could take in the storyline, first was that the female protagonist would have no part in the shady deal taking place and switch briefcases without the people knowing and then walk off and then have another shot of her opening the briefcases and taking whatever was inside such as diamonds or drugs. We thought diamonds or drugs because they are both normally used in many gangster thrillers and give that serious feeling of danger. Although one major setback of having this “switchover” was that we had to have a modern setting in a place such as a hotel lobby or a modern cafe. We chose a cafe that Rebecca luckily worked in as we struggled to get permission to film in most hotels. We filmed all of the second half but after editing we found that the footage didn’t have that “thriller feeling” that we were looking for so we decided to scrape it and start again with a our second storyline. We then had a woman (Amy) meeting a shady formally dressed male in a rundown alley way, again we carried on with the shady deal taking place. The two characters then exchange brief cases and the female shows the male what is in hers before the exchange. Then the male character goes back to one of his peons and shows him what’s in the briefcase, which is empty because the female has double crossed them. Then the two characters quickly look for the female character that has disappeared and stolen whatever was in the cases. The scene then fades to black and the film ends which then creates the big question of, “who killed the female character?.
The main ideas of our thriller were mainly pieced together from different ideas of other films and other genres. The idea of a female protagonist steams from films such as scream where a female is based as the main character but is shown to be vulnerable and in need of help, Although our twist with the female as the main protagonist is twisted to the fact that she is the main protagonist and the main antagonist. The idea of an independent woman that has the upper hand at the end of the film reflects that of the modern day female, due to feminist campaigns and female equalities a lot of males have felt threatened by women’s power in modern a society and what better place to make that threat spread than in a previously male dominated genre. The idea of a female protagonist spiralled from Aeon Flux which is a completely different genre to a thriller but the idea of a strong, independent and deceiving female character. The deceiving female character is used to show woman’s power over men and that woman can almost get everything they want by deceiving men and by being unreliable. Also the costume of the main protagonist in Aeon Flux is always dressed in neat unrestricted clothing that is revealing to show her sexual security that she can use over men and also the colour black of her clothing shows dominance as black is the most powerful colour. We adopted the idea of black clothing for our main character whom is dressed in a black formal suit. The storyline of deceit and murder undoubtedly comes from The Godfather series. Also the idea of gangster trades such as the mafia or triads come from The Godfather which is the main connotation of a gangster thriller. Again we used the costumes of smart suits in our thriller to bring the gangster connotation to our film. We have used the ominous and dark storyline for out thriller like in Godfather as well as using a questionable ending.
The use of music in a Thriller is the key factor in creating tension and suspense. Thriller soundtracks are usually swamped in music stings and high crescendos to relieve moments of high suspense. A common Thriller would start with a gentle hair rising non-diegetic soundtrack that would set the atmosphere of the scene. Normally the scene would be filmed in low key lighting to add to the suspense and the lighting juxtaposition with the soundtrack would build enigma. The vision of highly strung violins creates connotations of an ominous scene as the technique of using violins in a thriller have been adopted by many of the worlds biggest thrillers such as Scream and Psycho to which the soundtracks have become bigger then the movies themselves. The crescendos at the end of a dramatic build up are normally sudden sounds of an orchestra that captivate the audience and release the tension. It is the musical sting that gives people the “fright” from a movie as if you watched a movie without the soundtrack you would not even feel half of the disturbing atmosphere that the film is trying to express. As well at the gentle violins that build up the scene a director could use silence to create tension and then using an overly loud musical sting to show complete power over the audience’s emotions. The sound of a telephone ringing could create connotations of enigma as it poses questions at who could be on the other side of the phone calling such as in The Ring or When a Stranger Calls. The phone buzz while someone is making a phone call creates connotations of being lost because almost always there is something wrong with the phone or connection that restricts them from the outside world.
freeplaymusic.com is a website that we used to find curtain soundtracks for our Thriller. The music is copyright free so we can use the music without permission. The website was relatively easy to use as you just pick what genre or what type of sound scape you are looking for and the search engine finds tracks that you would be interested in. Also we found a wide range of sound effects that we can use in our Thriller which again has no copyright. freesound.org was another site that we used to find free music tracks for our thriller. This site was different from freeplaymusic.com as instead of the site providing the music it was created by account holders that joined the site like other file sharing websites as YouTube. freesound.org has a huge library of music that was incredibly helpful as we have used most of our music from this site. Although many specific sounds we were looking for was hard to find because of the shear quantity of uploads on the site.
Unfortunately we were unable to publish our chosen music onto the blog, due to technical faults, the soundtracks we used for our thriller was the Apeture set and Darkscape. We used Herbert Boland'sCinmatic Boom for a sound effect. All pieces of music co inside well with the scenes, and all add to the dramatic effect of the piece.
