Finding A Location For The Main Scene

Although we orginally wanted a white room to give the look of emptyness and isolation, we decided to use Megan's Dad's study. This room was entirely red and we liked this as it represented danger. We thought this was fitting as Jody would turn evil in the scene where we use this location and therefore the room would help to symbolise that danger was coming.

Finding A Location For The Car Scene

We used Megan's Dad's car to film to car crash scene and a spare room in Megan's house to film the last scene. We originally wanted to use a white room (Megan's bedroom at her Mum's) but Megan was staying at her Dad's the weekend of filming so we decided to use Megan's Dad's spare room. In the end we decided that we liked the room we used because it was red and we liked the way that red signifies danger.

Title Sequence

A good title sequence creates questions and should set the tone for the whole film. If a film is funny, the title sequence should present this by using comedic music and showing hints of what’s to come in the movie etc. In our case a thriller title sequence should use spooky or mysterious music and use dark colours or red to represent what the film is like overall. Depending on what type of thriller the title sequence is for, questions may want to be raised or stings and blood may be good to use to keep the audience engaged and interested.

The main actors and the director and producers are all usually named in the opening credits as well as the appearance of the name of the film on the screen.

The importance of a title sequence in a film is to engage the audience and create the beginning of a storyline to draw them in.

An example of a good title sequence is Cape Fear, Black Swan and A Perfect Getaway.
All of these films and influenced us in how to shape our title sequence. We decided that we will show 'Starring Jody Cook' and 'Directed and Produced by Scarlett Gladwin, Maisie McCarthy and Megan Perfect' before showing the name of the film 'Solemn'. We think this makes the opening seem more like a real thriller and gives a professional look. However we don't want to take attention away from the filming and don't want to state too many people and roles as they would usually be shown in the end credits.

Our Thriller Moodboard

This is a moodboard, made with pictures of ideas for our thriller. There is a picture of a girl with red eyes, this is for our main character- who turns evil. There is also a picture of an average family, where we had the ideas of the main character dissapearing from the photo. The pictures show the story and inspiration that we use for our thriller.

   

Title Of Our Thriller

Our final title for our thriller is: Solemn. We created a brainstorm which led to this idea. We decided that it couldn't be too long because we wanted it to be spelt using children's building blocks which related to our thriller. Therefore we decided it should be one word. After coming up with a few ideas we realised that most of our ideas for the title began with 'S' so we decided to stick with the 'S' sound for our thriller title.

Eventually we came up with the title 'Solemn'. This was chosen because Maisie used this word while recording our Storyboard and it wasn't what we rehearsed so we were slightly taken aback by the choice of words she used. We used a Dictionary and Thesaurus to check that the name was appropriate and that it meant what we thought it meant - 'serious, gloomy, sacred and grevely impressive'.

Thriller Storyboard

Pitch

Here is a video of us talking about the pitch for our thriller:

Influences for our Thriller

The main film that has influenced us is Orphan. This is because the basic storylines are very similar; we both have a little girl who has an evil side. We also intend to use this to influence our poster. We like the lighting and intend to use the same kind of tension building technique as used in the film Orphan.

Another one of our influences for the movie is The Orphanage. This is about a child who sees ghosts and hears voices. This relates to our thriller as our girl hears voices and is a ghost herself. The difference is that in The Orphanage, the child is a boy.

The film The Others is about a family who live in an isolated house just after WW2. The two children claim to see and hear ghosts and their voices and eventually, so does their mother. They see the ghost of their father and others, eventually they find out that they are ghosts themselves. This relates to our thriller as the girl hears ghosts voices and she is a ghost herself, just like the children in this film.

The THINK 'Kill your speed or live with it' Campaign also relates to our thriller as the boy dies in a car crash, the same way that the girl dies in our film. It also shows the boy's dead body haunting the man who killed him, which the girl in our thriller wants to do. She becomes possessed and wants to go haunt the person who killed her and get revenge.

Focus Group

Q. One of your favourite thrillers:

Stephen King’s IT (1990)

Mr Cooke: “quite a lot of people don’t like clowns”

Referring back to friends garden, it is similar they can recognise a place and link it to their personal lives, linking the film into reality life, building connections, can make the film seem more believable, there for more scary and chilling. 

Hand that rocks the cradle (1992)

Mrs Lewis: “the idea of a picture perfect family then the nanny comes in and ruins everything”

Lewis feels as though she can relate to the films as she has a family herself, and some of the characters that the families portray in the films she can make connections with her family, therefore making the films have more meaning to her.

The 6^th Sense (1999)

Matt Codd: “I like films with twists in them which you don’t expect”

Likes the unexpected to happen and when you don’t know what is going to happen next. It adds suspense and creates tension.     

Q. What’s your favourite type of thriller?

Mr Cooke: “you know something is going to happen and the music builds you up…..where there is an element of thinking”

Music is a key part of a thriller. The music has to be suited for what is happening on screen while also being at the right time, and building up at the right parts. Adding in sound effects can be good, however they would have to sound realistic and appropriate to what is happening and the props being used. 

Mrs Lewis: “I like the unexpected”

Not knowing what is going to happen next, but getting to know the characters and creating an opinion on them characters, which could at any moment change. Having an unexpected storyline and maybe a twist at the end or a few throughout seems to be the main points picked up from this question.

Q. Would you prefer a low subtle sound throughout or a loud sound in key moments, then no sound in others?

Mrs Lewis: “When I watch a film, I don’t like the noise”

Mr Cooke: “sometimes it seems quite false because they are trying to build it up; I think the actual suspense is built sometimes by silence” 

Matt Codd: “I like having the soundtrack at the beginning to introduce you”

From this question we gathered that sound should be used to build up a moment, but not over used as having silence and stillness will then increase the effects of the jump and scare.

Q. What do you expect from a thriller?

Mr Cooke: “Sometimes I like to have to discuss something with a friend after we’ve watched it”

Mrs Lewis: “I want it to be tense, and I want to be scared…I want it to be resolved in the end”

From this question we got some varied reviews. One of our participants liked to have a resolved thriller where all the questions were answered, whereas another one liked to have the majority answered however still a few questions which are left for you to make the decision on, this could be what happened in the future or where someone went etc.  

Q. When you first watch a thriller do you like knowing what is going to happen, or finding out as you go along, or all at once at the end?

Mrs Lewis: “Like puzzles, building up the story, giving you bits of information”

Matt Codd: “Finding out at the end”

This gave us an overview of what people want to achieve from a thriller, trying to figure out some things themselves as the ‘puzzle’ is given to you, adding more and more clues and answers to the questions raised., then finding out the story at the end.


Q. What would attract you to go see a thriller from the trailer?

Mr Cooke: “An element of mystery”

Ms Lewis: “I like references like ‘this is Barak Obama’s favourite drama”

Having celebrities commenting about the film or any product, having celebrity endorsement to promote the thriller will work very well. However as we are only 6^th form media student, we cannot have celebrity endorsement, but we can recognise the potential influence that it could have over a film’s success.

Q. If a film got good reviews, would that affect if you watched it?

Matt Codd: “I look at the reviews, but I don’t really care about them…..if they relate to another film I like that”

Mr Cooke: “I wouldn’t read the reviews… see quotes on newspapers”

From this question, we realised that not many people have the time to read whole reviews, so the factor influencing them to go and see the film are based on the trailer, reviews on newspapers/magazines/TV/radio and also word of mouth (people talking about the thriller and their experience while watching- good/bad etc.) however some people will only look at the thriller and not listen to others reviews or opinions as their own can be very different, as not everyone has the same taste and we all like different styles, storylines etc.

Demographics & Psychographics

When creating a film you must define your audience and know who you are targeting it at. Demographics and Psychographics can help find a target audience for films as they can put people in to categories so it is easier to know who to aim the film at.

Demograhpics
Statistical information that can be categorized and labelled:
Sex
Age
Social Grade
Working Status
Occupation & Industry
Marital Status
Prescence of Children
Househould Tenure
Income
Education

Psychographics
How the target market feels, what they want and what is important to them:
Survivors - Those that want security and like routine
Social Climbers - Those who have strong materialistic drive and like status symbols
Care Givers - Those who believe in caring and sharing
Explorers - For people whom personal growth and influencing social change are important

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

Maslow's theory was that everyone has different layers and we must satisfy one before moving on to the next. We all start at the bottom and make our way up to the top, however not everyone reaches the top and is happy settling at one of the lower layers.

Self Actualisation: The need to become what you want to become, get what you want and achieve your dreams
Esteem: Being confident, respected and admired by others.
Social: Belonging to a part of a group.
Safety: Having financial safety and a job.
Physiological: Happy to have food, a home etc.

Going to the cinema is a middle-class, social activity so we have decided to aim our thriller at 'social' people. This is because we want people in big groups to come and watch the thriller at the cinema for a night out as we believe these are the type of people who would enjoy it the most. We are aiming our thriller at both male and female, teenagers and adults as we aim to rate the film a 15. Generally our target audience is people who are unmarried, are not in the prescence of children, have a good education and a job. However this is generalised and not all of our audience will have each quality.

Audience Sampling

There are many types of audience sampling that can help us with research for finding out our target audience and what they like. Questions can be either closed or open.

Closed questions are when people are given multiple choice and just tick which is relevant to them. These are good questions as they are quick, easy, definate and provide quantative answers.

Open questions are when people are given space to write their answers and can write whatever they want. These questions are useful as they show people's opinions, is detailed and provides qualitive answers.

Questionnaire:
Pros:
- Other people's opinions
- Understanding of what the audience want
- Broad amount of variety of people answering
- Free if your handing it out
- Lots of ways to distribute
- Choose the questions you want to ask (can be specific)

Cons:
- Not everyone answers the questionnaire given to them
- Not everyone has the interests that our target audience have
- Irrelevant answers
- Questions can be misunderstood
- Answers may be dishonest
- Not everyone will take the questionnaire seriously

Focus Group:
Pros:
- Get reason behind answer
- Face to face conversation
- Immediate responses
- Better answers, easy to ask depth behind answer
- Bounce off of eachother

Cons:
- Similar Responses
- Can go off topic
- Time consuming
- Some may just agree and go along with other peoples answers
- One person may dominate the group
- Group may not interact well

Sampling:
Accidental Sampling is when some sort of sampling is given out to random people
Pros:
- Results represent the public

Cons:
- Irrelevant information
- People may have no interest

Volunteer Sampling:
Pros:
- Willing to answer
- Know about the topic
- Willing to think and give details

Cons:
- Same sort of people
- No variety of people or answers
- If they're your friends then they'll just say what you want to hear

Quota Sampling:
Pros:
- Ask specific people
- Your choice of who you ask

Cons:
- Answers wouldn't represent the public

We have decided to do a questionnaire and a focus group as we think these will help us know what to put in our thriller and know what our target audience like.

Why is determining a target audience important for institutions?

Institutions must know who their target audience is in order to appeal to them. People of different ages, sex, working class etc. like different sorts of films so they must be aware of their target audience in order to know what to include in the film. The company must have their target audience in mind when creating the storyline and jokes as not everything would appeal to all types of people. For example, if a family film was being made, childish jokes would be included as well as some adult humour that the children would not understand but the adults would, meaning it appeals to a wider audience.

Some institutions may try to make a film appeal to everyone even though this is impossible as not everybody likes the same thing. If this is the case then they could end up appealing to no one as they may not have had a realistic target audience.

Advertising

Institutions must be aware of their target audience so they know how to advertise the film. For example, if they were trying to appeal to a male audience then they would typically show fighting or other action scenes in the trailer as these appeal to the majority of men. Where the film is advertised is also important as the company must make sure that their target audience will see it. For example, if their target audience were teenagers then a good place to advertise would be at bus stops because many teenagers would see it as they may not be able to drive yet and will be taking public transport.

Language

Depending on the target audience, the film must have the correct type of language. The older generation would relate to proper grammar and well spoken words whereas teenagers may find this boring and prefer the characters to use more modern language and abbreviations as they will be able to relate and connect to them more.

Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire that I created in order to gather some sort of market research. I gathered the data and displayed it in bar and pie diagrams so that it was easy to see the results. We concluded that a house is the favourite location for a thriller and that fast-paced music is prefered. The best type of of thriller is a psychological thriller and most people expect thrillers to be awarded a 15 certificate. An interesting storyline that involves mystery was voted the best theme for a thriller.

This has helped us to further decide what we will base our thriller on and how to go about filming and editing it.

BBFC Ratings

BBFC stands for British Board of Film Classification. Every film must be given a rating by BBFC in order for the audience to know what to expect and whether they can view the flm. We researched the BBFC ratings for films and looked at what content each rating allows in the film. We decided we will aim to make our thriller a 15. Once we have created our thriller we will look back at these ratings and see which one is suitable for it.

Marking Another Students Work

The thriller begins with a close up of a man’s eyes looking scared. He’s saying the words ‘no’ to indicate that he is in trouble.

There is a pleonastic sound of a gunshot and the man’s head falls out of the camera shot. A picture is then revealed of a girl with a circle around her face and the word ‘NEXT’ is written underneath in red pen. The red indicates danger and shows that she is in trouble. Non-diegetic music is played in the background along with non-diegetic ambient sounds such as rain falling on the floor. Rain is often seen in thrillers as it makes them appear darker and gloomier, creating a good atmosphere for a thriller.

We then see a girl talking on the phone using diegetic sound which raises questions as we don’t know who she’s talking to or what they’re talking about as we can only hear one side of the conversation. The non-diegetic music is still playing in the background, it is a slow song that is being played on the piano and is quite gloomy which fits with the atmosphere that the rain brings.

The girl is wearing a bright, yellow coat which stands out from the dark, dreary brick backgrounds. The yellow can also represent happiness, which is ironic because of the depressing atmosphere of the opening. She is then followed by a figure in black who blends in with the background. This shows that he is unable to be seen, therefore she doesn’t know he’s there or that he’s following her. A range of shots including long shot, mid shot and close ups of key aspects such as a foot walking in the same place as the girls, indicating that she is being followed.

Fades are used for a few of the transitions to show a passage of time when the girl is walking. Her movements are also slowed down at some points to help build suspense.

The girl is then seen entering a house and turning the light on. This light indicates the safeness of her own home, unlike the outside streets. Again, some footsteps are shown to walk in the same place as the girl was to show that she’s being followed. A close up is used to show that this is a key moment as we know the following is going to come to end soon. The follower’s black silhouette figure is then shown in front of her door which creates mystery as we don’t know who this person is. A close up is shown of his finger pressing the doorbell, representing another key moment as she is about to lose the safety of her own home by opening the door to him.

 As the girl opens the door, creaking sounds are heard. Creaking doors are often related to thrillers as they are creepy sounding and create tension within the audience. A non-diegetic heartbeat sound is shown in the background. This creates even more suspense and builds more tension as we don’t know what’s going to happen. The door is opened slowly to continue the building of suspense.

Thriller Analysis - Black Swan

Black Swan Analysis

Notes:

Starts with opening credits

Classical music, with hint of mystery, spooky

First shot is a long shot of a ballerina in a spotlight

Close up of feet as she dances – performing in a ballet

Music change as the man in black enters the shot

Pan round the two people into close up of her face expressing worry and fear

Close up of his face – stern, dangerous, determined

Music change as the man in black changes to black swan – much more fast, danger near

Girl in white – innocent, man in black – mysterious, dangerous, contrast good and bad

Zoom out shows the change of girl’s outfit and behaviour – transformation

Fade to black, music fades

Shot of girl waking up from the dream – happy

In terms of Mise on Scene – black background with single white spotlight, performance telling a story, feathers costumes, colour representation (black and white)

 

 

Essay:

The film starts with the opening credits and title of the film. Classical background music starts to play, however the music has a more mysterious, dark part to it as well. The first shot is a long shot of a girl wearing white in a bright white spotlight, then a close up of her feet shows that she is a very talented ballerina as she begins to dance.

We see that the white represents her innocence and this continues as a man in black enters the shot. The man is dressed in black representing mystery and possibly danger. The music also slows down and becomes but deeper as the man appears which tells us that something important is about to happen.

The shot pans around the two characters until we see a close up of the ballerina’s face which expresses worry and fear.

We then see a close up of the man’s face which is stern and determined-looking. When the man transforms into a black swan the music becomes much more fast-paced which represents the danger that is approaching. This is when the contrast between good and bad is shown most, using the black and white colour representation.

A slow zoom out shows the transformation of the ballerina’s outfit to a swan costume with feathers.

The scene then fades to black and the music fades. Then there is a cut to the girl in bed waking up from her dream looking happy. In terms of Mise en Scene, the background is black with a white spotlight representing the contrast between good and bad. But the opening is portrayed mostly through their expressions in the ballet performance, through choreography, facial expressions and costumes.

Cape Fear Analysis

Cape Fear Analysis

First seen is first the ‘Universal’ logo which is played along with the sound of thunder as the image goes black and white. The first scene starts with a sound sting; the sudden sound grabs attention straight away. The music carries on very sinister and slow creating a tense atmosphere, there is dark rippling water being shown throughout. The water creates immediate tension as the sea is seen with a fear of the unknown; it also holds danger and darkness.

 As the music builds up there is a refection of an eagle shown flying across the water. The eagle is a predator which represents danger, strength and freedom.

The music gets louder as the title is shown to give it more emphasis on it, which is then followed by a distorted extreme close up of an eye shown in the water. This could create the feeling of being watched. There is then another distorted close up on the whole face, as these images come up it is making the audience question who it is and what character they hold in the film. 

There is a silhouette of half a body shown with the colour green over the water, as the colour represents jealousy and envy it could show that there is a character that wants to get revenge.  

There are hints of red shown in the water, which then turns into a whole screen of red still with the moving water. The red represents danger and is common in a lot of thriller titles and films. This then turns into another close up of eyes still with the red fade, then a change to a green fade.

It is then shown that it is a young girl talking about the river ‘Cape Fear’. The young girl represents innocence and purity, this is enhanced by the costume of the white shirt, which is also buttoned up to the top, and this could show her vulnerability. The non- diegetic sound stops when she starts speaking and there is no other sound but her dialogue. The lines she says also adds question to the audiences mind, making them wonder what the story is behind ‘Cape Fear’- “those enchanted summer nights”. This script also emphasises the characters vulnerability as she talks about the ‘magic’ she had. Her image is then faded out into black, with more titles coming up and non-diegetic slow guitar music is heard.

The next shot is in a prison cell, the camera goes slowly along the wall seeing the pictures and books which could give the impression that the man seen is quite clever. He has a tattoo on his back- which is the first the audience see’s of him- of scales of injustice. This could lead them to think that he could be wrongly imprisoned or is out for revenge, to make something equal.

The final scene of the introduction is a long shot of the character walking out of the prison. The music builds up with this, and there is also a storm starting in the background. This shows the audience that now he is released and free- like the eagle seen before- something bad is going to happen. As the focus is on him, this shows the audience that he is the main character, but leaves lots of questions like, what is he walking towards when he leaves the prison? As he keeps on walking into the camera, this shows his aggressiveness and violence, it is then clear that he isn’t a nice character, but the intense atmosphere and building music is used to show the characters emotions.

Thriller Moodboard

This moodboard is about thrillers in general. There are pictures from well known, typical thrillers that are helping us get inspiration for our own thriller.

Codes & Conventions of a Thriller

Copy of Codes & Conventions Of A Thriller on Prezi

Prelim

Prelim Description & Storyboard

We filmed our prelim on Friday 27^th January during a media lesson. We had an hour to gather the footage for the prelim. We used Maisie’s own JVC camera. This was good because we knew how to use it more than the school ones. It was also more advanced and had HD. It was also good at blocking out background noise, although it was a bit fuzzy, so we decided to put background music over the footage. We also used a tripod to ensure that the shots were steady and straight. We decided to film in the i-block corridor. We made sure that we filmed during lesson time so we wouldn’t be interrupted by people passing by. We brainstormed our idea of our short story and created a storyboard to go with this.

We decided to have Maisie walking through the corridor, opening the door and then sitting down opposite Megan to share some dialogue. We used match on action when Maisie opened the door to show our editing skills. We also used shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule during the dialogue.

We faced some problems whilst filming our prelim. Firstly, with the filming, we picked a location which we thought would be quite quiet so we wouldn’t be interrupted, however we still experienced quite a few teachers and students walking by especially in the corridor scene because the door was shut so they didn’t realise they’d interrupted until it was too late. Also, when we changed scene from the dialogue to Maisie’s exit, the lighting changed significantly and it almost looked like they were in completely different locations. This is something that we have to think about when filming our Thriller. On top of this, we struggled to use the editing software in school and although we get better at using it through time, we decided to use Scarlett’s own editing programme as it is more advanced and we know how to use that better.