planning sound track

In films, sounds are 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.

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This sound is will be good within my thriller film as it builds suspense, it has a deep and strong sound that I can use for my thriller film. This sound will fit in to my thriller film as it will make the thriller more suspenseful then it already is through the sounds that can be used for this sound. 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 within my thriller film, also it is good as it can create suspense within the thriller film, this relates to my thriller film as we can use this sound when the victim is walking through the forest and the attacker is behind him, this sound would be good for this scene.

Another sound that we are going to consider while is natural diegetic sounds, we want to use this as it will make the film seem more realist, it will help my group make the film seem like it is real life which will make the audience more scared in my opinion. We would use natural sound in our thriller film when the attacker is going to hit the victim, as we want the sound of the bat to be included within our thriller so the audience understand the pain that the victim is going through. Natural sounds are conventional to thriller films as they can make the film seem like it is real life so it will make the audience feel like they can relate to the thriller film more, with what the victim is going through.

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This sound is a very high pitched and eerie sound, it would make the audience feel uncomfortable when watching the filler film and it would also make the audience want to not watch the film as they know something bad will happen. I would use this sound in my thriller film when the victim first comes face to face with the attacker, 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.

Group story boards

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 everyones ideas as we don't want just one persons ideas we want to all to contribute the thriller film.

In conclusion these story boards have used all of our groups idea as my idea was the baseball bat as the weapon. I think that the story boards will be at great use for my thriller film as it will help us see what we have to do.

Group opening credits.

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 putting forward to my group as an idea is the font on the left ( above), 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 attacker 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.

Planning editing styles.

                            Planning editing styles.

Editing is important when making a thriller film as you will have different scenes and different parts of the film in different places for example the film is not going to be done in one cut. It will take many cuts to make the film how you want it, editing helps you put all the cuts together, it creates and finishes the film. Also it allows you to use editing techniques that can bind the cuts together for example a straight cut is used to cut the scenes straight together, it is the most simple and easy way to edit two scenes together.

The first editing technique that my group are going to use is the jump cut which is when the film suddenly focuses on something. we are going to use fast timing for this as it will keep the pace and the suspense of the thriller film. An example of this editing is when the attacker is in a different place to the victim but he is still stalking and looking after her. This is conventional as it shows that something bad is going to happen to the vulnerable victim and it also shocks the audience because it suddenly focuses on something, so the audience does not expect this to happen, and so feels more involved in the film.

The next shot we  have used is the kuleslov effect this is when two shots are put together to create a third meaning. This helps make the audience be on the edge of their seats because they want to know why the attacker is trying to hurt the girl in the first place. This feeling of suspense is what the audience would expect to feel when they watch a thriller film, which makes this effect conventional and helps the audience to be more involved in the thriller. An example of this is the effect is another flash back to show that the attacker is preparing to attack by getting and choosing his weapons, this is conventional to a thriller film as it shows the audience that there is going to be an attack within the thriller film, which creates mystery and suspense, things that are both very conventional to thriller films and things that make the audience feel more engaged in the film.

The third editing effect that we are using for our thriller film is the dissolve effect, as it will blend one image into another image or scene. This helps to make the thriller film flow through and make it seem realistic as it will blend into the next scene. An example of this jump cut is a flash back as it tells you a bit more background about the attacker and it also shows that the attacker and victim have a background together. Having this in a thriller film it relates the audience to how the attacker is acting and what type of person he is. Because the audience now know a bit more about the attacker, they will start to build a relationship with him, which will lead them to becoming more involved in the film, which is something they expect to feel when they watch a thriller film.

The final editing technique that my group is going to use during our thriller film is the fade editing technique. This is when the screen fades to black and means that the scene has finished in the case of our thriller film. An example when we use the fade editing technique is when the attack grabs the victim and it fades out but you can only hear natural sounds of the victim panicking and screaming. This is conventional as the audience do not know what has happened to the victim and they don't know what the attacker has done to her, which creates an enigma, causing the audience to feel suspense and tension, helping them to feel more involved in the film.

These editing techniques will help me to make my thriller film conventional as they have made the audience feel suspense, which is something the audience expects to feel. An example of this is when we use the jump cut and we use fast timing, as the thriller speeds up its makes the audience build suspense. We have also created enigmas, which have made the audience have questions in they're heads after the scene fades out as it makes them think what has happened.

Opening credits.

               Opening credits.

Opening credits are important to films as they tell you who has done what job during the making of the film and it will also set the scene for the film the way the credits have been written, for example if the credits were bloody and gory you would know that the film would contain violence or horror. If the opening credits are also done with horror music and the lighting is dark then you will understand that there is going to be suspense and action which in the film. There could be a different use to colouring and background to set the scene for the rest of the film.

An example of a thriller film that has a good opening credit sequence is from the film Se7en 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 symbolizes blood and danger and it could symbolize that he is angry and wants to hurt someone. The style of the credits that are used  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 aduience.

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 emphasized 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. I feel as if it went from the least important member of the production team to the most important.

Another example of a thriller film that has opening scene credits is final destination, they have a good use 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.

The generic conventions that are used in this opening credit sequence are the dark colours that are used, this is conventional to a thriller film as it sets mystery, it doesn't want to give anything away. There is also masked creepy figurines which puts the questions in the audiences head such as  they don't know why they are there or what they they are doing/creating and this creates an enigma which is conventional to thrillers because it gets the audiences attention and makes them feel involved in the film. The sound that is used is natural but the music is creepy and eerie this buts the audience on edge as they don't know what is going on. The lightening that is used is low key lighting as there is dark shadows in the opening sequences which is conventional to a thriller films because it creates a sense of darkness and mystery. The order of appearance is as follows first is the production company, then the title, I think that is the title was at the end of the credits it would be more conventional. Then the actors came next, casting, costume designer, music, editors, production designer, director of photography, executive producer, co-producers , producer, screen play and the the director. This is in the order of who is the least important to the most important.

Filming schedule

Film schedules are important when filming a film as they give you a guide with what should happen during the different films. It is important as we can also know how long each part should be during filming.

My group and i did follow out film schedule, but we may need to do more filming in order to make the scenes as best as we can, as there was some interruption during our thriller that we need to re-film. We want to re-film as we would want to make our film accurate and make it look more realist, it also was to make the film fit together more.  

Risk assessment

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.

Opening scene narration.

My opening sequence to my thriller film will begin with a long shot of the residential road to show the victim walking home with her friends, the lighting will be high key which is natural lightening. The editing is going to be kuleshov effect, the sound is going to be a natural sound from the girls talking and laughing. They iconography will be the school uniform which shows the girls innocence's. The young innocent girl victim is conventional to thriller films because girls are seen as the weaker gender, so are typically the victims. Using a young girl as a victim also helps the audience to create a bond with her as they feel sympathy for her and can sometimes relate to her. 

The next scene is going to be a over the shoulder shot to show the attacker looking at the girls and her friends, the lightening will be high key which is natural from the sun. the location is going to be residential road. The sound is going to be natural and the editing technique is going to be kuleshov effect. The girls are going to be in there uniform and the attacker is going to have a mask and black clothes. These clothes are conventional to thrillers because the uniform shows how young the girls are and the dark clothes and mask are conventional to attackers because it shows they are the bad characters in the narrative and it also represents the darkness within their character. The mask is conventional because it is an effective way of hiding the killers identity, another thing that is very conventional to thrillers because it creates an enigma, which keeps the audience interested and involved in the thriller.

The next camera shot will be the mid shot, the location of this shot will take place at the gate which leads onto the field. The iconography is the girls wearing uniform and her taking her head phones out of the bag. The lightening is going to be high key as natural lighting will come from the sun, the editing will be a straight cut and the sound is going to be natural, as you will hear her friends voices fading away in the background.

The next camera shot is going to be a mid shot as well, the location for this to take place is going to be the end of the forest just going into the field. This is a conventional setting because forests are typically used as they can be very empty and dark,so it would be very easy for an attacker or kidnap or kill a victim, so the story line is realistic. The lightening is going to be high key and natural, the sound is going to be muffled music from the victims headphones. The editing technique is going to be shallow focus as the victim is unaware about the masked man behind her, the iconography for this part is going to be headphones and mask. This is conventional because the attacker takes the victim by surprise, which will shock the characters as well as the audience, causing the audience to feel tense and scared and more involved in the film.

The next shot is going to be a mid shot as it is a flash back, the location for this is going to be a dark room. The iconography for this part is going to be the picture of the victim and a pair of scissors which are going to be used to cut up the picture. The lightening is going to be low key as there will be lamps in the room, the sound will be the girl laughing in the background of the and the editing will be straight cut.  This is another setting that is conventional because the room is dark, which creates mystery as the audience cannot see everything in the shot clearly, which builds the tension, this is also helped by low key lighting which is conventional to thrillers for the same reasons.

The next shot is going to a mid shot, this is going to be filmed in the empty film. The lightening is going to be high key from the sun, the sound is going to be muffled music from the girls headphones. The editing is going to be straight cut, the iconography is going to be headphones and the mask.

There will be a flash back which is going to be a mid shot and an over the shoulder shot, the location will be a in a dark room, the iconography for this is going to be a mask and baseball bat. The iconography is conventional because the mask hides the killers identity and the baseball bat is used as a weapon, so will cause pain to whoever it is used on, this creates fear and tensions from the audience because they are waiting for the baseball bat to be used.The lightening is going to be low key and the sound is going to be heavy breathing. The editing is going to be a straight cut.

The shot for the part of our opening scene will be a mid shot, the location is going to be the field and the iconography is going to be headphones. The lightening for this part is going to be high key natural light which is going to come from the sun light. The sound  is going to be the music from the victims headphones as we want to make the audience know that the girl doesn't know what is going on and the editing is going to be a straight cut.

The camera shot that we are going to use for the next part of the opening scene is going to be a mid shot, the location is going to be empty field and the iconography is the headphones that the girl is wearing. The lighting is going to be natural high key, the sound is going to come from the music of the headphones and the editing technique is going to be a straight cut.

The next camera shot is going to be a close up, the location is going to be the empty field and the iconography is going to be the mask that the attacker will be wearing. the lighting is going to be high key, natural light as it comes from the sun. The sound for this scene is going to be natural sound from the girl screaming, the editing is going to be a straight cut. The sound of the girl screaming is conventional because it shows the audience that the girl is scared or in pain or danger. It also shocks the  audience as they do not expect to hear it and it builds the fear and tension.

The next camera shot that will be used is a mid shot, the location is going to be a empty field and the iconography is going to be the mask and the baseball bat that the attacker will be wearing and using. The lighting is going to be high key natural lighting from the sun and the sound is going to natural from the victim screaming, the editing is going to be a straight cut.

The next shot that is going to be used is a panning shot that is going to be downwards, the location is going to be a empty field and the iconography is going to be a baseball bat. The lighting is going to be high key natural light the sound is going to be dramatic music/ natural sound and the editing is going to be a straight cut.

Planning cinematography.

         Planning cinematography.

Cinematography is used in thriller films to show all the different facial expressions that the characters have, the facial expressions are used to make the audience get a connection with the character. It is also used to show the variety of backgrounds that are used in the thriller films, which also allows the the audience to see clearly where the location of our thriller film is.

The first shot that we are using in our thriller film is a long shot. I am using this as we want to catch the girl having a good time with her friends and not having anything to worry about. I also are using a long shot because we want to get the background in the shot, the background will give the audience a feel for what is going to happen. This is conventional to a thriller film as we want to show the background that we are using (a forest that goes into a field) and we want to show the innocence of the girl which is also conventional to a thriller film. The target audience builds a relationship with the audience as they feel like the girl is having a good time and they will be thinking why is the man attacking the girl.

The second shot that we are using in our thriller film is the over the shoulder shot, i am using this as we want to show the masked attacker watching the girl walking home from school. It also keeps the mystery of identity as you will only see the attackers head in the shot. this is conventional to my thriller film as it builds up the suspense and also it builds a enigma within the heads of the audience, also the audience will think why is the masked man attacking an innocent girl. The target audience will build a relationship through the over the shoulder shot as they will think about the background of the attacker and victim and they will think about why is he stalking her in the first place.

The third shot that i am going to use in my thriller film is the close up, we are using this to show the emotion of the girl when she sees the attacker for the first time.  It emphasise the emotion of the character is going through and it shows how the character is feeling being in that situation. The close up is conventional my thriller film as it allows the audience to understand how the victim is feeling and what she must be going through at that moment of time. The target audience build a relationship as they feel from the emotion on the victims face what she is going through and they feel sorry for her as she is an innocent victim.

The final shot i am going to use in my thriller film is a mid-shot as we want to show the emotion and body language of the victim and also a bit of the background. It shows the emotion of the girl but you cannot see it clearly as it and we also want to show some of her body language which we could not have if we were to use a close up. This is conventional to my thriller film as it will show the body language and facial expressions of the victims, it allows the audience to have a connection with the character but not clearly see how she is feeling. The target audience will build a relationship with the character with this shot as it shows the body language and the emotion of the character, and they feel sorry for what she is going through.

Representation of characters

                  Representation of characters.

Within a thriller film it is important to have variety characters, because it allows the audience to understand the narrative and also it allows the audience to build a relationship with the character that are in the film.

The name of the attacker is unknown and the age is unknown although he looks around 20 years old as we want to create mystery within the thriller film.  The gender is going to be a male attacker as we feel this is most conventional to a thriller film. The race of the attacker is white British,  the background of this character is that he loved the girl for such a long time and she rejected him and ever since he has been stalking her, during school days the girl became popular and the boy got forgotten about as he had left school. The killer was in love with the girl and he believes that no one else can have her expect for him. From the thriller film the audience will tell that the killer has had a past with the victim. This characters purpose within the thriller film will be to find, hunt and finally attack the girl, we want to make sure that the audience wonder why he has attacked her. The character will be presented to the audience as a psycho, as he has stalked the girl for ages and is still in love with her. This will help the audience to create a bond with this character because they will fear him because of what he is doing and also because his identity will be kept a secret, which will build the suspense. They will build a hate relationship with this character as he is trying to attack an innocent young girl that isn't doing any harm to anyone.

The main character within our thriller film will be the victim who is going to be known as Caroline a female, her background is that she is a normal young girl (16 years old) that come from a middle class family and has come from a good school education, has never had an enemies or never done anything bad to anyone, but that's not what they attacker thinks. The girl is also white British as we want them to come from the same backgrounds but because of one decision the girl has made it has changed everything. The purpose of this character is to make the audience feel sorry for her, we want the audience to build a relationship with the character so they sympathize about what she is going through. Also, because she is around the age of the audience, they will able to feel a more of a connection with her because they can relate to her, which will make them even more involved in the film. They audience will build a strong relationship with this character as she is vulnerable and getting attacked for an unknown reason other than knowing that they have had some background as the boy knows her name.

The extras within our thriller film were only the girls that they victim are walking home with, they have the same background as Caroline and their role is to show that the victim has loads of friends and is going to have a good time that night  if the attack didn't happen. These characters will also help the audience to build a bond with Caroline as she comes across as social and friendly which will make the audience like her more and relate to her more.

Planning the mise-en-scene

                        Planning the mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene within our thriller film has been discussed in detail, we want to ensure that we have used all the different area containing that conventions of a thriller film. The areas of mise-en-scene are setting and iconography, costume, hair and makeup, facial expressions and body language, lightening and colour and finally positioning of the characters.  

As a group we decided out setting/location for our thriller film will be in a forest that goes into a open field, we have chosen this as we feel that it is a good convention of a thriller as it adds mystery, also it will make the audience think about why a vulnerable girl is walking alone in a forest. A part why we chose the forest/field is because our questionnaire results came out that people within our target audience wanted a field for the setting of out thriller film. The image below shows the location that we want to use for the location of our thriller film.

We also decided that the iconography that we would use during out thriller films would be a mask for the attacker, baseball bat and pictures of the victim that the attacker is looking at. We have chosen a mask for the attacker to wear as we feel this will create mystery within our thriller film, we have also used this so our attacker is hiding his identity as we feel this will leave the question in the minds of the audience "why is the man attacking the girl, do they have a connection somewhere?", we have done this to create suspense within our thriller film. We have used a baseball bat as the weapon as we feel it is conventional to a thriller film, and we chose it because our age certificate is 15 so we don't want to use to much violence. We have chosen to use pictures of the victim because we want to show to the audience that he has thought about the attacker, we also want to use it to show enigma. Also during the flash back where the pictures are going to be used we are going to have other weapons like a knife and a gun, so it makes the audience on edge about what weapon he is going to use, also we are going to use a Stanley knife to show the attackers intentions  The picture below shows the bat and mask, it also shows how the attacker will wear the mask.

We have discussed carefully about what costume, hair and makeup our attacker and victim will have within our thriller film as we want the audience to spot who is the attacker and who is the victim easily. We have chosen to use dark clothes for the attacker because we think this is conventional to a thriller film, and we will use light colours for the victims, for example in the film prom night the killer is wearing black clothes and the victim is wearing dark clothes.

We are going to use facial expressions and body language to show how the victim and the attacker is feeling. We are going to have close ups to show how the victim feels when she first see's the attacker, it will also make the audience feel sorry for the female victim. We are going to show the body languages of both characters using mid and long shots, so we will be able to see what is happening in their eyes and it will also make the audience how the characters are feeling.

The lighten for a thriller film will be high key as we will be using the sun as out key light, we want this so  the audience can see everything clearly. We are going to try to use dark natural colours when the victim is walking through the forest, we are going to try and use the forestry to block out a bit of the light from the sun.

Through out thriller film we will using different positions of the characters to show how weak the female victim is and we are going to use strong positions for the attacker to show the dominance of the attacker as we feel that the audience will be drawn to the characters by doing this.

Production roles

                             Production roles

When filming a thriller film or any type of film, you need certain roles within the production team of the film, some of the roles that need to be covered are camera operator, actors, sound technicians, editors, film director, location manager and story board organiser. 

The responsibilities of the camera operator are to make a script, to discuss the type of cinematography that we are going to use, they will also have the lead say in what style of shooting we will have. The camera operator for our group is hannah as we feel she has the best sense of what camera shots need to be used in that situation.

The actors role is to act or take the role of the character they need are going to be playing, the actors role does not necessary have to be seen, they can be a voice over also. I am going to be the attacker in our thriller film because I'm we need a man as the attacker and i can feel this role also our group feel i will play the role of attacker well.

The role of the sound technician is that they make sure that any audio or sound that are picked up by the camera etc are processed properly. Also the sound technician handles the volume levels and any added sound that need to be included into a film. We have decided that all our group are going to be sound technicians as we feel that all of us will come up with the best sounds between us.

The editors are used for the process of selecting and preparing the film using media and editing techniques to do so, the editor corrects, considers and modifies the film with the intention of producing the correct, accurate and complete work. We thought that we will all be editors because we feel that if we put a bit of everyones idea together we will have the best outcomes for our thriller film.

The film director is the person who directs the actors and the film within the making of the film. They control everything that goes into the film and they help guide the crew and the actors, so they know what jobs what they should be doing. Our group have chosen Amy as the film director as we feel she can direct and guide the actors and technical crew with what they are suppose to be doing.

The location managers role is to identify and find the ideal location for the film to be shot, they need to tell the director and the camera operator before they can make their final decision because they need to know weather everything can be used e.g the equipment. Our group decided that we are all the location managers because we want to come up with the best location for where our thriller film will be shot.

The role of the storyboard organiser is to prevent a lot of time being wasted, for example we wouldn't want to turn up to the location not knowing exactly how the film show be like. They should organise and manage timelines to ensure that everyone knows what is going to happen and this will ensure that the works gets completed. My self, Amy and hannah are going to be the story boards organsier because it gives us the best ideas about how we all want our thriller film to be like, we will all take a part of our ideas to make the best thriller film we can.

This research has helped me understand what production roles each person has to have, for example i now know that the fil director gas ti direct the actors and the film crew within the film.

history of thriller films

History of thriller films.

Alfred Hitchcock was the creater of thriller films, his first thriller film was called The lodger in 1926, which was a suspenseful story about Jack the ripper.  The tow actors that were apart of the making of thrillers films ere Ivor Novello and Marie Ault. Thriller films have got so much more blood and gory these days. Thriller films used to be more psychological, in the days of Hitchcock the thriller films would play on the minds of the audience, where as today they still do this put there is more violence and horrid scenes in which the audience are scared to watch but the aim for thrillers are still the same in the sense of  keeping the audience alert and on the edge of their seats and also to create a mystery within the thriller film. Common conventions and themes that are found in thrillers are mainly ransoms, captivitiess, revenge, kidnappings, weak vicitms and strong powerful attackers. More common conventions that are found in now day thrillers are investigations and the mystery of who done the crime and why.

One of the thriller films that have been banned is the Natural born killers which was released in 1994 and directed by Oliver Stone. The film was about two lovers who embarked on a vicious murder spree. The movie was banned completely in Ireland, and denied distribution in the USA because the amount of blood and gore. The produces of this thriller film cut about four minutes of footage, resulting in the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) allowing its distribution.
The film is extremely controversial as it glorifies the acts of murder,  the killers were almost seen  like regular celebrities with fans. There are also some copycat murders. The most famous of which is the Columbine High School massacre. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered twelve people during a rampage, whilst reportedly shouting quotes from the movie. The film was said to have influences on what the public did and how they acted so they had to ban the film until they cutted the worse parts out of it.

The Lodger film was released in 1926 and it was the first thriller film that has been released, even though it was a silent film. Which was a film about a land lady suspects her new lodger is the madman killing women in London. the first sound film was introduced to films in 1929, The first thriller film that had sound was the thriller Blackmail in 1929, but also was released in a silent version. The film is about a young woman who kills a man who tries to rape her, then finds herself caught between investigating detective (who happens to be her boyfriend) and a blackmailer.

The film taken 2 was released in 2012, it is a film about someone being taken by gang members that were previously killed by the father of the taken film. Compared to the lodger thriller film taken is completely different in the sense of equipment, actors and location, for example the location of the lodger was a simple house where the location of taken is in a whole city in Turkey.

This research will help me understand how thriller films have developed over time and I now know the benefits of technology within thriller films. This post is going to help me understand what era our thriller film comes from and why. This will help me in my thriller film as I know modern and old fashioned techniques that were used that I can consider to use in my thriller film.

indivdual story boards

Storyboards are important because they tell me roughly what is going to happen during in 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 i want to have it but we will put all of our ideas together to make our thriller film how all of us want it, we don't want just one persons ideas we want to all to contribute the thriller film.

After discussion with my group my story board we can up with the idea of taking parts of each other story board, my contribution was the mask and baseball bat that are going to be used also i had a input with the location for our thriller film. My group and i make key decisions and took into consideration the other people in my groups story boards so we have the best ideas and also so no on is left out when we complete our final group story board.

Preliminary task.

Preliminary task.

The purpose of a preliminary task to help us understand how to use a camera and to get use to the different camera angles that can be used, for example we thought we couldn't get two people into a id shot which we done with ease in this task . 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.  It also allowed our group to understand what angles work well with what camera angles 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 expression. Also this tasked has helped us understand that we would have to film our thriller in a quite location to make sure we have no sounds that we don't want to be in our thriller film, as there is slight background noise that we do not want in this task.

Throughout this whole process we learned how to handle the camera and how to work with it well, we also learned how to apply the different camera angles by using the camera for example on being when we walked out of the hall we went from a mid shot to a close up. We learned that we would have to have the location of our thriller film in a quite 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.

The preliminary task will help my group with our thriller film because it has taught us how to use a camera and how to understand what camera angles we use where for example one of them being a mid shot that goes into a long shot when I walk into the hall for this task. We also have learned how long it would take to film our thriller film because it took us about 30 minutes to film a 1 minute clip, we have learned 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 this prem task that we will try not to do in the actual filming of our thriller film for example one of them being the noise in the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY4T_KNeEso&feature=plcp

evaluation

                    Evaluation.

I am writing this evaluation to show my findings from my research into your target audience, the purpose of a target audience is to allow us to understand what they needs of that age group is, we want to make sure we add in everything that that audience wants but we cannot go over the age certificate of the target audience.

We carried out a range of research, one type of research we did was a survey/questionnaire, we did a survey because we wanted to know what age group wanted what types of conventions in a thriller film.  It also helped us know what our target audience wanted in our thriller film ( our target audience is 15-20), we found out certain things that we wouldn't have known ourselves, so this research has made us learn what our target audience wants to see in a thriller film. We surveyed 40 people to allow us have a big range of people of all ages and genders, to allow us to have a variety of answers. It also helped us choose what age group would want to see our thriller film. From the findings of out questionnaire we found that men we showed the questionnaire mainly want to see an masked attacker in the thriller film which was 20 men and the women wanted an opening cliff hanger 18 girls wanted this, my group and i will try to include these things in our thriller films as we want to give the best to our audience.

We also did a vox pop, this allowed us to see what type of people wanted in a thriller film, it allowed us to understand what type of person we were interviewing.We interviewed people of different ages to help us understand what type of age group would want in a thriller film. We thought we would use vox pops as we felt it would allow my group to analysis them better than a questionnaire because we don't know what person answered which questionnaire. We asked five questions because we thought this would be enough help us understand, what people would want to see in our thriller film. I think our vox pops were successful because it has helped us see what people would want in our thriller film, we have looked detailedly into the ages between 15-20 because this is our target audience, so we want what they want to see in our thriller film. As we only asked five people for the vox pops we didn't get as big as range as the questionnaires but we still found out that the age group 16-21 would want to see vulnerable female, masked attacker and an voilent opening scene, we want to include all of our findings in our thriller film as it will make the people want to watch it more if we put what they want into it.

One of our questions we used in our vox pops was "how old are you" we wanted to ask this to see what ages will want what conventions in out thriller film, it will also help us with what our target audience wants in our thriller film. Secondly we asked "what conventions are important to you" we asked this to understand what the person would want to see in a thriller film for what age, it helped us understand what ages and genders would want what conventions in a thriller film. Lastly we asked "what is your favourite thriller film" we did this because we can then use conventions in the thriller films that they liked to make them want to watch our thriller film. Our results of these questions will help aid us with our work because it will allows us to understand what people want to see in a thriller film, our group will take into consideration what people have said, so we can use the information to help us create a thriller film that everyone would want to see.

There answers that we reconsidered was our target audience because we thought we would target the ages 15-18 because we thought that anyone older than 18 would want to see a more bloody or gory scenes, but we found out that the people between 18 and 20 wanted the same conventions in a thriller film as a 15 year old so we made our target audience 15-20. Also we changed what conventions we in our thriller, we wanted just an attacker but we have changed it into a masked attacker to create suspense and mystery in out thriller film.

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Vox pops

                                         Vox pop

My group decided to take a vox pop as part as our research because we thought it would give us a detailed view on peoples view on thriller films. It will also allow us to analysis the person from the answers they have given on the clips we took on them. The vox pop would also allow us to understand what character they are and if they answers go with their personality.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnXA29eeNNI&feature=plcp              





This has helped us understand what out target we should have for our thriller, we interviewed a 15 year old, two 17 year olds and a 21 year old so could get a range of answers, so we can understand what target audience we want to have. Also the Vox pops have helped us with creating our final narrative because we have taken into consideration what the people that are in our target audience.

Some of the questions we asked included:
how old are you?
do you like thriller films?
whats your favorite thriller film?
what conventions do you like to see in a thriller film the most: masked attacker, vulnerable victim etc

We asked these questions to see what age group would like to see in a thriller film so we can understand what age group would best like to see our group narrative. From the results we found that the younger people we interviewed 15-21 mainly wanted to see vulnerable victim, masked attacker and a violent opening scene where as the older person we interviewed (45) wanted to have a enigmatic opening scene. The vox pops helped my group and i understand what age group would best fit with our thriller film and from this research i feel as if we should pick the age group around 16-20.

Results for questionnaire

                         Results for questionnaire.

We decided to use bar and pie charts for our results, we thought that this would give us a better view of the results and this would give us a better understanding of what people would want to see in the thriller films. It would also allow us to have a simple view of what people would prefer in a thriller film. I will use these results 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.

Questionnaire

                             Questionnaire

Questionnaires are important when making a thriller film because it tells us as film makers what the general public would want to watch and what they would want to see in their thriller films. By doing a questionnaire it allows us to understand what gender and what ages like different features in a thriller film.

During our questionnaire our group gave it out to 40 people, this allows us to have a wide variety of answers and it allows our group to understand what people want in a thriller film. There are four members in our group so we spilt up the roles so we had 10 questionnaire each, we wanted to have a fair number of males and females questioned so we made sure within our 10 we did 5 males and 5 females.  We also chose the questions carefully, so it would help us make a thriller film that would the audience would want to watch, we took the majority of the results into consideration for our thriller film.

Narrative theory

                              Narrative theory.

There are three different types of narrative theories, the first person to come with a theory is Vladimir Propp, he had the theory that in a narrative its not important about the story line, its all about the characters and their functions for example there is a hero, which is a character thats seeks something villain, who opposes or actively blocks the heros quest, false hero, who disrupts the heros success by making false claims and donor, who provides an object with magical properties. which creates and makes the film in the theory of Propp. 

The second theory was created by Tzvetan Todorov, his theory is all about the narrative and equilibrium and disequilibrium within the narrative. He says that there is a beginning, middle and ending to a film, the equilibrium is at the beginning of the film when everyone is happy and good about what they are doing, the disequilibrium is when something has stopped the narrative from following, it has disrupted the happy and good feeling. 

The third theory is Arstotle which says its not about the character, its not about the narrative, its about the scenes which are :

-Inciting Incident
-Dramatic Question
-Character Goal
-Antagonist/Protagonist
-Stakes
-Resolution
-Sympathy/Empathy

These headings are very close to those suggested by the father of narrative theory of Aristotle.

My thriller film will follow Todorov because at the start of the film it will be equilibrium when the victim is having a good time with her friend talking about what dresses they are going to wear for the party. Then the film will change to a disequilibrium when the attackers starts to chase and hunt the victim, through the forest and woods area, at the point when the victim sees the attacker she will feel very emotional and feel as if she needs to get away from him or else she will get attacked.. Then the equilibrium will be restored, as the identity and motive of the attacker is revealed, when she sees the attacker she will start to see him take his mask off but she will still be scared about what is going to happen.. My thriller will follow the Todorov theory as it will show a girl walking home from school ready for the weekend which will be the good and happy part of our thriller then it will dramatically change to a bad feeling knowing that the young girl is going to get attacked and hurt by a ex-boyfriend that has obsession issues with the girl. Also it follows Todorovs theory as the girl will be thinking ahead to the party she is going to and will thinking about having a good time, the mood with suddenly change when the girl sees the attacker for the first time in a long time.

Group narrative.

                                Group narrative.

In order to create the best thriller with my group we discueed the postives and negatives of my idea of a thriller and their thrillers. We want to make our thriller using the ideas of everyone to make the best thriller we can.

My narrative is the idea of a two people camping in a forest or open field, the attacker keeps showing up in the shadows of the tent. The attacker stalks his victim for a few hours and finally trys to attacker her, but the victim hears the attacker and the attacker then chases the victim. The victim and the killer run off into the darkness and that is the opening scene over.

Positive aspects of my thriller is that there is a victim and a attacker which is conventional to a thriller film. The location i want my thriller to be is a forest or opening field which is also a convention of a thriller, these two conventions are positive and allows the audience to engage into the film and want to watch more. I would use nature sound which would make the thriller seem more realistic and make the audience think that they are in the location with the characters.

However negative aspects of my thriller could be the film, i think it would very difficult to film the shadows of the attacker inside of the tent. Also i think it would be difficult to make the thriller seem realistic because if it is not seen as realistic then the audience wouldn't want to watch more and they wouldn't feel on edge or scared.

Hannah's  narrative idea is a young girl in her room, or even a classroom getting ready to go out, or doing her homework. This scene will be constantly interrupted by shots of someone picking up a knife, their feet as they leave the room, the door closing and them moving ever closer to the innocent victim. I would like to exclude all shots of actual violence, replacing them with close up shots focusing on facial expression, and the blood as it drips onto the floor.

I think that this would make an even more ambiguous, enigmatic opening scene as the audience would have no idea about the identity of the attacker.

I would also like to use natural sound to make the scene appear realistic and even more threatening to the audience, building tension and anxiety as the scene unfolds. 

A positive of Hannah's narrative idea is that, like all successful thriller films, the identity of the attacker will remain a mystery. As I will only be filming the opening scene, the identity of the attacker will not be revealed, to create a mysterious plot line which will leave the audience wanting to watch more. It will leave open ended questions which, if it was a full length film, the audience would be keen to find out the answers to. 

However, the lack of actual images of violent scenes may take away from the tension and anxiety which is built from the enigma. 

Although Hitchcock's Psycho was terrifying to audiences during the 60's, now computer generated technology has advanced the lack of violence makes the film less scary to the audience. The tension built throughout the opening may result in an anti-climax due to the lack of violence which is shown on screen.


Amy's narrative idea is a young girl taking a short cut home though a forest/field this is the first convention of a thriller film as the audience will know that this is not a safe place to be alone as it will be empty and there will be no local safe houses to go if something did happen. The girl keeps hearing sounds such as rustling from the trees and footsteps, most of the sound in my idea will be natural but after filming I will consider adding non-diegetic sound to build up suspense. While the girl is hearing these mysterious noises she will be turning around to see what they are but nothing will appear to be making these noises. While the young innocent girl is walking through the forest/field there will be camera shots from behind a murderer watching the girl walk home whose identity will be un-known adding an enigma to the opening scene. As the girl gets to the end of the field and is about to leave the open area the attacker will suddenly appear with other attackers surrounding her and coming out from the bushes leaving her trapped with no escape, no scene of violence will actually be shown and instead there will be close up camera shots of emotions and natural sound of the innocent victim helping the audience understand how she is feeling. The young girl will be dresses in uniform and the attacker/attackers will be dressed in all black showing they are bad and the school girl is innocent and vulnerable. I may add iconography to my scene without showing anything to violent or dangerous as scenes of violence will not be shown after editing.

Positives of Amy's narrative are that it contains many conventions of a thriller film such as an enigma, the attacker is unknown there for the enigma is created in finding out why he is there and who he is. This will leave the anticipating these questions throughout the rest of the scene. Also representation of characters, the good and bad. The school girl will represent the good and innocent who is weak and vulnerable and the attacker will be dressed in dark colours representing the bad. Also sound causing intensity and suspense for the audience making it a thriller. The setting is also a convention as it is unsafe and will build up the audiences anxiety while the attacker is stalking the victim as its ads even more vulnerability to the innocent victim.
Negatives of Amy's narrative are that as the scene will be set after school it will still be light out there for it will be hard to use low-key lighting and create affects which might take away from how much suspense is built up as the scene will not be as scary in day light as all surrounding are visible and there is less enigma. In this generation people expect technology to be able to create gory violent scene which aren't real but as the technology will not be available to us there will be no detailed scenes of violence. This means there will not be as much anxiety built up and could leave the audience feeling mutual and not wanting to watch the rest of the thriller if they had a chance. 


This is roberts narrative:

• I would want the film to be set in an old abandoned warehouse with low key lighting so there can be shadows formed and give an eerie ore within the building.


• I will make sure the killer has not been seen in the flesh only shadows and noises until they commit a murder on one of the unsuspected victims.


• The killer would be wearing long black flowing clothes and he is supposed to be dead but is not and is getting his own back on his town that treated him so bad during his time there.


• The victims are young college teenagers that are lost in a forest and it begins to rain but then end up in this warehouse where the killer is. The victims are wearing prom clothes as their car broke down on the road to their prom and tried to walk to the prom. The victims are young energetic people one of them is courageous and the rest are timid and scared. But one victim escapes the killer but then he finds her again in her town again and tries to kill her.


• My target audience is mainly teenagers and young adults as I want to set the thriller at a certificate of 15 as i believe the way we will be making this thriller it will too distressing for anybody younger the age of 15. I also believe that anybody under the age of 15 would not be able to appreciate the film.


• The victims body language are very confused scared and worried but one of them is the most courageous and not scared, i have used this so the audience believe he is the killer but it turns out his not. When the victims are killed their body is mutilated with parts missing.
• Positive aspects of Roberts thriller is that I have good storyline as it flows and gives a good aspect for an audience to want to watch on. Also i think that the target audience that I have chosen is the right one as anybody under the age of 15 would not appreciate it enough. Im going to use a good convention of a thriller which is a violent opening scene and a killer and a victim.

  
  

  However negative aspects of roberts thriller could be the realism of the thriller as I don't know if we could film it within an abandoned warehouse as it could be too dangerous. Also I believe I could have used better films as inspirations for my film.

Roberts inspiration is prom night as I want there to be an isolated place where the victims are attacked by the killer as this creates more suspense and tension within the audience as they don't know where the killer is or who is out there. I also used strangers as my inspiration as it is a very scary and jumpy film and I would like to incorporate this within my thriller film as this would make the audience want to watch on to find out what happens.

After discussing our individual narratives, our group decided we would have a young girl taking a short cut home though a forest/field this is the first convention of a thriller film as the audience will know that this is not a safe place to be alone as it will be empty and there will be no local safe houses to go if something did happen. The girl keeps hearing sounds such as rustling from the trees and footsteps, most of the sound in my idea will be natural but after filming I will consider adding non-diegetic sound to build up suspense. While the girl is hearing these mysterious noises she will be turning around to see what they are but nothing will appear to be making these noises. While the young innocent girl is walking through the forest/field there will be camera shots from behind a murderer watching the girl walk home whose identity will be un-known adding an enigma to the opening scene. As the girl gets to the end of the field see drops her hand bag, she still hears the noises and she starts running, the mysterious man then appears in front of her, he then puts a bag over head, ties her up and starts beating her with a baseball bat this will be our iconography to my scene without showing anything to violent or dangerous as scenes of violence will not be shown after editing.

The narrative is conventional as it has all the contentions of a good thriller film. Our group has the right place for our thriller film to be set because it is in a forest/field where a lonely girl would not normally be seen walking, this makes the audience want to wonder why she is walking on her own in a forest and who's watching her. The iconography that we are going to use for this thriller film is conventional because it means that someone is getting attacked, and the audience will feel bad for the girl getting attacked. Also we have included a unknown masked man in the film this builds suspense in the thriller and it causes a enigma.

Our female victim will have school uniform on to show that she is innocent and it shows she just wants to get home from school because its the weekend and she is going out with her friends. The attacker will be masked because it shows a mystery within our thriller, he will be wearing dark clothes as this is conventional to a thriller film.

The audience will build a relationship with the female victim because they know that she is walking home from school not doing any harm to anyone when an attacker comes out of no where to harm the girl. The audience would feel sorry for this girl as she is just trying to get home, also the audience will be able to relate to the school girl because she is the same age as our target audience.

individual narrative.

                                      Individual narrative.

 A narrative is important in a film because it builds a story line for the audience and lets the audience understand what is going on and what is going to happen.

Using the research and analysis i have done i am going to use this information to help me understand and make my own thriller, my thriller should include:

- The narrative I want to have for my film is a camping scene, where you can see shadows of the killer from the inside of the tent but the audience do not know who the killer is until the victim has been attacked or killed.

- The attacker would be wearing dark colours and covering their identity by using low key lights, the attacker would be an obsessed previous boyfriend that thinks what the victim did to him was not right and he wasn't revenge. The victim wearing brights colours and their personality would be a very happy and bubbly person, which no fear of anything and nothing to worry about in their life.  

- The target audience for my thriller would be teenagers because i would want it to use violence to a moderate level, so i think don't this film would be appropriate to be a film rated 15.

- The location for my thriller would be in a field or a forest, i feel as if this would make the audience be put on edge and this is also a conventional for where a thriller to be.

- I would use the axe as the weapon and iconography, this would be a good convention of a weapon in a thriller.

-The body language of the victims would be very scared and confused, it would make the audience suspicious of what is going on. I would make the attacker very upfront and no worried about being caught for attacking the person, this would make the audience want to know why he has killed the victim and why.
-My narraitive appeals to my target audience because it will ahve some violence in it which will be enough to put the audience of the age category 15 on edge, i want the audience to be worried about what is going to happen next i also want to make sure that they are always thinking about what is going to happen next within my thriller film.

My inspiration for this thriller was strangers because i want the attack to happen in a isolated location and there will be one or two characters on their own in the tent, which relates to two characters in the house in the middle of no where, i also want the main victim to be a female as this is conventional to a thriller film which is like the film strangers. I am also going to use masks for the attacker of my thriller film to make the attacker seem mysterious, this idea came from the film strangers. Also another inspiration for my thriller was prom night because the attacker would be chasing and hunting one person and the person would be wearing dark colors and the shadows would cover the identity of the attacker, this relates to the prom night scene when the attacker and victim are in the hotel room. I also want to use the light colours of the victim and dark colours for the attacker so you can clearly see who is the attacker when filming.

The audience would be able to relate to my narrative as the characters are around the same age and they would also be thinking of when they were going camping and if this would ever occur to them. The could also be able to understand why the attacker would be trying to hunt this couple as he was a previous boyfriend and ex-boyfriends can become very jealous when the girl starting going out with another boy. The narrative will appear to the target audience as they will think it is a real life situation that any of them could be in, the audience will know the dangers of camping on their own and would hopefully understand the risks that this couple are putting themselves in.