Our essential props list!

There are three main essential props involved in our Thriller. The first is the most important. This is the dairy. The reason why this is so important is because the majority of the film to come after the title sequence is based around this, and it is important to esablish this in the opening scene. The second prop is a noose. This is emportant as it is the climax of the scene. It is the prop that creats the tension, and effects the audience in the most significant way. The final prop is a stall, which makes shooting a hanging scene possible, as Elizabeth can kick the stall away to hang herself.

Our Target Audience

For our thriller sequence we have decided to aim our film at the target audience which would earn us the most money. We decided that as young males, aged in their late teens and twentys were spending the most money on films these days, it would be a smart idea to aim our film at them. Our film is aimed at very much male orientated audience. This is because it is a gory thriller, with things constantly happening and a slight twist towards the end. It is for all social classes except i think it will be viewed more by people of the lower social classes, again due to the gore involved.

Research for Thriller Sequence

To research for my thriller title sequence i thought about what i would be able to base the specific scene on. As the scene is about a hanging, i decided to put some research into films which involve a hanging. The problem with this is that there aren’t many. Eventually i found 'The Shawshank Redemption' which involves a suicidal hanging scene, and from this clip we decided how our title sequence could possibly be shot. Unfortunately, despite my continuous efforts, I couldn’t find any other valid research which would help me.

Storybording

As we have now got a title sequence idea, and all of the main narrative elements, key images and main themes decided, it was now time to sort out our story board and camera shots.

Unfortunately this was not as easy as coming up with the ideas. Overall we spent about a week trying to figure out what we were going to do with the camera, and how we were going to shoot the sequence. First we tried tackling the order in which the scene would run. We did this by all putting our ideas forward, until we eventually found one. We then sat down and thought about how we could show this. We went through the scene from start to finish, looking at all of the shot possibilities and seeing what we though would work and what wouldn’t work.

Once we had done all of this we wrote up in order all of the shots that we would have and split the shots up into four sections, from the beginning to the end in order. We would then each take one section and draw up the storyboard for that particular section. The picture above is a blank atoryboard.

Once we had all written up the storyboards, and pieced them all together to make one, we gave it to TK and she drew in the pictures. Once this was done, the storyboards were complete.

First Production Meeting

For our first production meeting we decided to mould our idea for our film together and come up with a title sequence that we all liked. We already knew what the synopsis of the film was going to be and all have fairly similar ideas for what the opening scene was going to be like which made the decision making a lot easier.

We decided that we wanted to do a short clip with the main theme of death. The clip will last about two minutes and is about the protagonist in the film (Elizabeth) killing herself. We decided to do this, as the film is about the investigation into Elizabeth’s death. We also decided that as the diary is such a strong part of the story we would also end the sequence with the close up of the diary closing, ant throughout the title sequence there would be a voice over of her last diary entry.

We wanted to base our character on the girl out of the ring, so during our first production meeting we decided to narrow down possible actors for the part of Elizabeth.

Thriller Synopsis of Elizabeth's Diary

The thriller is based on the character Elizabeth Carter, who is a loner and constantly gets bullied by her peers, Davina Thorne, Alex Hall, Ross Gordon and Tinuke Kola-Abiola. Elizabeth Carter is constantly being bullied at school due to her autistic disability. She is an incredibly keen writer and reverts to her black diary for comfort in expressing her feelings about her peers.

Suddenly two of the four bullies die, in horrific ways. Elizabeth discovers that the deaths match the way she wanted them to die according to the writing in her diary. Once she discovers this, she turns suicidal and delusional.

A few days after the deaths, Elizabeth is announced dead. An investigation is put into her death where they discover she committed suicide.

Just when everyone thinks everything is solved, they find a new picture in the diary, and another bully dies. Once again, an investigation is put into this, with the same investigation team. They eventually link all the evidence back to the forth bully, and then the twist that it was her all along, unfolds.

Davina, the forth bully is then announced missing, and is nowhere to be found.

My Thriller Idea

For my thriller idea, I decided to do a sequence based on the scene in Halloween, where Mike Myers is looking for the girl hiding in the house.

My thriller was supposed to be very much a thriller horror, aimed at a target audience who are probably men, aged from 15 to 40. It is a young testosterone boosted audience as it is quiet a scary and disturbed film.

My idea for my thriller was about a boy who saw a glimpse into the future, and used a clock he saw in the future to try and safe his sister.

The sequence would start with a high angle crane shot of the boy, sweating and moving around in bed. Whilst zooming in there would be snippets of what the boy was seeing, which involved vital information, such as the clock. The boy then wakes up and looks at the clock. This is when he notices that what he has just seen is about to happen. What he saw was his sister being abused, and raped by her father. The boy then goes to try and find his sister, and gets there just before the father. They can hear the father approaching the room so they decide to hide. They jump into a walk in wardrobe where they are silent and all you can see is the shadow of the father in the room. The children wait until they think the father has gone and then the boy slowly and quietly opens the door. Suddenly the screen turns black and you hear the girl scream.

This is so the audience is left not knowing what has happened, and the rest of the movie is finding out what happened and what else the boy saw in the future and whether he can learn to use these powers to his benefit. The unfortunate thing is, he only seems to be able to see disturbed, unwanted visions.