Conventions Used

In this image Nicola is wedged between two extras, making her appear defenceless and an easy target. It looks very intimidating the way it is two against one. Also the narrow walls make it a very tight squeeze with nowhere to escape. The way she is dressed would suggest she is unpopular and less fashionable compared to the girl on her left. The lurid colours of the corridor create an uncomfortable mood. All of this contributes to creating a sense of anxiety and anticipation of the audience which is typical for thriller genre.

We decided to film this scene in the mirror because Daniel is towering over Nicola making him appear threatening. Also the lighting in the mirror is stronger, drawing immediate attention to what is happening. Using the mirror image allows us to break the 180 degree rule which is disconcerting for the audience, adding to the disturbing mood in this scene. We also used soft touch to convey clearly to the audience that this is a flashback. 

Last Minute Filming

After our first viewing by the year 11 class, we had to quickly try to amend the problem of the film not being long enough; so we decided to film a short scene of just the main character with a voice over. This shot actually solved two of our problems which was the lengh of the film and the fact some thought it looked like a trailer. Finding a suitable window within our establishment was a little bit of a challenge as there are building works happening and we didn't want that to be in the shot or any of the surrounding school buildings.
After quickly shooting this we proceeded to edit and add a voice over. We still tried to ensure that the voice over added a bit of an enigma of the characters previous life.

How our project uses conventions

This shot creates drama within the flashback. The angle perceives him to be more powerful and dominant, on a whole building more suspense when she takes revenge and kills him

In this shot of the Co-star we have used a low tilt to emphasise the female character's power. Here we have placed the victim at an angle for the viewer to see that there is no possible way the victim could see Nicola entering the room. From the props the viewer is able to see that the victim is drinking which also would slow his reactions and judgement. We have used the stereotype that most abusers are in some way influenced by alcohol.
In this short we have used the rule of thirds, placing the character of the left of the screen enabling the viewer to see the empty space she's looking into as she is reflecting and looking thoughtful. In this shot she is dressed casually and wearing her glasses; her thoughts are internalised and you are able to see the trees and housing behind her. Her glasses symbolise that she is unable to see the world clearly, also they hide a majority of her face showing she hides away from the world behind this sort of barrier.

1st)


As seen in other thriller films, a close up on the weapon is often used to emphasize the importance of it, and further build tension, showing the forthcoming scene is going to revolve around this prop. Additionally, this shot was used as a cutaway, which was an idea taken from observing other thriller films (this very convention for example is visible in the Kill Bill opening I posted earlier).

Furthermore, we ensured that the knife was highlighted by extra lighting to firstly show the importance of it, secondly to make it stand out to the viewer, and finally to create an eerie effect (the knife for example is lighted much more than Nicola, and her face isn't even visible, which shows exactly what the audience should be paying attention to, and what the forthcoming scene is going to revolve around).

Here is the convention used in 'A Clockwork Orange' , a thriller which was an important influence. Not only does it use a cutaway, with the knife domineering the shot, but also the leads main body is unseen (as in ours).

2nd)


A high angle shot on the victim, signifying the dominance of the killer and weakness of the victim is a convention used in most genres, so while not exclusive to, it is still used greatly in Thrillers. I researched the technique further however prior to filming, and while I had seen it used in thrillers, the research satisfied my questions (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-angle_shot):

"if the [high angle] shot represents a character's point of view the shot can also be used to make the character tall, more powerful or threatening."

Secondly we placed the victims legs rested on the table, to further emphasize his naturalistic state, and signify a disruption to this will occur. It also makes him less powerful, in that he isn't expecting whats about to happen, which in effect further establishes the leads dominance of the scene.

Finally, as you can see on the desktop, is the file glass_crash.wav. I remembered the effect often used in thrillers of a common sound effect reversed which gave a tension building climax effect. Most noticeably I remembered it being used in Lost, and felt Lost as one of the "pioneers" of the thriller genre at creating tension.


(Convention noticeable at 25 sec - 30 sec)

- Elliott.

Our presentation

Media Presentation

View more presentations from Dunraven.

Main Character Juxtaposition

The female lead represents a strong sophisticated female like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2. Here we can see that our main character is also appealing to a male audience because of her costume as it is made up of a blouse and cardigan with a large belt emphasising her figure and also high heeled boots giving her a taller frame; the boots also alter the way in which she walks while wearing this costume making her walk with a 'strut'. The lead females costume is also black which represents the darkness of her deeds and reflects her mood. Her hair is tied back to also emphasise this 'sophisticated look'.

Editing

Editing


Through editing we were able to apply the effects needed to make shots such as the flashbacks more realistic and apparent to viewers. We applied a soft focus effect to signify vividness of the characters past memories. The lighting in previous shots before the flashbacks are very dark and dull intended for the dreary mood we were creating. When the flashbacks occur there is then an obvious contrast making them more noticeable to the audience.

One of our tasks was to think up a name for our production company. Combinding Groverquite jump Enright, Murray and Stewart (our second names) we came up with the title GEMS productions. Following this we thought it would be a good idea to have a logo saying our production name. Using paint and word Hattie made two possible logo's. One of which will be in the beginning few seconds of the film opening.

Design 1

Design 2

In the end after a group desision it was design 2 everyone wanted to use.

Another aspect in making the flashbacks more obvious and significant to the audience is the sound. Elliot firstly tried reversing the track used in our opening, however the transistion into the flashback was still quite jumpy and didnt quite go. We had originally planned to have distorted voices in the flashback but only wanted certain words in it. This is in order to emphasize the uncertainty of her flashbacks. Once we had recorded this we added audio effects so it sounded more surreal. Lastly when adding this over our footage, we adjusted the sound volume so the audio keeps cutting in and out.

Possible Film Production Company

After extensive research into film and distributions, a few of the most popular and successful company names found were:

We have taken into consideration that these are well known distributors who work with big name celebrities and so we discussed whether it would be sensible for us to use any of the above. However, Working Title which is part of Universal, is a London based film production which has produced many British films.

Paramount Pictures is famous for its most memorable films such as Psycho and The Godfather. Like many of the company's listed above, it's had numerous years of producing and distributing films.

We researched Miramax as Kill Bill was distributed by them and bares resemblance to our film, with there being a female lead and coming under the genre of a thriller. Kill Bill also has the female lead seeking revenge on those who have hurt her. For this reason Miramax is one of the distributors and motion picture productions we would want to use to distribute our film. The other option is Working Title who work alongside Universal in producing a whole variety of great British films.

Film Opening Research

Film Opening Research

For us to create a successfull thriller film opening, it was neccesary to research some other mainstream films, that are obviously acclaimed for their success in capturing the thriller genre successfully.

The initial thought in this case was Kill Bill purely for the reason that it is a thriller film with a strong female lead roll, and has a big director behind it (Quentin Tarintino), acclaimed for his success on the film. It gave us something to aspire to.



Sound

The foremost thing noticed in the opening titles of Kill Bill is the sound, or in this case, lack of it. No music was used, but rather digetic sounds. The lack of music makes the viewer pay attention to the digetic sound, which in this case begins with eerie footsteps building up. Both these in effect create tension.

Although a voice over isn’t used, the voice of the perpetrator is apparent throughout, and it does have a narrative like effect as he educates the viewer with some background information. We incorporated this into our film, and a voiceover was used.

Mis en scene

Close ups are used to portray the victims emotion, and emphasise it further. In addition, the constant cut away to the close up of the boots create a contrast between the two, and show who is ultimately in power, and who isn’t. We added this technique to our film. A close up on the victims face, and a cut away to a characteristic of the perpetrator (in this case his boots, in our case her knife) where both used.

Camera angles

As in most film genres, the weak is presented with a high angle shot to signify weakness, and the strong with a low angle. Uma Therman (the victim throughout the opening) is throughout in a high angle to portray her weakness. This inspired us further, and showed even mainstream directors use common camera angles that we too can use, and we did.

Feedback from Year 11

Our film opening was shown to a year 11 class who gave us their repsonses on what we achieved well and what we could improve. From this feedback, the things we accomplished and done effectively was:

• The lighting in the film - at the beginning especially and with the flashbacks



• Making clear the genre - the music and colours



• Building suspense and tension - the eerie music and the way it is on time with the beginning scene and camera angles

A few suggestions made was to give less away and if possible make the flashback relate more to the opening. To some it appeared as a trailer because the title was at the end. Most of the year 11's decided a voiceover would not be necessary since the film builds enough tension with the music and dark scenes and adding a voiceover would take some of that tension away. The storyline was easy to follow and many of them enjoyed it.

Filming In The Flat

Filming

On arrival to the flat we decided to first sit down and discuss exactly what shots were needed and what to do first.

After this we arranged the sitting room of the flat so we would be able to get a shot where the male character was aligned with the television to be able to see that he was watching television. After arranging the set and making it resemble a male's apartment we were ready to start filming.

Our first shot was the murder scene of the main male character. We considered the angles of the shot and placed the victim under a high angle shot to signify weakness and the domination of the female lead. We placed a few props around like cigarettes, dirty glasses and alcohol to emphasise the typical male living environment. After this we filmed the walking in of the murderer and then proceeded to the second flashback scene.

While filming in the flat again we did come across some difficulties with lighting, after much thought we did amend the problem by making a makeshift light pole with a reflector to emphasise light. Another problem was safety; as we were using a knife as the main prop we had to ensure that we used the blunt side of the knife in the murderer scene.

Second Shooting Day

For the second shooting day we had to compromise about what appearence our main character should have in this scene as we hadn't planned to be filming on that day as we hadn't yet asked permission to film in the coffee shop.

We finally decided that she should be in-a-way reformed, so her appearence was normal but obviously better than before, in the corridor scene. We did get pemission from the employees in the coffee shop to film but were told that if any members of the public were in the shot then we had to ask for their permission, which wasn't a problem.

The whole relevance of filming in the cafe was in order for the audience to get to know the main character in an everyday setting to show her normal side. In the film, she is potentially a villian in the sense she is killing someone however, we also want the viewers to sympathise with her painful past. It is important to see the contrast between her two personalities. By filming her in the cafe the audience will be able to recognise her as a normal person which shows her calmer everyday personality.   

When actually filming we incorporated only a little bit of the cafe in the background so there wasn't a risk of people looking into the camera when filming. We positioned the shot so it was over the shoulder of someone sitting with her. 

Filming this scene only took roughly 45 minutes so we went back to school and uploaded the footage and started playing around with the music over some of the previous shots we had done and started to place our shots in order

First Day of Filming

Due to reasons beyond our control, snow days, our filming schedule had to be changed. We originally scheduled to start shooting on the Monday when we received the cameras and equipment but couldn't start until the following Monday.
As we planned to be shooting in a flat in Sutton we thought it best to get all the scenes that would be shot nearer to home done first, this meant starting in school. We initially thought about shooting in a stairwell but soon changed our minds as getting enough time to shoot without interruptions would be difficult, so we chose to shoot in the lower school, first floor corridor.
We roughly spent only a few minutes deciding what shots we were going to do as we had already briefed everyone taking part on what would be happening and what shots we should include.
As the persona of the main character had to be different to that of when she was entering the flat, our main character had to adjust her appearance, so we found some glasses for her to put on and a large jumper and also made her hair messy to give her an appearance of someone who didn't care.
While shooting we still did encounter some problems like teachers and the odd pupil walking into the shots & the class change over but eventually managed to get all the shots needed on time before the next lesson change over. As we had a significant amount of time we decided that we could squeeze in a few more shots in the downstairs janitors area. This meant that our main character had to do another outfit change and smarten up.
As the scene in the janitors area entailed switching on and off of the light we noticed that the camera took a while to focus which could potentially cause problems so we cut our shooting short with only a few shots of the main character standing around thinking, and decided to use the flats hall way for walking in shot.

Entry Four: Our Presentation

For our presentation we divided tasks between us so we all had something to contribute.

Natalie researched the atmosphere and mood and how this would affect the audience. Camera movements and angles were considered to give the right effect we were looking for. e.g. an extreme close up on the face of one character to show their reaction. Colours were also considered knowing that they often symbolize something; in this case, red and black would be vital to symbolize evilness.
To create suspense and tension, we made the decision that we would show the audience what the characters cannot see.

Elliott spoke about the storyline, briefly explaining what is going to happen. He also took care of the enigmas, saying how we’ve created them. The audience will be left wondering why she is seeking vengeance on people who have hurt her and what consequences will result from this.
Style and inspiration was also done by Elliott. For our film much inspiration was taken from Psycho in the famous shower scene where the woman in the shower does not see what the audience can – which is her murderer about to kill her. We were also inspired with the way the villain was kept in the dark and her features were hidden.

We noticed that in many of Martin Scorsese’s films, he used red and black to symbolize violence, murder, evilness and things of that nature. Therefore we wanted to adopt that style and use it in our own film.

Run Lola Run gave us many ideas for style and inspiration such as the voiceover at the beginning of the film. The female lead narrates the beginning of the film and makes it very exciting as she explains what’s happened. The music in the beginning also builds up a climax. This is what we want to also achieve.

Together, Nicola and Hattie took photos of the locations we were going use. This included pictures of the house and school. Hattie spoke about the audience profile and who would be interested in this type of film, she came up with a target audience of young adults and females since they are able to familiarise themselves with this.

Nicola found a track called, "Fear Factor" which will be used in flasbacks and the music builds tension. The music is royalty free so we can therefore use it without worry of copyright infringement. As she is the main character she will also be doing the voiceover.

Audience research was conducted by Hattie, Nicola and Natalie. We printed out three questionnaires to ask people which of the three scenarios sounded more entertaining and since they preferred the third we decided to go with that one and work on what they sggested would make it better.

Entry Three: Pitch Feedback

From our pitch, Ms Taylor gave us some very important feedback, which we have incorporated into our final thriller film plan.

Firstly we where told that the knife scene may be hard to carry out, as trying to portray a believable knife slice scene on a small budget may look unbelievable or tacky. We took this feedback, and now the knife scene will instead be from behind the victim, therefore removing all problems of trying to create a gory death scene. This in addition works to our advantage as it in effect creates more tension as we don’t see the death scene itself face on.

Secondly, Ms Taylor suggested that we have the main girl wearing glasses in certain scenes. This is to portray her as closed and that she sees the world in a different light to other people. We have incorporated this into our final plan also.

Finally we where going to use Juliet, a friend of the group member Hattie for the lead roll. However from feedback from our pitch, we realised that she may not be the best choice to use as she could be unreliable, and therefore a strain on our group. We have since elected Nicola as the female lead roll, which has so far worked for the better. We can be sure that she is accessible, and does not need to be briefed on the story line, thus making the overall working process easier.

Our Pitch

Above is a copy of the questionaire we printed out for people to fill in. We did this in order to find out what storyline would appeal most to the public.

From the results of our survey, we developed our second initial story line.

The second Story line consists of a strong female lead who feels neglected and abused by those around her, pushing her over the edge causing her to take revenge.






Using power point we presented our pitch. Our presentation consisted of the main points we needed to include which we then expanded on when presenting it to Ms Taylor.
Our pitch incorporated our main enigma which is the audience don't yet know what triggered the main character to seek revenge, it's a case of watching the film to find out.
Our film will be unique in the sence that it isn't a typical thriller like 'Kill Bill' or 'Pshyco' as our main lead is a 17/18 year old female.
The idea's accumulating contribution to our overall story line were inspired when watching films such as 'Run Lola Run' with build up music and 'pshyco' with the dramatic shower scene.
We also included the target audince of a similar age to the main character ranging from arounfd 15-18 more specificaly females. This is because they will be able to relate more to the lead character.
The pitch also included the different location's being the front room of a house, Dark corridor (in school), School playground and coffee shop.
We included the props being, a knife, TV, Chinese containers, Beer can, Ashtray, Schoolbag, Glasses

Entry Two: Target Audience

For our group, having chosen a thriller with a strong female lead roll, the target audience will be specific.

We have decided to target an audience from mid to late teens as our strong female lead will be around that age and the audience could possibly find it easier to relate to the charecter.

In order to find out exactly what teens would prefer in a thriller, we came up with three initial story lines and we pitched them to a selection of young people. From this we were given feed back on what would work well within the movie and what was the most appealing storyline that would make the viewer want to watch more.
From this we noticed that the tecnique of flashbacks within the story, like those used in Run Lola Run interested the audience, as it would create an enigma and leave the the viewer asking

what happens next?

in order to link the flashbacks with the story presently happening.

Entry One: Genre

'Thriller', is a film genre that is characterised for its fast past, typical lead role hero, and suspense - all contributing to the 'thrill' factor of the film. Thrillers will contain an enigma, which keeps the audience intrigued throughout.
Although females are used in protaganist roles in thrillers; this is less common. However recently films such as Kill Bill, Basic Instinct and Nikita defy this typical classification. Thriller films predominantly feature a male protaganist, certainly, the IMDB top 10 thriller films feature nearly all male protaganists.

The conventions of the thriller genre vary. The music typically produces tension, which can be in the form of eery, slow building music; or, fast paced, high BPM music. The camera editing features quick cuts, and camera angle changes. Lighting is generally low lit, and may feature the use of shadows, which in effect increases the tension further.

The lead roll will usually have a characteristic, or past life that lets the audience symphasise with them. A connection is created with this character, and may result in the protaganist 'seeking revenge' on those who have hurt them in the past. (For example Travis from Taxi Driver seeking revenge on the dark side of society that has angered him)

After watching thrillers Jindabyne, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Single White Female, we took notes on lighting, mise en scene, camera shots, and editing. This then gave us idea's as to what we should include when coming to creating out thriller opening and how to convey it.