Ideas for our Thriller Opening Scene

The Film will be called Sent. Other ideas however that we thought of are Nowhere left to hide, Sleep-bag, Skype and Send.

The main idea was that a couple would be Skypeing each other at their homes. Then a message would come through on the males emails saying "I'm coming to get you!". Then a killer would come up behind the male with the woman on the other Skype would be screaming. The killer would kill the male and send the message on to his next victim which is where our title name would come from. 

The resources that we would need are a Skype account with a web-cam, a killer with a dangerous weapon (a plastic bad, a gun, a knife), and some good actors and actresses to get the emotions and terror across.


   

Research for our thriller coursework

Conventions of the genre that we have thought about are; 

1. physiological
2. action 
3. horror 
4. mystery

Research into real films of the genre that are films we have watched and enjoyed are;

1. Jaws
2. Snakes on a Plane
3. Speed
4. Shutter Island
5. Psycho 
6. The Bourne Identity

Research into potential target audiences are;

1. Teenagers
2. Young adults

Proposal to as to how our project would appeal to the potential audience are;

1. It has to be action-packed
2. Fun and exciting
3. A mind game and a red herring should be involved

Location to Consider

Characters to Consider

Props to Consider

Preliminary Test Analysis

For our preliminary test my group, consisting of Billy Cove, Myle Wilson, Loiuse Levett and myself, had to make a short scene. 

Editing



Acting



Directing

In this assiment we each had particular roles which included Billy and Myles being the actors in the scene with Billy being character A and Myles being character B. Myself and Louise directed this scence and all of us edited it together.

Firstly we draw up a storyboard and planned what we were going to include in our scene. The scene we thought of doing was a Brokeback Mountain style theme where character A would walk through the corridor then through the door into the classroom where character B would be waiting on a desk. Then character A would say "I Miss You I Love You!" then character B would say as a reply "I Cant Do This Any More!" while he got up from the desk and walked towards the door. Character B would stop to a hault when character A holds him saying "Please Dont Go!" then character B would walk out the door leaving character A to turn and lean on the door then slither downwards to create emphasis on the dismial.

In the scence we used a short section of on screen diegetic sound, which was the dialouge and the door shutting, and a wide range of camera shots. Me and Loiuse used a long shot at the start of the scence were Billy walks through the corridor to set where the scence is taking place. Then we used a mid shots on character A's (Billy) face and on character B's (Myles) face when they are talking to each other and when Myles walks away and out of the room. This is so the audience can see the body language and facial expressions of both the charaters when they are interacting with each other. We used a Point of View shot on both Billy looking at Myles and Myles looking at Billy when they are talking to each other. This is so we as the audince can see it through there perspective.  Finally we used a close up shot of when Billy is leaning on the door window. This is also to get his emotions across through his facial expressions.


Final Cut Express

   
Then as a group we edited the scene using Final Cut Express the following week. We put opening credits at the start of the preliminary test and a fading effect at the end to create emphasis on Myles fading out of Billy' life.

However there were a few mistakes in our preliminary test. When on the camera I zoomed in on Billy and Myles face the focus went blurry. To correct this I would have to move the camera close to the actors so I wouldnt have to zoom in or use a different camera with a good zoom quality. Also the editing is a bit jumpy and jittery in parts where we havent edited correctly.

Mine, Billy Cove's, Myles Wilson's & Louise Levitt's Preliminary Test

Our Storyborad for our preliminary Test

Analysis of my Video

Location

Sound

My group, including Myles Wilson and Billy Cove, made a video enquiring some of the publics interests in the Thriller genre. In my previous post I talked about what questions we asked the interviewee's and the technical side of the video (how we used the equipment to get the best results) and how we achieved the answers. In this post I am going to analysis this video which is shown below;

Positive analysis of my video is that for some of the interviewee's we put a microphone on them so we got good quality sound when they spoke so you could hear them clearly and precisely in the video. We had a good range of people from tennagers to adults, to teachers to students. This makes our findings varied and unbiased as we got an array of answers from out interviewee's. Billy Cove was our presenter asking the questions to the 5 people and did a good job at asking the questions, getting their feedback, speaking clearly and being confident. Also becasue of our range of candidates we got a wide range of responses which makes the analysis of the thriller gene seem more diverse and shows that this particualar genre appeals to many age groups. Finally our location was varied from being outside the M Block in my schools playground for two of the interviewee's to being inside for the rest of them.

However negative analysis of our video is that we moved location because the sound could not be picked up by the microphone. The first interviewee, which was Myles Wilson, could not be clearly heard becasue of the wind as we were outside. Also 0.29 seconds into the video you can hear me tell Billy what the next question he had to ask was. This was an editing mistake as we should have cut it out to make it run more smoothely and seem more professional. Finally the second interviewee's head has been chopped off slightly meaning he is not in the centre of the frame. This is a recording mistake as we as a group should have positioned the camera correctly before the interview started so he was in the middle of the frame which would have made it look more professional.

Range of People