Debra's blog

Storyline:
A young girl is driving down an old country lane late at night. She is tired. Her eyes open and close slowly as she tries to refrain from falling asleep. Suddenly, the radio she was listening to goes static. She tries to change the station, fumbling with the radio on the dashboard. She looks down, trying to find a station that will work. As she glances back up at the road, her headlights show a pram in the middle of the road. She screams, slamming down on the brakes and halting to a stop. A deep breath in. She opens the door and climbs out of her car, slowly making her way over to the pram. It’s cold. Dark. Noises echoing all around her. The pram is old but what is it doing in the middle of the road? She walks over to it. There is something under a blanket. Her hand reaches slowly and unsteadily towards it. She touches the edge of the blanket and rips it backwards. She screams again. An old doll with eyes and limbs missing was staring back at her. As she stands there catching her breath, she fails to notice her car door opening slowly in the background, and the shadow of a man climb in to her backseat. She backs up slowly from the doll, laughing at herself for being so jumpy. She gets back into the car and locks the door, switching on the engine and drives away. She checks the back mirror and sees the pram that caused her so much terror fading away into the distance. But a flash of movement catches her eye, and as the realisation floods through her body, she looks into the eyes of the man in her rear-view mirror, letting out one final scream.

Setting:
The setting For out thriller idea was inititally down an old country lane, in the middle of the night. This would be the perfect location, if we were able to have artificial lighting to enable the night time filming! However, as we don’t, we have decided to film during the day time, and then during the editing process, change the brightness, contrast and lighting in order to make it seem as though we filmed it during the night.
The setting is still down an old country lane and we will be traveling to East Tilbury to film.

Title:
We still have yet to come up with a title!

Roles:

Actors-
1) Anne-Marie will be playing the Protagonist driving the car who finds the doll.
2) Barney will be playing the man getting into her car, though he is not really seen properly.

Camera Work-
We will be having two cameras filming at once, one camera doing the filming for our actual thriller opening, and another camera doing a ‘behind the scenes’ video of our shooting experience. Because of this, we are all going to be doing some filming.

Editing-Again, all of us want to be involved with the editing in some way. Rachel and I will be doing the editing of the scenes, whilst Joel and Joe will be doing the sound editing. Barney will be helping with both.

Soundtrack-Barney has been creating a soundtrack that we will be able to use, and will be helping to put it into our video in the editing process.

In order to have an idea of what type of soundtrack I should have for our thriller sequence opening I looked back on our preliminary research. In our preliminary research we researched the top 100 thrillers as voted by thousands of IMDB users, I decided to look at the soundtracks of the top ten thrillers as voted by the public to see how they used them. The thrillers were:
1. The Godfather
2. The Godfather 2
3. Pulp Fiction
4. The Dark Knight
5. Rear Window
6. El Secreto de Sus Ojos
7. Fight Club
8. Psycho
9. The Usual Suspects
10. The Silence of the Lambs

All the soundtracks that I listened to mirrored the the state of mind of the antagonist/protagonist. ‘Psyhco’ which is most revlevant to our thriller mirrored the use of violins and high paced and high pitched music mirrored the mind of the antagonist as it reflected that he is dangerous and unpredictable and because there are so many different sounds shows the different aspects the antagonist has to him which makes him more sinister. The soundtrack for ‘Pulp Fiction’ makes us immediatly identify that it is an action thriller. From researching all these soundtracks I know that our soundtrack has to make it recognizable that our thriller is a psychological one.

The main changes we made, as stated in my Rough Cut blog entry, were adding more sound effects, increasing the level of sound continuity and making the titles more appropriate.

The one difficulty we came across was when we used Adobe After Effects to create a day to night conversion allowing the scene to look as if it was shot at night. We had trouble rendering it as the computers we used were not able to handle the memory needed to do it. We therefore decided to scrap that idea and produce it regardless.

I think our final cut of our thriller opening sequence has been highly successful and was a fun task to complete.

We got 28/60 for our rough cut of our thriller so we had a lot of changes to make to increase our mark.

Our rough cut:

In our feedback we were told that we scored highly in our visual continuity and that our shots and the development of them were good; but were also told that it was mainly the sound continuity that was losing us marks and in order to get a better grade we would have to improve on this. In the first 6 seconds we used diegetic sound but in order to get better marks we were told to get rid of it and instead our whole narrative should only consist of non-diegetic noise as using sound effects would gain us more marks. We needed sound effects in various parts of the narrative such as when the protagonist was walking and when she was in the car. We knew that some of the sound effects would be difficult to find but we used all the sound effects that related to our thriller in our final cut. We were also told to either get rid of the heart beats or to make them lower as they didn’t match much with the narrative.

Another criticism was our titles as they didn’t mirror anything related to our narrative. We were also told that our thriller was too short and we needed to make it at least 25 seconds longer; we were told that we could make it longer by establishing the non-diegetic music with the narrative which we had failed to do. Overall we didn’t have much to change and thankfully we didn’t have to re-shoot any aspects of our narrative as this would have made the continuity not as good.

Once we had chosen our final groups for our thriller videos, we had a priliminary film and sound project to complete.
This involved looking at the soundtrack of Tony’s theme, from the movie Scarface, and seeing how it is effectively used, then using the theme in our own short clip.

We had three rules which were:
1) We have to use Tony’s Theme
2) We must convey atmosphere from the use of the Song
3) We must have an area of silence with effective use.

The first thing we did was watch a clip where tony’s theme was used, and then discuss as a class how effective we thought it was and what kind of atmosphere we felt it gave off.
We then went back to our groups to decide how we could incorporate the theme into our own idea’s, drawing up a rought storyboard of our ideas.

My groups idea was to have one boy, Joel, walking down an allyway, when two other boys, Barney and Joe, try to attack him. We chose the parts based ont he fact that Joel is significantly smaller than Joe and Barney (No offence!) As we thought the audience would assume him toget beaten up. However, Joel suprises us all by stopping the attack and dodging the blows. It is then a blackout, leaving the audience in suspence. Did he beat them up?

We chose to film ours down an allyway near school. It had a bridge over it, which i think worked well for the lighting, because it meant at certain points, when the light was behind the characters, it was mainly a sillouhette, with only certain detail being able to be seen. I think this gave a really good effect, as it gave a sense of enigma. Debra and I did the filming, and we learnt to make sure we press the right button at the right time, there were times when i was filming, then pressed pause when the action started!

Joel then took away the footage, and edited it, and i think he did a really good job with it. He edited the timing of it to give the video a staggered effect and put in the theme and silences to create effect, all parts of our three rules!

I feel that this was a very eye opening experience to working in such a large group (there are five of us) as we had a lot of difficulty keeping our time organised and ended up missing the deadline. It has showed us that we need to plan out everything we’re doing, and keep to a proper schedual in order to get everything finished on time. We also need to make sure not just one person has the things we need, incase of abscences. There were few occasions that someone had the footage on tape we needed to edit, but due to illness, we couldn’t get anything done.
We need to make sure we compromise as a group, and come up with decisions together, being prepared to give in when our individual ideas are not liked as a majority, instead of arguing all the time. I think this preliminary task has helped us to see what changed we need to make when we do our actual project, in all aspects like the preparation, the filming and the editing processes.

This is out final piece, i hope you enjoy it!

scarface-presentation1

When doing any filming on location, we need to do a risk assessment to make sure that all concievable problems have been thought about to prevent anything from going wrong.

Here are the scanned in copies of our storyboards, and also a powerpoint presentation explaining the shots used.
The scanned in copies are the main scenes, whereas in the powerpoint presentaion there are a few shots added in, just to give the thriller a better overall effect! The link to the powerpoint is marked as storyboard under the scanned pictures of the storyboard.

storyboard

Costumes:
Anne-Marie our protagonist plays a regular girl, so she will be wearing just a simple jeans and jmper, with a coat if it’s cold. this will reflect the mise en scene of a chilly cold day which will reflect the narrative.
Barney, the antagonist, will be wearing dark clothes to complement his character.

Props:
1) Pram – She almost drives into the pram, this is what causes her to stop.
2) Blanket – the blankets covering the doll so she doesn’t know what’s underneath
3) Freaky doll – she finds the doll in the pram
4) Car – She’s driving

A Pram – The pram will be the most shown prop used in the thriller. The story line will also be based around the pram because there are many enigmas surrounding the pram, for example why is the pram there? Who left it there? Did they leave it there for a reason? The pram will be placed in the middle the road so the protagonist has to get out of the vehicle to move it. The Thriller convention voyeurism is based around the pram as someone is waiting and watching for a car to come along and get out to move the pram.

Car – The car will be one of the main props used in the thriller. The story line will also be based around the car as a lot of mystery is involved with the car for example if someone actually got in the car when the protagonist is out of the car. The reason for the protagonist to be driving the car late at night is because she is on her way home from work. The car fits into the thriller convention that extraordinary events happen in ordinary situations for example driving home, and having to get out and move a pram which is in the middle of the road which leads to someone jumping in the vehicle. The car relates to the target audience because teenagers who are able to drive have to drive home late at night down dark country lanes.

Doll – The doll will not be a main prop in our thriller. The doll will be inside the pram to add a sense of fear, anxiety and add enigmas as you also don’t know if it is a real baby, if it’s a doll and if it had been put there for a reason.

The props used are their to create anticipation within the audience. When they see the pram covered with the blanket, they will instantly be wondering what is underneath, why is it in the road, what’s going to happen next?

Setting:
The setting of our thriller is supposed Down a country lane at night, however due to filming restrictions and possibilities, we had to settle with the best setting we could find.
We filmed in quite a wide road, though it was very quiet. Also, we had to film during the day, and are planning on making it look like vening during the editing process.

Mise en Scene:
To make our thriller realistic, we have chosen to film in quite a realistic setting. A country lane is somewhere that anyone can be driving down, which makes it more naturalistic.
We’re making it look dark in the editing process, as we feel it would be more scarier in the dark as everything will be ambiguous.

Protagonist: Anne-Marie Nicholson
Antagonist: Barnaby Nash

Narrative:
Our female protagonist is driving home on a late night on a country lane. Our tired protagonist is driving with her radio on when it suddenly begins to make strange static noises. The protagonist changes the radio channels to find the static noise in each station, slamming the radio off she then looks up to find a pram in front of the road. The protagonist shocked slams the brakes and gets out of her car to investigate the pram, mainly to see if there is a child in there and also out of curiosity. The protagonist unveils the blanket off the pram and finds a doll in it. Annoyed and relived the protagonist moves the pram out of the road and gets back to her car, she is then confused to find her car door is open. Whilst driving her car again the protagonist looks into the mirror to find a man inside her car. The screen goes black whilst we hear her final screams.

How it meets thriller conventions:
Our thriller sequence meets thriller conventions in different ways; the core of the narrative isn’t based on a crime, rather on enigmas such as who is this girl? What’s wrong with the radio? What’s in the pram, is she safe? Who and how did the door open? And once again is she safe. The crime which is murder comes at the end of the narrative which, though we don’t witness are sure happens due to the screams of the protagonist. As I’ve previously said there are many enigmas most which are resolved like many thrillers except for the enigma of who the protagonist is which seems irrelevant compared to the other enigmas presented. I feel that this narrative is quite complex, there are several false paths and resolutions; for instance when the protagonist unveils the blanket and we see the doll we think that she must be safe as it is only doll only for us to see the door open and it becomes inevitable that the protagonist is once again in danger. Though it isn’t evident while we’re watching we realise that the protagonist is dis-empowered by the antagonist from the start when her radio begins to act up to the set-up of the pram in the middle of the road so that she has to get out of her car. There are themes of voyeurism as though we can’t see the anatomist we know that he is watching the events happening concerning the protagonist. Extraordinary events also happen in ordinary situations in this narrative; the ordinary situation is the woman driving down a country lane but she becomes victim of plot set out by the antagonist which ends in her being murdered.

In our groups we made up and discussed two possible ideas that we could use as our opening thriller sequence, once we’d made detailed notes on each idea we then chose which idea we would develop and use as our opening thriller sequence.

Idea 1

The narrative is set in a country lane late at night. The narrative starts with our female protagonist who is driving her car down a country lane when she suddenly sees a pram in the middle of the road. She gets out of the car and looks in the pram checking if there is a baby inside. Seeing that there is only a doll inside the pram she moves the pram out of the road and goes back inside her car. Unbeknown to her the antagonist entered her car, we then end with her realization that there is someone in the car with her, who turns out to e a serial rapist/murderer.

Our group discussed doing this idea because it is an original plot and is based on an urban myth. Also we avoided using any of the thriller clichés that our target audience recognized in our primary research such as the protagonist befriending someone who turns out to be the evil mastermind and also the protagonist falling for very obvious traps. We don’t think that our protagonist fell for an obvious trap as anyone would get out of their car if they saw a big object such as a pram in the middle of the road where they were driving. Another positive of us doing this idea would be that there aren’t a lot of props needed and it is pretty low production. A problem we may encounter if we did this though is that we’d have to shut down a road but this may not be necessary if we found a country lane that wasn’t used often and if we filmed late.

Our target audience would be people aged 16 upwards as they would be the people most likely to watch our thriller as they would find it most interesting and also because we can identify with them more so we would be making a thriller with them in mind. Our target audience would like this thriller as it is jumpy and would have unexpected twists if we were to film the whole thriller.

Thriller movies that helped influence our idea were thrillers such as the Skeleton Kid and Psycho. The trailers or scenes that helped influence our idea are embedded below.

Idea 2

The narrative of our second narrative is set in a church/graveyard. The opening sequence starts with a news reporter opening with the news of footage of a group of teenagers in a graveyard and before we see the footage the news reporter warns the audience that the footage is disturbing. The footage starts with a point of view shot of the graveyard and the girl holding the camera sobbing as screaming for her friends then we see a glimpse of a figure then the camera dropping to the floor and all we hear is the banging of knives and the girl screaming then total silence. The footage then rewinds and we see a group of teenagers talking and waving to the camera as they talking about their camp out in the church graveyard.

We discussed this idea as a possibility for a thriller opening because we thought that it would be popular with our target audience. Films such as the Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity helped influence our idea and these films have been hugely popular with the audience we are trying to target. We used the idea of the victims filming the experiences they go through as it makes it seem more personal as we think that it can happen to any average person. Though this would be a crime thriller we’d also put elements of a psychological thriller in it, showing briefly how the antagonist makes the protagonists emotionally weak before he/she attacks them. Our target audience said that the thriller sub-genre they’d like to see more of is a psychological thriller so we incorporated that in this idea. A problem we have with this idea is that some elements could be seen as cliché because of the group of people being killed off but we plan on using the camera in different angles to create suspense and tension. We’ll also focus on the silence at the end of the sequence when the antagonist has killed one of the protagonists. If we were to use this idea as our thriller opening we’d have to ask for permission to use a church with a graveyard attached to it and we’d also have to film it in the evening.

The thriller films that embedded our thriller opening were thrillers such as the Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.