One of the props I will need to use within my thriller is a car. I'm not yet certain if this will be available to me, so if not then I'll cut to her walking home, and miss out the car scene.
Ipod - I will need the ipod for the opening scene when she's walking out the door for the music to start throughout my film.
Bed - For the scene where the girl gets killed, there is a shot of her lay dead on the bed.
Candles - I plan to scatter candles around the bedroom that the killer is in to add more effect. I believe that it will make the room appear spooky, as it will give the room a yellow glow in stead of the lighting being the main lights, which wouldn't add much effect.
I only need 2 characters throughout my thriller. One to play a young girl, who I have chosen my friend Beth, as she has a young vulnerable look about her so thought she'd suit the role as she evenutally gets killed.
The other could be played by anyone, as their features are not actually seen within my thriller, only their shadow. My sister will play this role.
I planned my storyboard over 13 slides. I wrote down the shots and sound used within each slide. I got different shot and editing ideas from watching t.v dramas/thrillers such as being human. I also spent time watching the online version created for a younger audience, "becoming human". This was where I got most of my shot ideas. The use of slow motion, and walking into the camera were just two of the ideas I thought were good, so decided to include them in my storyboard. I watched several YouTube video trailers of thrillers to get sounding ideas. Originally I was going to use dialogue in my film, but from doing research I thought that this would ruin the tension I was trying to build. I then decided that echoing the voices, and putting scary music over the top would have the same effect whilst including the dialogue I originally wanted. I got this idea from watching The Pillow Man - Little Jesus on YouTube.
I wanted to give the audience a sense of the characters fright, so thought that including a point of view shot of her feet slowly getting faster, would help create this. I also think that including scenes of the killer burning pictures of the girl, will give the audience a sense of his hatred for her, creating tension. I thought that having a shot of her looking through the window during her journey back to the house would create tension, as because its switching shots to the killer, the audience know what is coming, where as she isn't expecting anything to happen. I decided to put scary music over the shots of her, and a high pitch noise when ever the camera switches to the killer, so the audience associate him with bad, and unhuman.
An establishing shot of the scene she will be walking through, was decided as the scene is filmed in an isolated location, where nobody will be. This will give a sense of her being alone and therefore create more tension and therefore the audience will be aware that the girl is on her own, and that there will be nobody to save her. The shot of her walking up the stairs will make the audience scared, as they know what is coming, and will be wanting to make her aware of this, but there is nothing they can do. Whilst she is being killed, there is only a shot of the bedroom door, with the sound of the girl screaming. I thought that leaving the killing a mystery will make the audience fear the killer more, as they are unaware of his actions until the end of the sequence. The ending shot of the ipod on the floor, relates to the first shot of her when she first walks out the door and puts her ipod in. I think this will create tension for the audience as the ipod is one thing that's related to everyday life, and most people own an ipod, so it could relate to, or happen to them (an everyday experience).
The opening of se7en shows a book opening, this relates to everyday life which is often quite popular in thrillers, as it tries to relate to the audience to create more fear as it could possibly happen to them. There is a lot of low lighting throughout the sequence which creates fear, and the credits are in a unique font which shakes slightly to make the audience feel on edge.
The sequence shows everyday objects being used in a weird way, for example, the teabag being used to stain paper, a needle and thread to sew paper together and a razorblade being used to scrape the ends of his fingers. This would create tention as it's typical everyday objects being projected in a negativ or scary way.
There isn't a proper introduction to any character in the opening sequence, only showing his/her finger tips, suggesting the person is secretive which would create tention for the audience because they aren't aware of the identity of the person. It also suggests the character isn't normal. Close up and extreme close ups are the main use of shots in the opening sequence, showing that the director doesn't want to reveal to much about the situation or the character, creating suspicion as its hiding the identity of the character. The shots also make it so you can't see the whole project of what the character is trying to ahcieve, also creating suspicion and tention.
The fact that the character is scraping the ends of his fingers off, shows that he doesn't want to leave any trace of himself. This leads the audience to becoming scared because it becomes even harder for them to work out who the weird character is. This could affect my production as the idea of hiding the identity of the main character/scary character is typical of a thriller.
The character in the opening sequence also scribbles the eyes, and then face of a picture of a boy, showing that he may, or already has killed this person. This creates tention for the audience because it makes them fear the character as he could potentially be a threat to them.
In the opening sequence, it shows the character sorting through violent pictures and writing things down, as if he was planning how or when he was going to kill his victims, this would leave the audeince scared as they are expecting/waiting for something bad to happen. He highlights the boys face out straight after highlighting specific words, which shows he doesn't look at the boy as human, but treats him as equal as the wording, and doesn't show any emotion towards him.
The non diegetitc sound used within the opening sequence starts of slow getting faster to build tension. The sound used also sounds like a heartbeat, which relates to the audience because its human, this would make them scared because it might make them feel like they were at risk.
Fargo
The text at the beggining of the introfuction tells the audience wthat the film is based on a real life story, which would create more tenstion for the audience as it shows that it could possibly happen to them in real life. The car is in the middle of no where with no surroundings which gives a sense of isolation which would make the audience more scared as there would be nobody to save them if anything bad was to happen. The car that is pulling the other car could suyggest that something has already happened, which also would create tension for the audience and they don't know what is coming.
Conventions
I watched a few thrillers on youtube, and looked for typical lighting, camera shots, sound and editing.
Typical conventions included: dark settings, low/spooky lighting, use of silence, dramatic music, use of high angle shots, screaming, mysterious characters and the use of dark colours in mise en scene.
Some basic research into the main target audience of thrillers showed that teenagers were the second largest audience to watch thrillers.
From reading through this research, I plan my target audience to be from ages 13-17. I chose for it to be mainly aimed at females, as the main role is female, and therefore will appeal to them more. As a female myself, I also feel the project would be easier for me as I know what that target audience enjoys.
Last week we discussed idea's on what theme we were going to go with. We discussed doing a thriller, but didn't think this was original. Eventually we decided to do a romcom, but found it to hard to fit comedy into such a small space of time, so went along with a romance. We drew up a storyboard of a few of the shots of the sequence, including close ups and over the shoulder shots. The sequence includes a boy searching for his girlfriend who has just split up with him, wanting to talk and sort things out, but she doesn't want to know. We discussed the dialogue, and thought it would be more effective with less dialogue so you could focus on the emotion. I couldn't contribute much to the making of the storyboard as I was in an exam, but ended up filming a fair bit of the sequence. The choice for the boy to walk into the wrong room was decided to show his desperation to find his girlfriend. We got the filming done fairly quick as there was no arguments within the group. I missed out on the editing of the filming as I was away for one lesson, and the editing was completed within an hour.
