Treatment for Thriller:

There’s a 25 year old middle class girl with mental health issues of Psychosis and she dreams about bad events happening, which then actually happen on the day, when she wakes up. The main setting is in London, at her home and also in her psychiatrist’s office. The problem is she can’t differentiate between dreams and reality. Therefore experiences a lot of paranoia. Later in the film she dreams about her psychiatrist coming to kill her and she tries to stop this from happening when she wakes up. As a resolution she gains control of her dreams and reality and kills the psychiatrist herself leaving the audience unsure of whether it was in her dream or in reality.

 

Audience Research: Questionairre

 We made a questionairre, formed of 10 questions which the answers to, would give us useful information to help us know the target audience for our Thriller opening.
We asked simple questions like their age, to know which age group liked certain aspects in a Thriller.

By asking people about what type of place they live in, it gave a clue as to what issues they would be familiar with and which issues they maybe aren't aware of, so that we would know which type of subgenre to do and what issues to include within it.

We asked both male and female so we could get a range of what each gender preferred. But we also asked different ethnicities of people to see if where the people come from had an effect on the types of film they enjoy.




By asking what genre they enjoyed, we would get a clear idea as to how which type of people enjoyed Thriller films over Horror or other genres.

 

By asking how important music is to the audience members, it gives an idea as to whether they acknowledge it having an effect on the scene. Most of the people answered that it was very important.

By asking people if they recognise the conventions of a thriller it would give us an idea as to how subtle/obvious we would make the storyline because if they weren't used to seeing the conventions of a thriller then we would have to consider using more obvious ways of hinting at parts of our storyline.

Product Research: Blood Simple (1984)

               

The reaccuring theme of the photograph with the man and the woman is intriguing because it shows that this is important in the storyline of the film and it made my mind begin to wonder what happened with these two characters.

The conversation that the two men have at the beginning makes me think that they are detectives as they discuss the lives of the two people in the photograph, and as they speak to each other there are shots of these two people over their voices which I thought was effective because it made it clear that this film is connected with a crime or a mystery that needs solving. This intrigued me more and made me want to watch the whole film.


The shot shown on the right gave me an idea that a happy couple's lives are interrupted or disturbed as the man is being the stereotypical role in the relationship and comforting and holding the woman in his arms. The fact that the woman has her head turned away shows that something may have happened to make her upset.

This is then confirmed when there is a shot revealing the woman's expression (shown on the left). She looks distressed and desperate for the man to protect her, suggesting that something very dramatic has happened.








There is then various shots showing methods of murder, a gun and a spade. There is then a shot from a gun's aiming point of view pointing at a character which looks young and perhaps vulnerable.

I liked it being from the aiming point of view because I felt more tense and with the music of deep strings and a beat getting faster, it became very effective and the shots were shorter which created a faster pace and it built up.

There is also frequent sounds of gun shots nearer the end, showing that the characters are in dangerous situations and it makes you more interested to find out what happens,

Overall, I enjoyed this trailer as it had all of the conventions that I expected from a good thriller but not so typical that I would be able to guess what happens, it left me wanting to find out more about the plot.

Preliminary Task

We used techniques such as match on action and shot reverse shot to film a short conversation, these techniques are often used in soaps such as Eastenders when 2 characters are talking to one another.

Product Research: Inception

I really enjoyed watching the opening of Inception as it has an uneasy atmosphere, the water clashes on the rocks which conducts some sort of danger. The camera shot is blurry which can suggest ambiguity and a close up is shown to the audience, which can make the audience feel uncomfortable.


The clear colour of the water suggests that someone hasn't been killed but can show that someone may have drowned. There is then a close up of a character who face is out of focus. A non-diegetic, ambient sound of the sea is used because its quite loud, and the audience can feel as if they are in the action.

Product Research: Se7en (1995)

I really enjoyed the opening for Se7en as it really gives an atmosphere to the start of the film. It shows some sort of creation, a plan is coming into action. It lets the audience think of what it maybe could be about.

The scene starts slow and a metronome starts to tick, causing a beat, almost like a heartbeat, very sinister. The shots then increase to a faster pace and the electronic sounds starts creating a weary and obscure atmosphere. This then builds up to a crescendo of sounds, screams, thick noises, zaps, production/factory sounds, weird noises. That get faster and faster, creating a beat and its very repetitive, with a loud bass behind. These come together to produce a very intense song to go with the intense shots. pages turning, production pictures, writing in black ink, cutting, sticking, shadows, pictures, photos of dead, injured, tortured. Its all very intense and holds a lot of thriller. The threading of the pages together, to bring it all together.

Throughout this is all done, with a jolted, post production effect, its very obscure and hard to see what is actually being filmed, as the editing is very fast paced and it is very distorted, unknown and murderous, but you get a sort of sense. The music brings the shots together creating a really good opening sequence as we dont know a lot about what is going on or who the person is and why they are doing this. 

Practising Editing Techniques

I filmed some short clips on my phone (the reason for poor quality and unsmooth filming!) outside my house and around my area because the horrible windy and rainy weather inspired me as it made the atmosphere a bit spooky!

I then edited it using iMovie and played around with a few effects such as slow motion and reverse.
I used some sound effects from iMovie as well to add to the unnerving atmosphere.

The music was composed by me and recorded using Garageband.