Location Form

Pitch Video

Pitch Presentation

Timeline for Our Thriller Opening

Typography

Production Schedule

Location/scene	Actors needed	Props	Shot number	Date and time
Driveway of house, walking to the front door	Chloe Daniels Jonathan Daniels	Car keys, house keys, car	1-6	8:00am
Walking through into the house	Chloe Daniels	Keys	7-8	8:40am
Kitchen	Chloe Daniels	Briefcase, knife, glass, cranberry juice, fridge, cloth	9-22	9:00am
Walking through the house, upstairs	Chloe Daniels	None	23-27	10:30am
Bathroom	Chloe Daniels	Makeup wipe, towel, dressing gown	28-43	11:00am
Bedroom	Chloe Daniels	Nail polish, lipstick	44-47	12:30am
Walking through the house, downstairs	Chloe Daniels	None	48-49	13:00am
Kitchen	Chloe Daniels	Radio, tea,	50-53	13:30pm
-	-	-	-	Lunch break – 45minutes
Corridor/ house	Natasha Shadat	Doorframe	54	14:15pm
House	Chloe Daniels	Teacup	55	14:30pm
House	Chloe Daniels Natasha Shadat	Knife, teacup	56	14:45pm
House (outside)	Natasha Shadat	Knife	57	15:00pm
House	Chloe Daniels	Teacup	58	15:15pm
House	Chloe Daniels	Teacup	59	15:35pm
House	None	Teacup (smashed)	60	16:00pm

Sound in Our Thriller Opening

Location Scouting

Production Company Ident

Production Shot List

Shot List (60) by Natasha Shadat on Scribd

Vox Pop Evaluation

Vox Pop Evaluation

For our vox pop we asked 12 students aged 16 - 18 to answer our six questions aimed about thriller films. We made sure our vox pop was representative; however we stuck to a limited age range. This age range makes it easier for us to acknowledge the realistic views that the teenage public may have about certain thriller films. These questions would allow me and my group to discover new information that would be extremely helpful when it comes to creating and producing our own thriller production. This vox pop was necessary as it would inform the four of us about their personal interests about the genre thrillers.

What’s your favorite thriller film?

Limitless           Taken                               Emelie                Taken

Legend            Se7en                              Black Swan        The Conjuring

Nerve              Paranormal Activity       Batman               Hannibal

What makes it thrilling?

These 12 students had similar views about what makes thrillers effective. The answers vary from the thrillers having low key lighting, suspense, fast paced and unexpected plot twists. They say that a suspenseful soundtrack that builds up the tension, action packed narrative, chase scenes throughout the film and jump scenes are also elements that help to make it exciting and efficient.  Their answers are all conventional for a stereotypical thriller film; this supports the thriller narrative that can occur. This question helps us understand what makes a thriller thrilling in order to be successful; therefore as a group we should consider most of these generic fundamentals of a thriller film.

What kind of soundtrack makes it effective?

This question helped me and my group understand that this is also a significant factor in making the thriller effective. The typical answers we received were “eerie, fast paced music, orchestra, upbeat, rapidly increasing building up the suspense.” This shows how as a group we should make sure to add these features so it fits the typical theme of a thriller film.  The soundtrack has always been a favorite of mine when it comes to thrillers, therefore I would like to spend a good amount of time choosing a suitable/appropriate soundtrack that would associate with the events taking place in our own thriller production.  For example when a shock factor appears we would like the soundtrack to correlate and set the atmosphere even further. The soundtrack would evidently foreshadow upcoming events, which would be interesting for the viewers to see.

What’s your favorite thriller sub genre and why?

The respondents took a liking to related sub genres and there were common ones such as action and horror. Also some other students included psychological, mystery and crime.  Within these sub genres there are many jump scares that are quite popular, this is a way to entice the audience. The fact that the viewers take pleasure in these types of films makes it clear that they enjoy the props and the atmosphere that is familiarised by the mise en scene. A couple of respondents chose psychological, this suggests that they like to think more deeply into what they’re watching and don’t want to be passive viewers. The psychological factor would propose them to question the narrative and release more enigmas. Enigmas are a popular aspect that I would like to incorporate within out production so we can have our consumers guessing and searching for more answers within the thriller film.  As a group we chose our sub genre to be crime/mystery, this was chosen as they quite popular within our psychographics.

How often do you watch thrillers?

It was found out that the respondents watch thriller films fairly often; however it was more noticeable that the males had more of an interest in watching it regularly. The females stated how they don’t really watch it as often as other genres, this infers that our production may be more liked by males however this may not always be the case as there were a few females who mentioned that they have an interest in mystery and crime thrillers. I would say that this genre of film is quite popular with teenage groups as it is deemed as exciting and very thrilling, the reason why teenagers are more attached t this genre could be that they use it as escapism and become engrossed by the narrative as it is quite realistic yet  some may consider thrillers to be unrealistic.

Risk Assessment

Vox Pop Video

Vox Pop

Vox Pop

Shot 1: Expected in the new, direct address informing the audience. Cantered position

Shot 2: Talk/chat show for example Graham Norton. Over the shoulder shots are incorporated

Shot 3: Outside broadcast, assumes to be providing factual information. Could be a documentary.

 Shot 4: Asking people question in public. Ideal for Vox prop. In direct gaze from the public, looking off screen.

What are the conventions of Vox Pops?

• Vox Populi
• “Voice of the street”
• “Man on the street”
• Public setting, busy area to shower bystanders
• Different age groups/ social class
• Same set question for everyone
• Introduces the public with the title caption and at the bottom of the screen name, age and occupation
• Do not hear the question being asked
• Medium close ups are used
• Indirect gaze
• The public would be in a specific place within the rule of thirds for example the right side.
• Same people shown more than once
• Each person is shown on screen for roughly 3 seconds then a new person is included

Questions?

1. What’s your favorite sub-genre within a thriller?
2.  What is your favorite thriller film and why?
3.  What makes a thriller effective?
4. What would your ideal thriller consist of?
5. What soundtrack do you think is appropriate?
6. What do you expect to occur in a thriller? 

Task	Person
Organise Questions	All
Film the Vox pops	Kirsten
interviewer	Natasha
Casting - organise people to interview	Grace
Editor	Chloe

Mise en scene

Production Planning: Opening Thriller

Foundation Production Planning Sheet: Thriller Opening

Who is in your group?

1.       Natasha Shadat (me)

2.       Grace Pengelly,

3.       Chloe Daniels

4.       Kirsten Johnson.

 

What sub- genre of thriller are you planning to make/ why this sub-genre? What ideas do you have?
The sub-genre that I am planning to create would be a psychological thriller. This is because I enjoy watching them and they always attract my attention due to the narrative. Psychological thrillers are quite realistic and somewhat relatable because of some of the situations put forward. One of my ideas for the opening thriller is that it presents the life of a teenage girl; however she believes she has no parents because she supposedly murdered them herself. She then eventually becomes fostered by a couple who were fairly friendly with her parents; however, these foster carers are not who they seem to be and continuously cause mental pain for the teenage girl.

 

Which location(s) will you use and why?
The location that I am planning to use would be predominantly a household. This would make it much easier for our group because all four of us can contribute majorly in this factor, by using some areas of our house. I believe that if we film most of it in a household it would therefore create the ideology of a ‘close-knit community’; on the other hand this anti- stereotypical nuclear family would be disrupted as the opening progresses. It is known that a house connotes a family and a welcoming atmosphere; this is what I’d want for the audience to see at the very beginning of the opening.

 

Who will your actors be and why? What roles will they play? What
costume/makeup?
For the actors we would need a male and a female to play the stereotypical characters of the foster carers. The foster parents would have typical jobs such as an office job for the husband and the wife to be a housewife; this would be portrayed further through their costume and props within the thriller. The man would wear a suit to represent his occupation and the wife would be wearing an apron, washing up gloves and other stereotypical props necessary to uphold the ideology of a housewife.

 

Will you use a chronological narrative/flashbacks/dual narrative?
In the opening the narrative would not be presented chronologically to reinforce the chaos within the thriller and to disorientate the audience. Flashbacks would be incorporated to reinstate the past events and this would also allow the viewers to understand the narrative fully without being too perplexed.

 

 

What titles will you include?

The titles we would include would be all the traditional ones seen in a real, authentic thriller opening, for example ‘Directed by, Music by, Edited by’ etc. To introduce these titles I feel that it would be most effective and suitable if they were on items around the house such as a title written on a door knob.

What sound will you include?

Most of the sound that we chose to include would be primarily non-diegetic sound; however, there would be some aspects of diegetic sound like the door slamming or footsteps. The non-diegetic sound would be a thrilling soundtrack to make the genre more evident and distinct.

Which thriller openings have influenced you? How do you plan to use these influences?

The thriller opening that has influenced me the most would be ‘The Conjuring’. The opening of this film had many features that grabbed my attention for example one of them had to be at the very beginning, It was when a black screen was displayed whilst two people were having a conversation. Then an image of a creepy doll appears suddenly as the music got louder (crescendo). The image was slowly zoomed out from, alarming the audience even more. I plan on using this influence in my very own opening by featuring the black screen for a few seconds to confuse the audience and represent mystery.

How will you attract your audience and make them want to watch the rest of the film?

I would ensure that the opening is interesting and exciting. It is known that man y people enjoy watching unusual events take place in a film so therefore I would use this idea to attract my consumers. Also I would prefer it if there was a little confusion to make them want to carry on watching and get to know the stories behind each character. I believe sound and editing plays a big part also, this would make me put a lot more time and work in this section as well as the narrative.

 

What problems do you anticipate with the planning/shoot? How will you overcome them?

It would be difficult to create the ideology of this film to be psychological because I feel that it’s hard to show the mental state of someone however we can overcome this by using characters to reinforce this theme. The characters would have to show their vindictive yet inncoe3nt side to show clearly how they experiment with the girls’ mental state. When it comes to shooting I feel that it may get a little tedious in terms of location, on the other hand we could solve this issue by slightly changing some areas in order to attract the audience and give them what they want as a consumer. We could also expand on where we shoot by using parts of a neighbourhood to record brief scenes in the thriller opening. 

Production Company

Production Companies by Natasha Shadat on Scribd

Dexter Opening Title Analysis