Feedback on idea

The idea of the characters walking, talking and finding the murderer would be a whole film but this is just an opening scene. Therefore, the whole idea of them just talking doesn't have a main focus, so putting the finding of a dead body in there could be more of a focus. However, I could change the idea by making the boyfriend a detective finding a serial killer and his detective girlfriend could be dead but he does not know she is as he can still see her. However, we wouldn't find out that she is a ghost until we see the dead body. I would show this with a long shot of the dead body in the distance and then a close up of it. As they rush over to the body I will then shoot another angle where it shows him talking to himself. The girlfriend would find a glove a couple of metres away from the dead body which would belong to the murderer  and that is when the opening scene will end. Looking more into the TV series, River has helped me develop this idea.

Further development of Supernatural Thriller idea

My location would be Mill Hill Broadway high street and it would be a natural setting as it is in the outside in the evening to create a sense of darkness.

The only props I would use would be a knife and a mobile phone and my actors would be a middle aged man as the killer, a teenage girl as the girlfriend/ghost and a teenage boy as the boyfriend.

Films and TV series that have a similar narrative are Ghost Whisperer, The Sixth Sense and River.

The boy would wear black jeans and a black top as he is trying to blend in with the darkness when he goes to find the killer of his girlfriend. The girlfriend would wear a dress to convey her innocence and the killer would wear trousers and a shirt to make him seem like any normal guy.

The opening scene will feature the girl lying on the floor dead and the boy crying over her body.

In the whole film there will be shots of a boy walking up a high street with his girlfriend and they will be talking about a man. Shots will be shown of the boy walking up the road by himself so that we know that his girlfriend is actually a ghost and that he can see her. We will hear their conversation of tracking down her killer and they will eventually reach a house, the killers house. As the boy gets his phone and calls the police on his phone, a figure will emerge from behind a bush by the house and it will be the killer who will try stab the boy. However, the shot will stop at the killer reaching for the boy with the knife go end it on a mystery of whether he killed the boy or not.

Board of thriller idea

This has helped me to visualise my ideas as it shows the girls are walking at night and having fun as they are laughing which will create a chilled atmosphere and so we will show that with the non diegetic music and dialogue. The image of the person walking alone is the eerie aspect of the film as it shows how the girl is talking to a ghost.

The mood board helps to explain the narrative as the scenes are dark and portray friends walking at night, switching to the girl walking by herself.

The tone of my mood board seems quite dark but also fun as the juxtaposition of friends together and the night time helps to set the tone of a sci-fi thriller.

Films similar to mine and development of idea

Instead of having the opening sequence as the girl walking through a forest and finding a dead body, it could start with a transition from credits to the camera slowly panning round the pictures of her family in her house along with the credit names of the actors and then it will go straight into the rest of the film. She will shout "bye mum" and then walk out the front door where she will meet her friend and they will go on a normal day out walking around and talking about things. At this point, the music is up beat and almost fun.  They continue to talk and we hear their conversations about school life and parties, just as any other teenage girls. As they walk around the camera will take shots of them at different angles and some will show how the girl is talking to herself as she walks around with no one by her side, leaving the audience with the interpretation that the girl is a ghost.

I have developed my idea from the film 'The Sixth Sense' where a little boy has the ability to see dead people and his psychiatrist who befriends him is in fact dead but does not know that he is.

Another production which impacted my idea was the TV series 'River' where a detective has a partner who he believes is alive but was killed and is not shown from different angle as he walks with her

The TV series, 'Ghost Whisperer' has also allowed me to develop my idea as she comes across ghosts all the time in her daily encounters and sometimes she does not even realise that they are ghosts.

Interviews about thrillers

From these interviews, we gathered that the younger girls mainly do not like things that jump out at them and the younger boys do not think that "jumpy moments" are necessary in thrillers. From this, we have taken the assumption that we should not include many "jumpy moments". We also gathered that to appeal to an older audience, we would have to include more mature themes.

Credits in films

When watching the opening credits to two different films, we found that the Low Budget British film had less credits and mainly focused on the Production and film company names, along with the distributor as they get more money from mentioning their names back and can't afford to mention all of the characters, directors, producers etc.

In contrast, the High Budget American film mentioned all of the production and film company names, along with the characters, directors, producers etc. Therefore, it is blatantly shown that they had more money to spend and also got a lot back.

Feedback for my idea

1. Only two minutes so opening sequence could be difficult to get across that she is hearing voices
2. Too much for two minutes
3. Idea of finding a dead body could work so I need to watch more opening sequences
4. Watch the opening few minutes of The Killing US Drama on Netflix
5. Watch River and write about about how mental health issues are introduced
6. Watch The Sixth Sense and write about how the dead character is represented
7. Write about Donnie Darko and how mental health and suspense are used
8. Either do a killer finding or supernatural, talking to dead people

My Idea For my Thriller

Different types of sequences used in films

The art of the film title

• The name of the film
• An understanding of the tone/atmosphere of the film
• Narrative information
• Introduce all/some of the characters
• A sense of the film genre
• Actors names
• Establish the location

The girl with the dragon tattoo

• Gives the name
• Tells you the names of the characters and shows you them in black and white
• Sense that female character is powerful as she turns into a phoenix
• Introduced to lead actors in a sexual relationship as we see them kissing
• The intensity to opening sequence with dark non diegetic music and dark colours give a sense that it is quite dark in content
• We get the sense that water and fire are involved, so it could be somewhere near the sea and is set in a dark landscape where there isn't much sunlight

The discrete title sequence

• Like a miniature film before the actual film and gets audience in the mood to watch the film before it starts
• Discrete title sequence includes lots of animation and editing work

Traditional title sequence

The traditional title sequence still quite stylised but goes straight into the beginning of the film. In this type of title sequence, the films use sound and font, alongside the images to create the mood of the film. For example; we see this with Drive where the clothing is quite 80's as in is set in the 80's and the music is old fashioned. The font is also quite 80's looking as it is bubbly and pink. there is a sense of loneliness and isolation as he is driving alone at night through the city highway. This gives the sense that he is a lonely guy.

Straight into the film

This is a film that goes straight into the story and doesn't have an extra title sequence. A very good example of this is the title sequence of Wes Craven's Scream. There are no titles at all and the film starts directly with the action of the opening scene. This type of title sequence is far less common and is more likely to be used in horror of action films as it racks up the tension straight away with no sense of longing in the introduction.

The stylised opening sequence

A stylised opening sequence is a combination of straight into it and discrete. The film goes straight into the action but it is interspersed with titles at the same time. This helps create a mood for the film. The combination of sound and editing are vitally important in this sequence as they create meaning for the audience about the film. Mesrine does this by splitting the screen into parts, denoting that they are being watched from different angles by surveillance and the non diegetic music is cinstant throughout the sequence which creates the same tensional feeling throughout

Art of the title sequence - Halloween II

We can tell the genre of the film through the orange font and the slow zooming into the pumpkin and skull, indicates that it is a horror as skulls and darkness are symbolic of this genre.

The non diegetic music of something creeping in minor key builds up in tempo and the darkness all around the pumpkin creates an eerie atmosphere, again symbolising the horror genre. As it zooms into it with a flickering light inside and splits in half, revealing the skull within, this creates suspense and heightens the tension of the sequence. We don't meet the characters, but that slow zoom gives us a sense of something watching or stalking someone which is something we would expect in a horror film. We can tell this is a discrete title sequence as it tells us nothing about the film but gives us the information of the genre and what it might be about, i.e halloween.

Analysis of an AS Thriller

We can already see that the male character is wearing leather gloves and a trench coat as soon as he walks through the door, which is suspicious in itself and the non-diegetic sound as he enters indicates his nasty side. The woman comes across as very innocent as her home has many signs of it being family-like with family photos and a pram in the corner of the room. This binary opposition of a sinister man and an innocent woman makes it obvious that something will happen to her and the tilting down motion of the camera showing how he stole her door keys highlights this. The slow non-diegetic sound and tracking of the camera help to build up tension in the sequence as the killer stalks around the kitchen and the fact that the house is in an isolated location signifies that she will have nowhere to go. There is an eye-line match of him looking at the woman's key and phone on the table and a close up of him taking them which demonstrate the danger in which she is about to face. As the woman looks in the mirror, she catches him stealing things in the drawers and this is shown through an eye-line match. The close up of his leather glove placed next to her hand along with the sinister non-diegetic sound indicates that the killer is about to murder his victim and heightens the tension within the final scene.