Media Studies, Final Idea

1. The Final Idea
Our Thriller movie

2. Characters
Name: Annie Walker
Age: 20
Personality: Mature; always looking out for her
younger sister, Maisie; constantly cautious and
weary; introverted.
Name: Maisie Walker
Age: 15
Personality: Excitable; out-going; extroverted;
extremely curious and adventurous.

3. Summarised Plot
Opening establishing shot of street and house
Jump cut to inside house where Annie is looking at a
picture of her deceased mother before turning it face down.
She then begins reading an eviction notice – Maisie walks
through front door with a briefcase after returning from
school.
Annie subtlety hides eviction notice in her back pocket
Maisie presents the briefcase on the table explaining how
she found it at school
Both open briefcase together to reveal a large sum of
money (£500,000)

4. Summarised Plot
Maisie instantly gets extremely excited, however Annie is
cautious and weary.
Annie asks where the Maisie got the briefcase from –
somewhere at school
Maisie gambols out the room
Annie, still cautious, studies the briefcase further. Locates
a tear which reveals a note
Just before she grabs the note, Maisie screams from
another room
Runs to the room but Maisie’s not insight. Notices the
window is open, slowly approaches it.

5. Summarised Plot
Camera slowly reveals Maisie’s lower body on the ground,
then Annie quickly looks away.
Freaks out and frantically checks pockets for phone, it isn’t
there so runs back to room.
Picks phone up off table and phones 999
As Annie is on the phone, the camera has an extreme
close-up of the briefcase. The money is still there but the
note is missing.
Title sequence – this will be a flashback title sequence
where we will show how Maisie came into possession of
the briefcase.

6. Themes & Messages
In our Thriller opening, we are going to explore the
theme of mystery. To accomplish this we will include:
‘whodunit’ technique
This technique provides plot-driven variety for
the viewer as it enables them to figure out –
alongside the main character - ‘whodunit’. Our
‘whodunit’ technique will be the foundation of the
movie as the audience will want to know who
killed the younger sister.

7. Themes & Messages
Investigation
The investigation begins as soon the younger
sister brings the briefcase to her older sister, as it
is the catalyst for the narrative. Investigations are
commonly used in mystery thrillers as it is used
to build the narrative.

8. Target Audience
We’ve tried to include a multitude of features that will
aid in making our film appeal to a certain audience.
The audience in question will be people aged around
the same as us; 15-20 years olds. We chose this
audience as we figured it would be the easiest to
revolve our film around, as having a similar age as
our audience allows an easier time with knowing what
kind of subjects and terminology associate with this
age. We also chose this age group due to it being
easier to gather information about. This is due
working around a plethora of people similar to our
age, allowing us to collect research on our target
audience from a varied yet suitable demographic.

9. Target Audience
As mentioned previous, we will try to incorporate
features into our film that will appeal to our target
audience. For example, our main protagonists are
females revolving around a similar age to our
audience. Additionally, we will also include certain
aspects that are easily relatable by the age group,
such as a young sibling relationship.
The majority of people have a sibling so can relate to
the trauma of seeing them get hurt, making the
audience more emotionally involved with the films.
Our main protagonist is a brave female, which is
something that breaks the stereotype for most films.
Her being a girl character attracts the male audience
to see the film, and her being strong makes females
engage with her character

10. Practical Details
Research:
We have researched into the thriller genre to
ensure we have solid grasp on the thriller style.
We have studied and analyzed multiple films
including: Shutter Island, Memento, and Don’t
Breathe. From these studies we have discovered
the suitable conventions, themes, methods, and
ideas we will utilize in the opening of our film.

11. Practical Details
Personnel: Three crew members for filming, editing and
directing – James, Sam and Jamie.
Locations: A house
Equipment: 70D Canon camera (capable of recording video
and audio), tripod, spare batteries for the camera, briefcase,
fake cash for briefcase, mobile phone, handwritten note.
Timings:
0:00s-0:30s Set up: Finding the briefcase,
0:30s-1:00min Confrontation: The younger sister dying
1:00min-1:30min Resolution: Calling the paramedics/note
disappearing
1:30min-2:00min Titles

12. Problems We May
Encounter
Problems that may be encountered and how we
will fix them.
People may not turn up. To avoid this we will
schedule a date that everyone is free on, so no
one is busy and everyone can make the shoot.
The camera battery may run out whilst shooting
the film. We will charge up the cameras fully in
advance and carry spare batteries.