Our opening sequence will introduce the narrative of a thriller film through flashbacks. It begins with a woman interrogating and threatening to shoot a man tied up in a garage. As she counts down from 10, the camera will show flashbacks of important events that led the man to this point. We hear a gunshot as the woman reaches 1, and it cuts to "1 week earlier" to begin showing the full story. The opening establishes the thriller genre through crime-based plot, tense music, shadows and quick cuts to build suspense. It introduces the main characters of the man and his girlfriend while revealing little about them. The atypical female antagonist is girly but doesn't hesitate to get violent, subverting expectations for
2. Our Final Idea
Our film begins with an opening shot of a man tied up in a garage, a woman
then comes in and begins an interrogation, and pulls out a gun and points it at
a girl who will then be revealed to the audience. As the woman begin to
count down from 10 before she shoots the girl, the opening sequence will
show flashbacks of important sections in the mans life that have led him to this
point.
We then hear a gun shot as the woman reaches 1 and the camera blacks out
saying ‘1 week earlier’
3. Genre?
We chose the genre of our opening sequence to be Thriller. This genre proved
most popular in our audience survey.
We also think that doing a thriller will give us a wide range of options to work
with when creating our opening sequence.
4. Character or Narrative?
Our opening sequence will mainly introduce narrative, as we’re going to
include flashbacks of the events of the story. The characters are introduced
but we’re not going to reveal much about them because it’s only the
opening sequence and we feel that narrative is more likely to draw the
audience in.
5. Conventions
Our opening will contain many typical thriller conventions in order to establish
the genre.
Our story is crime based
We are planning to use low lighting and shadows and quick cuts
We will be using changes in the angles of shots to create tension
The protagonist is at the mercy of the antagonist
Diegetic sounds of breathing builds tension
We are also using an urban setting
We will be using tense music to build suspence
6. Main characters – man and his girl
friend
He is in his late teens- twenties
He has stolen something
He’s a stereotypical male lead
The girl is of a similar age
She is not involved in the theft however her life is threatened because of it.
7. Female antagonist
Girly/feminine – counter typical antagonist
Doesn't like to get her hands dirty
wears smart clothes and make up
She is not a typical thriller character as in our audience survey they said
that they prefer counter typical characters also this will help to make the
storyline more interesting by switching up the usual characters.
8. Visual style
Mise-en-scene
Dark colours
Contrast between busy London streets and secluded shed in the middle of
nowhere
Antagonist wears white looks girly and pleasant –unexpected antagonist
Protagonist look dirty like they’ve been tied up for days(sweaty and tiered)
Dark room only lit by a single ceiling light
9. Visual style
Camera and editing
Cut aways to help establish the narrative as they’ll be flashbacks.
Close ups during the interrogation to make it more tense and tight, making the
audience empathise with the victims.
Mixture of slow and fast motion.
Establishing shots of the shed at the beginning to set the scene.
Sound
We’re going to use tense music during the credits to build up an atmosphere.
Count down with a harsh voice to build suspense.
10. Target audience
Our target audience is 15-30 year olds, both men and women. This is the
main target audience for thriller films.
When we carried out our first audience survey we discovered that most of
our audience enjoy Thriller films so we looked more into it and the
conventions.
People said that they would like counter-typical characters, and so we
chose to make our villain a woman who is more feminine.
We also chose to use London as the location for the flashbacks because
our audience said that they would like to see an urban environment as it
makes it more realistic.