We
were asked to create a 2 min opening for a thriller film. We followed the
typical sub-genre of thriller which is crime. Most thrillers are based on crime
mysteries, for example Seven and many more. For thriller with a sub-genre of
crime, the audience will expect suspense in the movie and mystery. To keep the audience
engaged it id important that you do so as they would want to know more about
the movie and will carry on watching. To create the same effect we started off
with our opening with two girls leaving their house. They are dressed up as they’re
going to a party which could suggest that it’s a Friday night or it’s the weekend.
As they start walking they get followed by a person wearing a Hood Both the
girls are unaware of the person behind. We as the audience are unaware of the
characters, especially of the person wearing the hood This grabs the
attention of the audience instantly which is planned.
Next
we see one of the girls gets murdered by the person following them. In a
thriller movie we always find that there is a murder in the first few minutes of
the movie. We implied the same rule to our film opening as well. The audience
has no clue why the girl got murdered or who the murderer is which is completely
intentional. Whilst the first girl got killed, the other girl got a chance to
run away and save herself. This would be the thoughts of the audience but this
is not the case in our film. Further on we see that the second girl gets killed
by another mysterious person, this confuses the audience more and gets their
attention as they want to know what’s happening. The second mysterious person
got information from the murderer that the second girl run away and he should
get her. This thriller is not just about these two characters and why those two
people killed them, it’s the story behind both the mysterious persons why they
killed them. If we were to carry on making the movie, the audience would get to
know that both of the killers are deaf and mute. This is the main reason why
our film has no dialogue and diagetic sound.
All
thrillers are mostly shot in dark areas or at night time. This is to create
greater suspense and tension for the audience. We decided to go against the
typical conventions of a thriller and shot our opening in daylight. The reason
why decided to go against the typical thriller convention is because in normal
life we, the public, feel much safer out in the neighborhood than walking in
the dark, but in this thriller opening both girls got killed publically in daylight
which is very surprising for the audience. As we shot in day time we had to
make sure we make up the suspense and the tension which would normally come in
a thriller due to the shooting at night. We did this by using non-diagetic sound,
visual effects and the costumes plus props. We added non-diagetic to our
opening to create more tension and suspense. We started off with slow music
whilst the killer was following the two girls. As it comes to the more serious
part of the opening we get more intense music to create suspense. Finally at
the end when the second girl gets killed we get the sound of a long beep, which
we see in movies when somebodies heart monitor makes when it stops beating. In
normal thriller we tend to get diagetic sound and dialogue with lots if
screaming but we didn't as the two killers are deaf.
Furthermore,
the costumes play a vital role in our thriller opening. For our two killers we
chose black as the main colour. Black is very powerful colour. The colour black
suggest evilness, mystery and death. We chose this as our main colour for the
killers as it also foreshadows the death of the two girls. As the killer is
very hood this makes the audience think of the younger generation, teenagers,
as it is a typical stereotype. The faces of both killers are hidden with could
imply that maybe they are ashamed of what they are doing. Also as the face is
covered with a scarf, which highlights out that they are mute. Both victims are
wearing a contrast of white and black. White suggests purity and innocence,
whereas black suggests dark and evil. This could point out to the audience that
maybe both the girls weren't as innocent as we think they are. Maybe they even deserve what happened to them.
The
whole concept of our thriller opening has got hints for the whole movie, if we
were to carrying on producing it. The reason why the killer strangles the first
girl could be because he feels jealousy of her voice as he is mute. Jealousy is
a very big issue in this thriller. Jealousy can make people do things they would
never do. The second girl gets stabbed but the audience is unaware of this. As
the scene is shot from a shoulder point of view we assume that her throat got
slit. This also highlights out that the second killer is jealous of her voice
as well. Another main point in our movie is the call the second victims gets,
just some seconds before she got killed. This could be intentional by the
killers or just pure coincidence. This could be another prospective of them
being jealous. They are not able to talk to each other on the phone or even
hear each other. In the thriller opening we see that the first killer text
massaged the second killer, which again tells us that they are unable to talk
to each other verbally. Also the call tells the audience that if the caller would
have called few minutes before both the girls could have been saved. This could
make the audience either fell guilty for the two victims or they could be
frustrated at the caller because he/she didn't call before.
In
our thriller opening we have represented ability and disability from different
point of views. As the two girls get killed, automatically the audience feels
guilty for them, they have sympathy with them. For the killers, they have a
negative point of view. Due to the fact that the killers are disabled they are
disadvantaged in front of the victims. When the two girls get killed, I the frame they are shown in the same level as
the killers which could suggest equality but then from the actions going on we
can see that now the killers are in an advantage. As the two girls get killed,
we don’t hear any screaming at all which also suggests that the killers want to
take revenge.
Our
characters represent teenagers but then it’s not very visible with the two
killers besides their Hood's The two victims are seen very innocent as they
are being targeted at. Maybe if they were shown alone in a frame they would be
seen as normal teenagers, partying, drinking, taking drugs etc. It may as well
show them as the “bad ones”. Teenagers in general are seen very heartless. At the
time when victim one was getting killed victim two just ran off. This shows
that the friendship between them two wasn't as deep maybe or they are simply
heartless. As for the killers, they are wearing dark colours and are the killers;
the audience are going to see them as the villains. No one thought about the
fact that at first were the victims. Further in the story it is revealed that
the two girls were used to bully the killers as they were deaf and mute. This tells
us the typical side of teenagers. At first they are all innocent by through people
they get influenced very easily and become rebellious and go into crime.
Our
film is targeted at a 15+ audience; this is due to the details in violence we
have shown in our film. The film doesn't contain any abusive language or nudity,
but the amount of violence can easily influence younger audience. The main
reason why we chose this target audience is that most people in this particular
age can relate themselves to similar situations e.g. jealousy. Our film is
based on the phone call. Technology is a main factor with teenagers. They know
well about it and how everything is used plus what’s in fashion and what’s not.
Not only teenagers but even older people are becoming more and more attached to
mobile phones and their little gadgets, it’s becoming more common in our lifestyle.
As the story includes the representations of disabled people, we took in consideration
of having subtitles to our film because maybe deaf people would like to watch
it.
Our
film will be mostly distributed over the internet as it’s a small scale movie,
only 2 minute opening. Also this is a student project, so no big distributing
companies would want to spend their money on our film. As this movie is not made
with professional equipment it might not reach the high standard for any
company to distribute it. For our movie to be seen worldwide, we don’t necessarily
need a big distributing company. As I mentioned earlier, technology is having a
big impact on our lifestyle, so if we upload our thriller opening on YouTube it
could get many viewers. On the internet we have the facility to share and inform
our friends about this film, through social networking sites, ‘we’ media. In this
way we could get the opinions of our audience instantly as they can share their
comment with us. This allows us to make better films in the future, as we would
have direct contact with our audience.
If
we would like to actually share our video through a distributing company we
could consider the New Line Cinema production Inc. it produced a rage of movies
and has recently joined with Warner Bros. They distribute their movies in UK
and in Canada; this not only gives us the whole of UK as an audience but overseas
we have audience as well.
In
order for our film to be successful we had to do some research beforehand. This
included the research in similar thriller products, conventions of thrillers
and how a movie is made. When I was analyzing my similar thriller product it
helped me a lot whilst I was making my own. Throughout the making and even
before the making, we had meetings with the group and discussion which included
the topic how we can make this best as possible. Each individual in the group
had a different responsibility they had to carry out. We worked well in the
group and helped each other during the making of this thriller opening. Filming
is not as easy as it may seem like and this is the biggest subject I’ve learned
whiles doing this project. Small details such as clothing ad bigger things like
lightening have huge impact on the effectiveness of the product. Filming wasn't easy for us we had to re-shoot a lot of scenes due to various reasons which included
lightening and other issues. Over all I am very pleased with my work and
according to me it’s a very successful piece of art.
