Evaluation

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.