Coraline title sequence

This is the title sequence for Coraline from the website http://www.artofthetitle.com/. This title sequence looks quite creepy which fits in with the theme of the film.

Art of the Title - Sherlock Holmes

This is an effective title sequence from the Guy Richie film Sherlock Holmes from the website http://www.artofthetitle.com/.

Questionnaire Results

I asked a different range of people at different ages so I would get some variety in my results as people who are in different age groups usually have a different opinion to people in a different age group to them. This is important because it helps me decide where my target audience should be in the age groups.




I asked both males and females to get slightly different views as usually males have different ideas to females. I tried to ask the same amount of females as males to get an even viewpoint and to not get too much of gender-biased results.

I asked a range of people in different jobs so I would get a different perspective for the questionnaire results. This is important because it also helps me figure out who my target audience should be and what job title they would have.






I asked people whether or not they read books to find out if the amount of books people read influence the films they watch or the amount of films they watch.

These are the types of genre of books the people that answered yes read. This can tell us what type of books people who watch films read.

I asked the people whether they watched a lot of films and this is what they answered.


I then asked the people who answered the questionnaire what genre of movies they watch. About a quarter answered with thriller and another quarter answered action. This tells me that these are the most popular genre out of the choices that were given to the audience.





The audience was asked if they liked thriller films and three quarters of them said yes. This means that I should be able to get a lot of different answers for the questionnaire.

The audience prefer action thrillers to the other sub genres they were given the choice to pick. This suggests that our audience would prefer a action thriller then any other type of thriller.






I asked the audience what they think makes a good thriller. Each person answered with a different suggestion which is helpful for us because it means we have a lot of different techniques to try.

I also asked the audience what they expect from a thriller and they gave me a lot of different answers. This is helpful because it gives us a lot of ideas for editing techniques.







I asked them this question so my group could get the right techniques for the opening so that we can make the audience want to watch the rest of the film.

I asked them what they thought we shouldn't include in our opening and the audience answered with some good ideas for what to not include in the opening. This is helpful because it means we can not include something that is going to put someone off our thriller.







I asked them this question because it would be useful to know whether or not we should make the opening longer then 2 minutes so we can grab the audiences attention or not. About one third said no and one third said yes.

So I asked the people that said yes why they thought two minutes was enough time to persuade you to watch the rest of the movie and got interesting results that are doable. This is helpful because it gives us ideas on how to get our audience to want to watch the rest of the film and how much time it can take.



I asked them this question to give us an idea of what type of music to use in our opening and the majority of the people said we should use dramatic/tension building music. This is helpful because it means when we are editing the opening we know what type of music are audience want and this will influence our choices.

Storyboard for thriller opening (first copy)

Our audience thought this storyboard was good but could include more detail about waht conventions/shots we are using.
We were going to keep this storyboard for the re-filming but while we were editing we decided that we needed to create a new storyboard.

Thrillers with simialr ideas as our idea

As part of our research we have researched thrillers with similar ideas to our idea. These are some of the films:

The Blair Witch Project

The Blair Witch Project is a horror film that can also be classed as a thriller. This movie has a similar idea to ours as it is about a group of people who go into the woods, follow sounds to a abandoned house where people have been murdered. This is similar as our idea is that a girl follows discarded clothes and footprints to a abandoned shack/barn where she finds a dead body.
'Three film students go missing after travelling into the woods of Maryland to make a documentary about the local Blair Witch legend leaving only their footage behind' - IMDb
This movie is based on the legend of the Blair Witch. This legend is about how a Irish woman named Elly Kedward was accused of being a witch in Blair, Maryland in 1785. Elly Kedward was then banished to the woods (called the Black Hill Woods) in winter. It was assumed she had died from exposure. Then in 1786, Elly Kedward's accusers and half the children vanished from the town, making the other townspeople scared. They then abandoned the town.

The Lovely Bones

'Centers on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family - and her killer - from purgatory. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal' - IMDb

The Lovely Bones can be classed as a thriller. This film is similar to our idea because it focuses on a young girl and a murder. In 'The Lovely Bones' the girl is actually murdered and in our idea the girl finds a murder and sees that she is being targeted.




Game of Thrones Opening Sequence

 

Although Game of Thrones is not necessary a thriller, the opening sequence from the T.V show is very unique and effective for the show. It is very well done and looks good.

Shot List (first copy)

Location

We have had many ideas for our film such as, internet dating gone wrong, mental asylum/museum and then the idea that we decided to go with ‘the abandoned shed with a hand, the reason why we decided to go with this idea was it is a very unique idea that we can adapt with ease if needed, this was not the idea we originally wanted to go with, our first idea was the internet dating gone wrong, the reason why we decided not to go with that idea was because the internet stalker idea sounded a bit cliché and we wanted to try something different e.g. the shed in the woods idea.

•  We have had many ideas for a location, one idea that we had was to film it in a wooded area.        
• Some of the negative sounds of that would be the lighting may not be on our side as it could be too dark and we would not see anything that we had filmed
• There could be some very bright patches of sunlight that come through the trees that may make some of our shots barely visible
•  We had a look at different wooded areas around Bourne and Thurlby and we couldn’t find any old sheds that we could use but we couldn’t find anything that we could uses that fits the thriller genre.
• We then had a look on Google maps to see if we could find any old farms with sheds and or barns in abandoned areas
• We found one on south fen road which if located just off the back of cherry holt road (behind the big Tesco’s)
•  We still need to ask about using the barn but it may cause some difficulties as there is no one around the area and also no houses so we wouldn’t know who to ask about the use of this location

Costume

In our group we have discussed what costumes would work accordingly to our thriller opening. We decided to go with casual
wear- perhaps a black hoody and jeans for our mysterious hooded figure, and an innocent white dress for our victim. By choosing these outfits we are setting the scene for the unknowing audience.

 

Lighting, Actors, Music

Lighting

We will just use natural day-light for the whole opening. In the shack we might use torches or a lamp to add a bit of lighting to show the display and to make it eery. As we are filming outside it would be hard to use any other kind of light as there are no electrical sockets so we can not use lighting equipment easily.

Actors

For our Thriller opening we are going to use Hope as a hidden identity. Her role is to show that someone has done this to the dead body. Libby will play the girl thats going into the shack and that gets locked in. We will either get Charlotte or Becky to play the dead body in the shack to show that someones been here and a girl has been murdered.

Music and Dialogue

There will be no dialogue throught the opening and we will use tense-slow music to build suspense and tension in the opening.

Props for our thriller opening and the justifications for using them

 

We are using discarded clothes on the floor of the woods because that is how the girl finds the shack. She follows the discarded clothes and the footprints in the mud and then finds the shack.

 We are using a hand for the shack because part of our idea is for the girl to find a shack and see a hand on the floor. This hand may be severed or it may be attached to a dead body. This will depend on what looks better on the camera.

We are using a shack-like building as that is where the story starts. We might change the shack into an abandoned building like a barn because of the convenience of the location but it will still be the main building in the opening.

We are using a footprint in the mud because that is another element that makes the girl go to the shack as well as the clothes. She does this as she is confused and wonders what it leads to.

We are using a mobile phone because after the girl gets locked in the shack she pulls out her phone to see if she has a signal. The phone will help create suspense as the signal bar will go down.

Idea for thriller opening

Our group has picked idea 3 from our pitch as this idea was the more unique idea and was more possible then the other two ideas for location.

Idea 3 will be effective as it creates tension and suspense as the audience wonder what will happen to the girl, who the hand and clothes belongs to and why there is a big picture of her and her friends in the shack. This will fit to thriller genre conventions because this idea will create suspense as well as making the audience ask questions.

This idea is justified with the audience research I have done as the idea isn't cliche and it should be able to create tension and suspense, both of these my audience said makes a good thriller.

Questionaire

Thriller Movie Posters

These are some examples of thriller movie posters.

In these posters the audience gets  some hints as to what the theme in the movie might be and a slight look at the main character(s) in the movie. For example in the poster for 'Hannibal' the audience can guess that the character is slightly crazy because of his expression and that he may be evil as his eyes are red in the poster. The red suggests he is evil because it might be symbolism of all the blood that has been spilled.

However, the movie posters also show the main character so the people looking to watch the movie are shown who the main character is so the audience know at least one character in the movie and what time era the movie is set in. For example, in the poster for 'Dorian Gray' the audience can tell it is set in the 1800s because the character on the poster is wearing 1800 style clothing. However, for some posters, like Shutter Island, the audience only get a clear look at the main characters face.




There are also certain themes these posters share in common. For example Taken, Taken 2, Hannibal and Vantage Point all have red letters in their titles as well as all of the posters having capital letters for the titles of the movie expect 'Se7en'.   6/8 of these movie posters also have clever tag lines, e.g. No Country for Old Men has the tag line 'There are no clean getaways', that hint at the theme in the movie. These tag lines usually are clear to the audience at what they were hinting at after they watch the film.  

Our Pitch

 

As a group we are picking idea 3 because it is a unqiue idea that can be adapted if needed This idea is more doable for location as there are abandoned shack-like places near woods all over the place.

 

Taken 2 Mise-en-scene Analysis

In this still image we see two characters in a mid shot. The audience can tell that the characters are wearing normal clothes that are realistic for the time era the film takes place in. The setting in this shot is in a American cafe/diner where the characters are getting milkshakes. There is natural lighting as well as light from the lights in the cafe/diner in this scene. This is typical for a thriller as a typical convention for the thriller genre is realism and everything in this shot is realistic.

In this shot we see the same two characters in a mid shot. The audience can see that the two characters are in normal everyday clothes that are again very realistic for the age of the characters and the time era the movie is in. The audience can figure out that the characters are in a hallway/lobby type place that is quite fancy. The lighting in this shot is artificial light from the the light bulbs that the audience can see in the distance, behind Brian's head.

 

In this shot we see two of the characters in a two shot. Right away the audience can tell that the characters are in a colder setting as they are wearing coats and scarves. The audience can also tell the scene is at night as the sky is dark and the characters are wearing clothes people generally wear during night or winter. The audience can also figure out that the characters are related as they are wearing similar clothes and are sat together on a sofa next to a window.




 



In this shot we see two characters in a medium shot. The audience can tell that the characters are in an outside environment as there is a tree, what looks like a gate and wall in the scene. The clothes the characters are wearing are again realistic in the situation they are in. The audience can also see a machine gun in the hands of the unknown character. This suggests to the audience that this man is one of the villains in the story that the protagonist has to stop.

In this shot we see four characters in an outside setting. The audience can guess that the setting is in a park-like environment as there are benches in the background and there is lots of grass. The audience can also see a yellow vehicle in the right hand corner which can inferred to be a taxi as most of the film is set in America and America has yellow taxis. The audience can see that the three known characters are dirty with their clothes messed up. This is very realistic as they have been through some fighting in the movie.