Costume

Main Protagonist Girl
We will dress her mostly red to highlight her vulnerability and the danger that surrounds her.
Hair Pins - £3.49 from eBay


Pumps - £12.00 from Asos

Coat - £13.99 - from Ebay

Following Man
We are dressing him solely in black so he will remain hidden, and blend into the crowds. As black is a common clothing colour we should mostly be able to use clothes that we already own.
Black boots, coat and jeans

Narrative

• The film opens with us seeing a shot of the girl bing tapped on the shoulder by one of her friends, which will parallel the final shut off the film. 
• We then see her talking to her friends, seemingly happy, before saying goodbye to walk home alone
• We see a series of wide shots of the girl, highlighting her as isolated and vulnerable
• The audience starts to hear loud footsteps and heavy breathing over the top of shots of the girl
• There is then a series of close ups of the follower crosscut between a close ups of the girl's face 
• More of the follower is gradually revealed, though the audience never see his face
• We will see some shots where the follower is not there, playing of the idea of paranoia and whether the follower is really there of if the girl is imagining it
• It will end with a shot of the followers hand on the girl's shoulder, then she will turn around, it will cut to black and there will be a loud scream

Audience Research - Vox Populi

My partner and I went to talk to several more people in the 11-17 age range as this was the most popular age of the responses to our questionnaire. We filmed us asking them some follow up questions and told them about our proposed idea for out thriller. Everyone we we talked to seemed intrigued by our idea and said they would be interested to watch the film after it is finished.

Sound & Music

For the end of our film, we want to cut to black and have a diegetic scream from the girl - this will help to create tension and intrigue the audience as to what happens next. We also want to enhance the diegetic sound of her footsteps and her breathing to intensify the piece.

As concerns the music, we hope to design our own soundtrack for the film in a music creation software such as GarageBand or Logic Pro (depending on which we have access to.) We want the audio to start quietly dramatic and build slowly to the scream at the end.

Idents and Titles - After Making

I had a go at creating some of the idents I mentioned before using adobe after effects, here is the results of my work...

I did another one (the glass one) which was my favourite, but I was unable to save it as the file was too large, so I can't upload it. As this looked the best, it is likely we use for the title of our film as it introduces the creepy, and mysterious aspect of our thriller.

My least favourite is the spin orbs one, which looks too much like it is for a sci fi film or television program such as Doctor Who.

The hexagonal one we feel would fit the best for our ident, though we are yet to decide what will be the name for our production company.

Locations - After Scouting

This weekend, Emma and I went location scouting. We decided against the Barbican centre as we found Paternoster Square, which was much more visually interesting. 

Furthermore, we found that we liked the Millenium bridge as it was also extremely cinematic. 

To add a level of verisimilitude, we decided to plan an actual walking route for the girl to follow. We did this because we are using well-known locations that people will recognise, so we need to ensure that the film makes sense.

Idents and Tittles- First Look

For our ident we wanted something with a creepy feeling to match the film. We had a look on video co pilot at possible dents that we could make on after effects ourselves. I liked this 'Glass' Ident and my partner, liked the Spin and Polygon Idents below

Casting

Young Girl: Ruby Ballantyne - A friend of mine whois currently taking A Level drama and is an aspiring actor

Following Man: We are planning on asking one of our fathers or tall male friends

Other Friends: Olivia Bremener, Ashley Whyte, Ellie Thompson - We have selected several friends from other schools who are also taking media A Level to act as the friends

Audience Research - Questionnaire Results

Here is the results to our questionnaire, we have learnt that...

• We can the majority of our responses from 11 - 17 year old so we will am to target our film towards this age range. 
• There was a relatively even split in gender telling us our film should appeal to both a male and female audience.
• Nearly half of the people who took the questionnaire watch films every week showing how in demand films are at the moment.
• If we where realising the full film we would need to try to get it on a Video on Demand service e.g. Netflix as this is how 50% of people watch films.
• The most popular sub genre of thriller by a long way was psychological which fits very well with our opening we are planning on making.
• 93% of people said they would watch a film with a female protagonist so this means having a female main character should have very little detrimental impact on our film.
• 60% of people chose 15 as their preferred certificate so we will aim so make ours this certificate, though the opening may end only a 12 as we will not show any violence, but with the rest of the film it will likely be a 15.
• 53% of people chose to see a film because of it having an interesting plot which we hope ours will be.
• As can be seen by the favourite films people like a wide variety of films that make the viewer think and are powerful.

Location - Initial Plan

For our location we wanted to shoot on and around Millenium Bridge in the City of London. We chose this location because we think it looks cinematic. For this same reason, we chose to open the film with her friends to meeting, at the Barbican. We took screenshots from google maps street view to show these locations, see below, though we are yet to go location scouting. Our plan is to go this weekend and we will update with photos and a more definite plan for our locations after this. 

Stabiliser

This is the stabiliser we will be using for our film. It is made by Yelangu and is a good stabiliser. It will hopefully add some dynamics to the film as it will allow us to move the camera in much more creative ways. It will also allow to make our handheld shots much smoother, and allow us to have much longer shots which will let us have some more fun creatively.

Character Profile - Main Antagonist, Following Man

Name: Unkown
Age: 40+
Ethnicity: White British
Gender: Male
Clothing/ style: All black clothing, large black boots, coat and gloves.
Influences: Taking influence of many dark silhouette shots of the man, from films such as The Screaming Skull and film noir
Character Function: To provide fear and a sense of the unknown in both the girl and the audience
Character's Personality: The audience are only introduced to him through a series of close ups, never revealing his face, keeping the man very hidden from the audience, not allowing them to connect with him as they are left questioning whether he does actually exist or is just a figment of the girl's imagination

Character Profile - Main Protagonist, Young Girl

Name: Lily
Age: 14
Ethnicity: White British
Gender: Female
Clothing/ style: Bold red clothing to have connotations of blood/danger and to make her stand out distinctly against the dark surrounding and follower dressed solely in black
Influences: Taking heavy influences from Sin City, see the picture below
Character Function: To appear very innocent and capture the audience sympathy to make them fear for her
Character's Personality: There are two distinct sides to her personality. She appears cheerful and normal when interacting with her friends, though as soon as she leaves to walk off on her own her extremely fearful and paranoid personality is revealed.

Audience Research - Releasing the Questionnaire

This is our questionnaire.

We published it to Facebook and George's Google+ circles. We asked our parents and friends in person and via Social Media (Facebook Messenger, Instagram Direct Message, Snapchat, and WhatsApp).

We hope to get many responses via these media and it will be interesting to see which choices people make. We intend to close the questionnaire on the 12th of December, giving it a gestation period of two weeks.

You can take our survey here - please do! It's free and it'll really help us out.

Audience Research - Making the Questionnaire

We have created a nine question questionnaire to present to our target audience to help us decide on how to make our thriller. Using the service SurveyMonkey, it was decided that we would use simple and easy to answer questions as this will encourage more people to answer the questionnaire ensuring more accurate results. Hopefully, 10-30 responses will be received. Looking at some previous media studies questionnaires, we came up with questions that we thought would be most relevant to our film. Below is a screenshot of us making our questionnaire.

Preliminary Exercise

Here is my preliminary exercise I found it reasonably straight forward to use the cameras and to edit the clips together as I have had practise doing both these before. Although it was useful for me to have a chance to experience using the specific cameras and editing software that I will likely be using for my final film.

Initial Thriller Idea

1. The Pitch or Outline

• The film follows a young girl walking home from school who believes she is being followed 

2. Audience

• 15-  A small amount of violence and threat

3. Narrative

• The audience sees a girl say goodbye to her friends and begin to walk home
• They begin to hear loud footsteps before seeing anything, then dark boots appear, clearly not her shoes
• The shot's begin to crosscut between a close up of her face and the shot of his boots
• More of the follower is gradually revealed though the audience never see his face
• The opening could span over multiple days 
• It will play of the idea of paranoia, and whether the follower is really there of if the girl is imagining it
• It will end with the girl looking back, though the audience will not see what they sees and instead just her a loud scream before it cuts to black

4. Style and Tone

• Dramatic tone
• Very dark, maybe with a slightly red tint to hint at blood and danger
• Shot changes start slow as she is with her friends then the editing speed will increase gradually throughout the film to a high speed editing climax just before the scream

5. Characters, Costume, Props

• The young girl - wears a red blazer/hoodie to highlight her from those around her
• Everyone else very bland, dark clothing, though very few passers by to increase the ideas of isolation
• Following man/woman - you never see his face, he is dressed in black, we mostly see him as a silhouette 

6. Graphics

• Titles could appear on the paving stones as the girl walks past, disappearing as she steps onto that paving stone

7. Sound

• Non diegetic sound - quiet and minimal at first, begins to build and crescendo during the opening to a loud climax
• Diegetic sound - not much but enhanced footsteps, heaving breathing and a loud scream at the end

Analysis of the Opening to Se7en

The opening begins with a very low speed editing, with several closed frame long shots. The diegetic ticking sound in the background builds suspense, a key idea in the thriller, as it hints that something is about to happen. The camera crosscuts between two shots, a close up of the ticking clock and a mid shot that slowly zooms into him. In synchronisation with the shot of him being shown we hear loud non diegetic noises of people talking, which immediately cut out when the clock is shown, this suggests there is something he is trying to block out and forget but can't. The room is lit with low-key lighting by two separate lights, either side of the man. The first shot we see establishes his room to the audience, displaying that he is an average middle class man, though without anything too fancy in his room and his not matching lights convey the feeling that he does not have a lot of excess money. In the first shot of him, he is shown reading illustrating him as an intelligent, studious man. The shot then cuts to black and the title sequence begins. This is a distinct contrast to the first half of the opening as it is made up of a montage of high speed editing close ups. The audience is shown a variety of objects such as books, pens and paper with seemingly no chronology, straight away disorientating and creating a sense of the unknown for the audience. The shots are mostly lit by a signal top light and are all in black and white apart from four shots which are shown in red, highlighting these shots, as red connotes blood and danger. Several times the audience will catch a glimpse of a dark, shadowed hand, reaching into the shot, though as all of the shots are close ups it is not revealed who this hand belongs to, where they are, or what they are attempting to do, adding to the mystery in the opening. The idea of things being hidden from the audience is furthered by several shots being slightly out of focus and the whole opening having a very shallow depth of field. There is a non diegetic typewriter like sound placed over the sequence, paralleling the typewriter style font that the titles are in, establishing the film as being set in the past. The music begins slow, contrapuntal to the high speed editing, though as the opening continues it begins to speed up, building the tension. The music also has a lot of base to it creating a very erie and haunting feel.  The fast pace style opening where very little is revealed to the audience is a key theme in many thrillers, so straight away gives the audience an idea to the genre of the film.

Analysis of the Opening to Skyfall

 The film begins with a dark, out of focus, wide shot from inside a house, only backlit through a single window. This causes the figure to be a silhouette, immediately adding a sense on the unknown tho the film. Apart from a single, orchestral sound at the very beginning, this long shot is completely silent, building suspense as the audience are left guessing without any clues as to what is going to happen next. The shot remains stationary as Daniel Craig walks into it, his eyes becoming lit by a filler light on the left,revealing his identity. He then reveals his gun, key iconography of the thriller genre. The shot then changes to the reverse shot, following the 180 degree rule. This shot again is only lit by a single warm yellow light, making the house feel almost homely, juxtaposing the darkness around it, conveying that his home could be just like the audience's. As Craig enters the room the camera pans across two dead bodies on the floor and the follows as Craig moves on to another room, all in one long shot, emphasising hoe he is not phased by the dead bodies and does not stop

to pay them any attention. In synchronisation with the first dead body being shown, quiet, parallel music begins, furthering the suspense in the opening. We see Craig smartly dressed in a suit, establishing to the audience that he is well off. Then we are shown a close up of a battered hard drive, revealing the reason for the murders. Once Craig sees his colleague is still just barely alive, we are shown a much more human, caring side to his character as he attempts to save this man's life despite bing told not to by his superior. The shot cuts between a shot reverse shot of each of their faces, Craig is now well lit from the key light of the left side through the window, a contrast to the darkness earlier shots. This lighting change could be intended to mirror the change we see in his personality. The shot the changes once more as Craig makes his way out of the building, the music picks up and quickly crescendos, it is almost African sounding, full of bongo drums, giving us an idea of the part of the world it is set.We here the loud diegetic sounds of the crowd, displaying how busy it is to the audience, a distinctly contrasting the complete silence in the house.

Analysis of the Opening to Now You See Me

The opening begins in an unconventional way by establishing each of the four main protagonists through a sequence of magic tricks performed by each character in a variety of locations. The opening shot is immediately a close up of one of the magicians, directly addressing the audience through an eyeliner match. There then several shot reverse shots between him and the woman he is performing the trick to, hinting that he is attempting to impress her. There is quiet non diegetic music as the soundtrack, paralleling the visual as it helps in building the tension as the trick is set up. The trick is performed to audience as well as the woman allowing then to from the off set feel apart of the film themselves. As the magician tells the crowd that they have been looking too closely it becomes apparent why all the shots so far have been close ups as so the film audience will, just like the audience to the street magic, be oblivious  to what else is happening around the cards. As the cards are thrown the camera pans upwards to show a wide shot of the building, a contrast to the previous close ups. You hear the diegetic sound of screams from the crowd and the music becomes a lot louder and more theatrical, emphasising their excitement. There is then a wide city scape shot displaying  just how large a scale the trick was on, impressing the audience.


The scene the quickly changes to an extreme close up of the eyes of another man, establishing him as a second protagonist. His speech parallels the visual as he tells the audience to "look into his eyes". The shot then zooms out revealing this is only a photograph, further backing up the idea that we are looking at things too closely and therefore not seeing what is truly there. When he begins to read the man's mind the editing becomes high speed, showing how frantic the man is as more and more is found out about him. As the mind reader becomes closer to finding out the truth the editing speed increases further and we see the man's face twitching, reviling his uneasiness. The camera then focus on a close up of the money being passed over, emphasising how money is important to the mind reader and that he does this for his living.

The third part to the opening begins with a more conventional wide establishing shot, showing that this part of the scene takes place on a boat. The music begins to pick up with loud drums, building the suspense over a diegetic ship horn, again helping to establish the location. There is then a mid shot with the camera following him upstairs with an audio bridge of him introducing his show. The audience can tell straight away from his body language and the way he talks to the crowd he is cocky and over confident in his trick. As we see the trick being performed through a sequence of mid shots, furthering the story, the camera itself bobs up and down slightly, making the film audience feel they too are on a boat. As a man comes from the audience to expose how the trick is performed the shots quickly change to become close ups and the editing starts to be high speed to trick the audience into thinking things are going wrong.

For fourth and final part of the opening we are shown a more glamorous side of magic, a contrast to the previous street performers. The is several close ups of the the performer being locked up, conveying the danger of the trick to the audience. We here almost game show type music playing and can tell from the way she talks to the audience that she is very confident in her trick. Once she falls into the tank the shots begin to cross cut quickly between her and the timer, showing that her time is running out and building the suspense, a key theme in the thriller. She manages to break free a moment too late, another common idea in this genre. We see an eyeliner shot of the piranhas falling down onto her with an ear piercing diegetic scream over the top, shocking both the film audience and the crowd in the film. In the final shot of the opening we see a close of of her reaching out to the audience for help, placing the audience themselves in a state of jeopardy as they are powerless to stop  what appears to be her inevitable fate.

Analysis of the Opening to Vertigo

The film opens with the title sequence played over a series of black and white close ups of a face. This creates an immediate sense of ambiguity as the audience is unaware of whose face this is and why it is being shown and introduces a common theme in thrillers, suspense. The close ups show the person's lips quivering and their eyes flickering back and forth, clearly displaying their fear and therefore showing to the audience that there is a potential danger. At the same time the music parallels the visuals as it is quiet and creepy, with a synchronous crescendo as each title appears adding emphasis to them. The shots are all side lit from the right, creating dark shadows across the persons' face, further adding to the feeling of the unknown in the opening. The shot the becomes tinted a red colour which has connotations of blood and danger. The eye widens, again in synchronisation with the music, reinforcing the idea that this person is terrified. There is then a graphic match cut to a series of colourful spirals, a distinct contrast to black background they are shown on. This change in the opening mirrors that the audience is now no longer examining the external appearance of this woman but instead the inner workings of her mind. The shapes are continually spinning, introducing the idea of dizziness which is commonly associated with Vertigo. This opening establishes straight away that Vertigo is a psychological thriller and also shows it will focus on identity, which is often a key convention of the thriller genre.