props

MOTHER
Mother will be wearing this as it attracts the male audiences sympathy. She will be wearing white to get the audience to see her innocents.
she is wearing subtle clothing to as she wouldn't be the main character in the thriller as it carries on.

THE POLICEMAN/ KILLER
The policeman/ killer is going to be wearing a mace to give a stereotypical stylised image of a detective. Here I have found a few pictures of how we think he should look. His hair will be greased back and will look slimy and intimidating.

The other props that we need are:

· an policeman’s badge
· travel cot
· cup of tea
· toy mobile
· toys
.
We need the policeman badge so that it is believable for the Mother to let him inside the house.




We need the travel cot with sides so we can’t see inside it, as there isn’t going to be a baby in it.

Toy mobile over the cot at the enable us to relate that there is a child inside the cot. We also need it to take a shot of it moving around.

Toys to make the room look realistic as if a family really live in the house. We will see soft teddies and other stereotypical baby toys.

Camera Shots

1. Camera shot: Establishing shot- zoom into mother tidying
2. Camera shot: Medium close up into close up of reaction as she hears door
3. Camera shot- Tracking shot of feet going downstairs
4. Camera shot tracking shot of her walking to door
5. Camera shot- over the shoulder of her opening curtain looking out window
6. Camera shot- Out of window (her P.O.V) we man walking up to door
7. Camera shot- Close up of her hand turning door knob
8. Camera shot- Medium close up of man (over her shoulder)
9. Camera shot- Over the shoulder conversation (shot reverse shot)
10. Camera shot- close up of his face as she invites him in (her back is turned)
11. Camera shot- Medium close up of him closing door- into close up of him locking door into reaction shot of face
12. Camera shot- Wide shot of her walking with him to kitchen
13. Camera shot- Wide shot of her asking if he wants a drink
14. Camera shot – close up of his reaction when she turns to get him a drink
15. Camera shot- close ups of his hands opening drawers
16. Camera shot- Mid shots of him looking for stuff
17. Camera shots- Wide shot of him looking through stuff
18. Camera shot- medium close up of her asking if he wants sugar
19. Camera shot- reaction shot- medium close up of him standing normal
20. Camera shot- shot of her making tea- medium close up (cross cuts of him and her talking him interrupting her whilst hes looking for stuff)
21. Camera shot- Close up of him unplugging phone cable
22. Camera shot- behind her walking in with tea- reaction shot of him stopping what he’s doing
23. Camera shot- close up of tea dropping
24. Camera shot- medium close up of her turning to get mop
25. Camera shot- medium close up of him walking towards her
26. Camera shot- close up of his hand grabbing hers
27. Camera shot- wide shot of him and her, zoom in of knife
28. Camera shot-close up of her face- reaction shot
29. Camera shot- Close up of his face
30. Camera shot- Mid shot of both of them
31. Camera shot- medium close up of him licking her face
32. Camera shot- Close up of Mobile turning round.

Analysis of a foreign language trailer

The Trailer starts with a build up of dramatic music which gets louder and more intense throughout the trailer building up to an Climax, This build up is a connotation of an Action Thriller, it builds suspense and keeps you on edge and signifies somethings going to happen. The trailer starts with a masked biker which brings an element of unknown, when the masked is removed we see an attractive woman this subverts to the audiences expectations and the attractive woman is stereotypical to the thriller genre as it attracts male audiences and brings a naive victim into the film. The use of fire and explosions connotates action and the fast pace cutting signifies its going to be fast and thrilling another connotation of the thriller genre. The dead body signifies death which is stereotypical to thrillers as usually there is death and action followed by the death, the terror as the girls screams shows its going to be scary and the blood on her face followed by smashing glass and the use of guns shows violence the use of weapons also signifies its part of the thriller genre. The close ups of the different characters also show us they are important to the film and the iscolated landscapes shows there is an element of chase and adventure to find what they want, this is stereotypical to give the thriller excitement and a tense element for the audience.

Second Slide Show Pitch

We discussed our thriller in more detail and decided we need pictures of the kitchen in cornhill so we can plan ahead and save time when actually filming, we decided we needed to rehearse and take pictures with the actors to give us an overal impression on the day. We also need to finalise dates to make sure our actors are available.

Narrative Theories

We looked at 2 different Narative Theories and learnt how to apply them to films and hopefully our thrillers when coming up with ideas
The First was the theory of Propp, his theory was that there should be 7 characters and narrative functions, this theory could relate to folk tales the 7 main characters he would involve are:
The Hero- Central character
The Villain- Creates disruption and is mainly connected to the hero
The Donor- Gives the hero something to help
The Helper- Aids the hero ie: a sidekick
The Princess- Threatened by Villian and usually saved by the Hero
The Dispatcher- Sends the Hero on his way ie: gives him a task
The False Hero- Is revealed to be bad at the end.

When applying this to a thriller we looked at examples such as "The Usual Suspects"
The Hero- Verbal Klimpt
The Villain- Keyser Soze
The Donor- The Cowboy/ Koboyashi
The Helper- Most Characters
The Dispatcher- Gabriel Burn

We decided there is no princess in this particular Thriller but we also compared it to "The Dark Knight" and "Shrek"

The other Theory when looking at Films would be Todorors theory which is the 5 stages of a film;
1) Everything is normal at the start
2) Disruption occurs
3) Recognition of disruption and ideas on how to solve the problem
4) Attempt to fix the problem
5) Balance is regained however obvious change is there

We applyed this to the film "Jaws"
1) Everyone is celebrating 4th of July, on beach- having fun
2) Death by shark attack
3) Lifeguard is asked to close beach but he refuses more people are attacked
4) Shark killer hired, goes out on boat to hunt shark
5) Shark is killed.

Interviews

We carryed out a survey to see what target audience would be attracted to our thriller, we interviewed people with an age of 16+ to gather information about there favourite thriller, why they like thrillers and what they're favourite genre of film is we discovered that most people like thrillers for the excitement. This means to attract a good audience we need to add excitement into our opening sequence we also discovered that our target audience dont like  blood and gore as much which works with our opening sequence as we don't actually show the murder of the women.
What is your favourite type of film?
Horror: 2
Thriller: 2
RomCom: 3
Action: 3

Which of the following films have you watched?
The Usual Suspect: 3
Saw: 7
Scream: 8
Source Code: 2
Devil: 2
Vertigo: 2
Psycho: 4

What is your age range?
15-18: 8
18-30: 1
30 plus: 5

Why would you watch a thriller?
For the narrative :1
You like excitement: 6
Blood and gore:1
Tension and suspense: 5
Plot twist: 3

Outline of entire film

Act 1
We would see the identity of the pediatrcian in his work place and the film would reveal to the audiencehis process of picking victims, we see him kill his next victim and leave the girl's in our opening sequence blood put on the wall, this would signify a pattern of what he is doing and show the audience that he is a vicious murderer. we would see a calender with the 1st of the month circled and we decided to include a calander in our opening sequence to add clues to the rest of the film
Act 2
The police discover the murders and open the case, they go to the pediatrician to try and find out more about the victims as they were his clients, this causes the pediatrician to panic, and gives him a clear clue that they are looking for him and gives him a headstart so therefore he leads them to false ends to give him time to do his next killing.
Act 3
The police go back to the pediatrician to find out some more evidence however he is missing, it is the 31st and they start to notice the calender with the circled dates, and they check his appointment book and see the victims are all women with appointments previous to the 1st of the month, the clues click together and they are frantically looking for the next victim, once they realise who it is they go to the house and instigate a stake out they catch the killer and the case is closed.

Idea for whole film

We looked out how our film would continue npast the opening sequence so we could gain an idea of what might happen next and the intentions of the main characters and what other characters might be involved later on:
We decided on the Villian which is the man disguised as an undercover detective, we thought about how he would kidnap several single mothers, We wanted his real job to be a pediatrician in order to pick his victims. We thought about a pattern in order to eventually lead the policeman to solving the case he would kill his victims on the first of every month and leave the past victims blood on his next victims wall to lead the police astray.
The victims would be single mothers due to the fact he has been mistreated or abandoned by his own mother as a child this would cause him to have the physcologically problems that leads him to be a heartless killer and want revenge on mothers, we decided they would all be killed in their homes.
Head policeman would be head of the case extremely intelligent in order to realise that the pediatrician is the killer he would be passionate about his job in order to give him motivation to help and solve the case and he would eventually catch the villian and be the hero.

2nd Production Meeting

In our second production meeting we discussed mise en scene further, we adapted from my original powerpoint on costume ideas and changed things:
The Mum: We decided to keep the idea of the mum wearing tight fitted clothing and low cut top to signify the fact that shes naive and also to give her the sex appeal in order to attract the male audience her makeup would be neat and she would be well groomed which could show the stereotypical young mum image which might not be so "clued in"

The Policeman: we decided to take him out of uniform and have him as an undercover detective detective but make sure he had an official badge in order to show authourity and would manipulate the mum to trust him and conform to the expectations of a police officer being trustworthy which then leads to the subvertion of expectation when he changes. he would have perhaps gelled back hair to bring a sort of grimey edge to his character which foreshadows his actual intentions. I took my costume ideas from such films as "The Killing"

We agreed on the location of cornhill, as it has a homely feel to it and also could be useful for the sitting room scenes. The homely feel would add the vunerability and the iscolation of the grounds surrounding cornhill would conform to the typical connotations of the thriller genre.

The kitchen would have worktops which would enable her to be hidden at some points and give the policeman time to check his surroundings out eg: open drawers, unplug phone etc, the corners of the kitchen would give him time to stand neutral when she pops her head up to ask "would you like sugar with that" etc.



Lighting: We want the lighting to be quite low to show that its night time, another typical connotation of the thriller genre, also because its dark it makes it more tense when the mother hears a knock at the door and doesnt know who would be calling at this hour.

Props: We would need a cot of some kind with lots of blankets to signify a baby without actually needing one, we had the idea of having a mobile overhead and toys to give an eery childlike feel to it and also further signify the childs prescence.

We would need a police badge for the policeman as he has no costume and needs a symbol of his authourity to give the mum reassurance. We had the idea of having a phone that the policeman could unplug which would give the mum no chance of escape we would emphasise this action with camera shots to signify her being trapped.

There would be a knife which would be the policemans weapon of choice, also we would need a teacups which we can drop to give a slow motion dramatic effect and lead her to wanting to leave the room to get a "mop".

After discussing this we talked about what we would title our sequence and came up with the title "The Trusting" we came up with this title due to the fact that the mum trusts the policeman which leads to her death and the concept of the title is be careful who you trust. Our tagline is "don't look back" we chose this because we feel its a clever line which sums up the dangers of looking back on your killer.

Script for thriller

Mum tiding room

Doorbell goes

She opens the curtain

Mum: Hello, how can I help you?

Police: Hello. There have been some robberies in the area and I am going from door to door to see if anyone had seen or heard anything.

Mum: hear baby crying) wait there a minute I’m just going to make sure that he’s alright

Police steps through the door and closes it behind him. Mum comes back and sees that he is in the house and looks exasperated

Mum: Do you want some tea?

Police: Yes please, that would be lovely

Mum leaves room, police picks up papers and searches in draws.

Mum: pokes her head round the door Do you want sugar with that?

Police drops papers and looks innocent on the sofa.

Police: Ummm…. Yes, great. Oh is it just you in the house?

Mum: Yes, at the moment my husband is travelling a lot laughs lightly so where the robberies?

Police: At the same time what colour is your underwear?

Mum: looks confused sorry, what?   

Police: what? He moves menacingly infront of her, mum tries to put the tea down but policeman blocks her. Mum drops tea.

Mum: flustered   I’m terribly sorry; I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I will just go and get a mop.

Police grabs Mums wrist and throws her agest the wall

Police: Your not going anywhere.

Police leans in and licks her face slowly.

The use of having a child present, makes the audience symphathetic towards the mum and also gives the impression to the audience that she will do anything to protect her child which she will later in the sequence. We decided to have the "licking of the face" to make the audience feel disgusted and also subvert their expectations of the intentions of a policeman and his place of authourity. We decided to have him saying something creepy underneath her speech to make it obvious to the audience hes not who he appears to be and also use the typical dialougue of her saying "what" and him replying "what" here he is physcoligically tricking her into thinking shes heard something he hasn't said this will make her second guess herself and also make her think she's being too paranoid and make an attempt to calm herself down, which gives the policeman oppurtunity to get her at her weakest.

The Shining- Opening Sequence

Location of our thriller

We have decided to film our thriller inside cornhill manor because it looks quite iscolated on the outside and also on the inside in Ted and Sophies flat there are signifiers of children living there which whill bring a family feel to the house and make her killing more dramatic and destressing for the audience

Costume ideas for thriller

Powerpoint of our thriller pitch

I felt our pitch went really well, we have decided to take out the handheld camera our concept was using Police as the criminal because the audience would trust a policeman and it would therefore be unexpected to the audience which is a typical connotation of a thriller. We decided add in shots of him looking in drawers etc whilst the womens back is turned, to give the audience a clue of whats going to happen. When the police officer reveals his true character to the women, we thought he could bully her ie: stepping in her way, blocking her. This pitch and the comments we recieved gave us an idea of what not to do and what looks good and what doesnt.

Target audience for the trailer of Jaws

The trailer for Jaws attracts a younger audience of around 15+ because it was a 15 film. It was realeased to coincide with summer holidays and would therefore attract a younger audience. The trailer shows young attractive women in bikinis therefore this would attract a male audience. Roy schneider a famous hollywood actor would attract a worldwide audience and gave the film a presold element and would therefore attract a audience of all different ages, the director steven spielburg would also attract an older audience who would know alot about his reputation as a film maker.The film is about sharks and gory so would therefore probably attract a younger audience who would be more interested in scary films that include gore. This film would also attract fans of a horror genre.

How these posters attract a target audience- Thrillers

The dark dramatic colours of this poster, follow the typical conventions of a thriller, we see it is set on a desolate island which is also another common convention of a thriller, therefore this film would attract fans of the thriller genre, in addition to this, the closeup of leonardo di caprios face, would attract fans of leonardi which would be a more female based audience, who are not the typical target audience meaning this film can attract a wider audience rather than just thriller fans. 16-25 because younger people would be attracted to the horror like aspect to the poster, also younger people are more likely to go see a scary film.

This poster has a gory aspect to it, the use of body parts hanging on string suggest violence and torture, this would attract fans of horror films, the title Saw also suggests use of weapons which would attract the male audience, the tagline suggesting it comes out in halloween suggests it is a film targeted at a younger audience around 15-25 who would be more likely tocelebrate this holiday and want to watch a film of a more scary nature.

Idea for thriller

The Idea I had for my Thriller would be a girl being followed, stalked and hassled by a masked stranger, in my opening sequence we would see her waking up receiving a text from an unknown number she would tut under her breath as if she thinks it is a prank, this would need a zoom, then we would see shots of her eating breakfast. Then we would see her walking into the bathroom to see writing on the mirror here there would be a shot reverse shot of her reaction, and then she starts to run. all throughout the house shots the camera would be following her as if someone is watching, then when she is running to school we would see her captured, and brought back to her kidnappers house, this would need fast pace, tracking shots and the mise en scene would include her clothes being ripped, hair pulled and the stalker would be in black with a mask, when she is in the kidnappers house she would be tied to a chair before the ‘masked stranger’ removes his mask, here we would see shot reverse shot and close ups of her reactions, before she realises that the kidnapper is her uncle, he would say “my long lost niece” then she is gagged and knocked out. The screen would go black.
My influences include
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/17/vincent-tabak-held-jo-yeates-throat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/18/police-failed-mother-beaten-death-casey-brittle
Prom Night (2008)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prom_Night_(2008_film)

How do these clips conform to the typical connotations of the thriller genre.

The music is dramatically built up and is eery and we hear clues that signify whats going to happen ie: the scream and the phone call. Then we see the colours of black and scream written in red which signifies blood and horror, this shows the audience its going to be scary. The repition of the phone call, signifies that it is important and that the fact we cant see the person speaking only the woman signifies that they arent meant to be known. The diegetic sounds of crickets show us theyre in a desolate place which conforms to a sterotypical thriller film in that the character can't escape or be found. The knifes that the woman is playing with shows the weapons which she might have to use later and informs the audience theres going to be violence. The camera is always behind her and following her round, this makes it seem like someone is watching her, and that could be the person who keeps calling her this builds up tension which is stereotypical to the thriller genre. The sounds of piano and dog and the diegitic sounds of the mans voice all build up dramatically and put the audience on edge, The wide shot of the garden establishes what shes looking at and there is an eye line match of her looking outside to check if theres anyone outside, again conforming to the thriller genre, she has left the popcorn on the oven signifying that shes disracted and scared of the guy on the phone. The camera zooms in on her as the pace of the phone call gets more angry and fast this signifies that the climax is about to happen. The music gets really loud and follows her as she runs out the house, this increase of pace builds up tension and shows the audience that something big is about to happen this signifies it is a thriller. The shot of her looking through the small gaps of the window slightly hide part of her vision meaning she cant fully see what is happening which also brings horror to the scene.

How posters fufill the generic conventions of a thriller

The connotations of this poster of the film "The girl with the dragont tatoo" that show us that it is a thriller start with the colours of Red and Black which are common signifiers of the genre as they symbolise blood and danger and the darkness symbolises mystery and the unknown. You can only see half the girls face meaning theres something we don't know about her and that we will have to watch to find this out which is a good selling point for the film, The bright red dragon contrasts with the dark colours of the poster signifying to us that it will be an important symbol throughout the film.

In this poster of the film "The conversation" the connotations that show us that it is of the thriller genre include the site, which symbolises weapons and also signifies to the adience that someone is being targeted, The man in the foreground shows us hes important and also we can tell by what hes wearing, e.g formal wear and glasses hes intelligant which could imply he is trying to investigate the crime, he also appears to be looking at the people within the site, but also out of the window which is within the context of the film, the saturated feel to the black and white gives us the impression of vintage and the fact the film isn't that modernit also looks photographic which would stick with the investigational idea of this conspiricy thriller.

Finally in the film poster for Firewall we see the conventions of a Action thriller shown clearly by the explosions in the background, to a man running from them, we see two men, both slightly foregrounded but Harrison Ford is more highlighted signifying that he is the protagonist and the other man is clearly the antagonist, the use of modern colours signify that it is quite a new movie, and the sillouette of the man holding a gun signifies violence and danger, which are all signifiers of an Action Thriller.