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.