Thriller Evaluation

Our task was to create an opening sequence to a thriller, which was a minimum of two minutes. We had to think about different aspects to the film, which included sound, editing, camera angles and overall outline. In lessons leading up to filming we were shown a mixture of famous and AS college thriller scenes, some of which included The Shining, Arlington Road and 28 Days Later. We were shown these to try to influence and help with our own ideas, we also had to think about our target audience and implement these ideas into our thriller. We also learnt a brief of what constituted a thriller and we made a brainstorm of a mixture of different thrillers, a few of them were psychological, action and sci-fi thrillers.

The music for our thriller was influenced by many of the old suspenseful thriller films including Duel and Jaws, as they both use the music in a way to create the unknown scary even though you rarely get to see the villain. In Jaws, the music is what made the film so famous, the music that plays when you, as the audience, are in the viewpoint of the shark is what influenced the music from our shot from inside the car and viewpoint of the villain. It builds the suspense up and makes the audience wanting to see what will happen. As the shot from our thriller goes on it gets louder and faster, and just like the jaws music, we implemented our music adding suspense into our shot. Going back to the shot of our scene from the driver’s point of view it was influenced by the shot from The Shining, when the little boy is riding his tricycle. Both scenes are shot from behind the person in view which gives the audience a blank spot, which means the character in view knows more about what's in front of them than we do leaving the viewer in an uneasy position. Also we used a technique which was famously used in the film Duel, which is we never show the villain and creates the element of the unknown and suspense that builds up until the end of the opening sequence.

There are three characters in our opening sequence, one of which makes only a brief appearance and is classed as an extra and another you never get to see but you know is there (the stalker in the car). The main character, is a young woman in her mid twenty's, she work's in an office and lives in a nice neighbourhood. The idea of this young innocent woman being followed in a nice neighbourhood shows the contrast this thriller is supposed to show and that is crime can happen anywhere and to anyone. The character in the car even though you never see him, you know he is the villain and makes you feel uneasy just by the fact that you never know how he is, which means you can relate to the woman. The stalker is a middle aged male whose wife was killed when she was involved in a car accident 10 years ago, which he has never got over and has driven him over the edge. He now looks at other women and all he sees is his wife, and he sees women as objects and not human beings. Our thriller has the common representation as the man being the dominating role in films, as in most thrillers the man will be the one who is the villain and if there is a woman as a main character she tends to usually be the one who is being chased. This sexist view is used because in films males are usually thought of as being a dominating figure, whereas women are tend to be thought of as sidekick's or used to bring in more men to watch the film. This is a sexist view, but in our case, it would look weird if it were a female chasing a male so we had to fall back on this Hollywood stereotype.

The kind of media institution that would release our film would be a similar kind to those that distributed films similar to ours, one of those is Duel directed by Steven Spielberg. Duel is a 1971 movie about a man driving along a remote and lonely road being stalked by a large tanker truck and its unseen driver. I did some research on how Duel was released and it was originally a TV movie of the week on the American channel ABC, but the ratings and reviews from the media and viewers were so good Steven Spielberg decided to film more scenes and release the extended version in cinema's across America and Europe. Our film would be a similar release to this but instead of showing the film first on TV it would be released in the cinema. If then the reviews we would look at a possible TV company to promote and show our film across the UK, maybe on film4, as they show good British movies. Going back to the film being shown on Film4 if that were the case the film production company that would produce our film would be Film4, it would be an obvious choice as both the film and Film4 Company are both set and based in the UK. Another film company that could produce our film if Film4 doesn't would be Twisted Pictures as they are famous for producing only horrors and thrillers which would fit in with our film. Twisted Pictures is an American based film company and are well known for releasing thrillers.

The target audience for our thriller would be aged between 18-29 for males and females. The film would be aimed at people who are afraid of the unknown, the driver being the unknown in the film. Also they would be someone who likes to try and work things out for themselves but sometimes never gets there. A person, who never gives up trying and will always give it a shot on what is happening, yet likes the element of surprise. As the woman in the thriller looks like a city office worker, it will attract more people who like a good thrill and live in the city to watch it just because they can relate to her especially since its set in London. I have thought about a director who plays on this sort of target audience and he is Alfred Hitchcock, this film will appeal to anyone who has seen his films as the suspense is always going throughout and the music is similar to some of his films.

We were aiming to attract 18-29 year old people who live in the city.

They would be attracted to the film as they could relate to this woman in the film, as it shows one aspect of crime in the city and that is kidnap. Many women now worry about the dangers of being in a unlicensed mini cab, even though there is no mini cab in our film it is still displaying a portrayal of kidnap and being stalked. Women who watch our film will be scared of the shock factor because its not this scene couldn't happen in real life, its a perfectly believable scene which will leave the audience more frightened of the unknown. It will also make them more aware and cautious of the dangers out there and our film could also be a lesson learner for them if they take it serious enough. We would market our film through television and newspapers or billboards, as this is where our target audience would most likely see our advertisement of the film. The poster in the newspaper or billboards would be something along the lines of a shocking picture and a catchy line that would leave the reader guessing on the plot, something like 'Fear is the Unknown...' That’s just a draft but it leaves the audience wanting more and will attract them to see the film, also it’s a short, catchy line that will stick in the audience's mind. The picture in the advertisement might be along the lines of the rear-view mirror shot we had in our thriller but mixed together of an over-the shoulder shot of a dark figure from inside the car like this image from the similar film Duel (see below).

The poster for our ad would be that shot in the Duel poster but in the mirror we would have the main character just like the shot from our thriller but this time you can see the drivers silhouette, which still leaves us in the dark about him and he would still be an unknown and mysterious character. Instead of having a truck in the windscreen we would have a darkened street with just a few flickering street lamps to give it a suspenseful and chilling feel. The line 'Fear is the Unknown...' would be on his shoulder in white like the Duel poster, and the title of the film 'Retribution' would be at the top in bold writing to stand out. I like this poster idea as everything in the poster would be quite dark to emphasis that somethings not right whereas in the mirror the main character would be in a brightly lit part of the street, from the street lamp to show her innocence and to identify her as the victim.

I have learnt a lot from this project from filming to blogging. I have developed my understanding of filming and different aspects of camera angles and learned that some camera shots were harder to do than others were. For example the shot were we had to set up the main character in the rear-view mirror (image see above), was a lot harder to set up than most of the other shots. This is because the character was so far away from the car the mirror had to be at the perfect angle for me to see her through the mirror from the back seat where I was filming. I also learnt how to use different aspects of final cut pro and the different tools involved with editing the film. We had to cut down our shots, and the shot from inside the car was drastically cut down as it was originally two minutes on its own. With that shot, we had to improvise and instead of cutting it with credits, we had the credits blend with the shot. To cut it down we simply faded two parts of the shot together and cut everything in between, the fade worked well as it ended up looking like a timeline and was influenced by this shot in Duel where it fades to show a skip in time. I have also learnt to blog

which is a vital part of our grade in media, I have learnt to upload my video of the practise filming to blogger where I can refer back to it and so the reader can now see what I’m talking about in my blog.

From our preliminary task I have learned a lot, from the lesson when we had to plan our pitch I already had a few ideas about what this thriller could be about one of which was a pretty similar mould to the final outcome. The initial idea was a girl coming home from work then starts to be followed by an unseen driver in a car, she then runs around a corner and thinks she has lost him. A dark silhouette appears behind her and drags her in the car, the ending was going to be a black and white segment of the girl waking up and frantically trying to escape the car that had been stopped in the middle of nowhere and the door opens and the same silhouette appears and climbs in. We decided to scrap the ending as we thought the unknown would be much scarier. The 'match cut' exercise was a revelation for me, to learn different camera shots and how to set them up. The editing was hard at first but a quick brief on the different tools and it began to become more and simpler the more I used it throughout the 'match cut' and the thriller. In the thriller, we had to learn to implement the credits and title in to the film, as we hadn't done that during the 'match cut' exercise. We also had to create the music for our thriller and think about the subtle changes in the music when something happens in the thriller and the change in mood, example from calm to cautious.

In conclusion, I have learnt to plan ahead and have a clear image of each shot in my head so when we get there to shoot I will know what needs to be changed and where the people need to be in order to shoot.