Storyboard

Storyboard:

We have all contributed ideas to our storyboard as to what camera angles, music and what we are going to film and say. Over the past few lessons we have completed the storyboard as we wanted an accurate plan of what we were going to do so when it comes to filming it is as smooth and easy as possible. We planned the storyboard out step by step, looking at the different camera angles and music that we could incorporate together to create as much suspense as possible.

In the first section of the opening we show the name of the production company at the start. We decided to use "New Line Cinema" as we have researched different thriller openings and most of them have used this production as it specialises in producing thriller film. The second shot is of the mum walking down the road walking into her house. The 3rd and 4th shot shows a match on match shot of the mum walking into the house. We have decided to add the sound of sirens while the women is walking into the house as it foreshadows what is going to happen later on in sequence. 

The 5th shot shows the mum putting her bag down on the floor while walking into the front door. The 6th shot shows her shouting upstairs to the children however, doesn't get an answer. This shot also foreshadows to the people watching that something isn't quite right. She then walks into the kitchen and sees a note on the side of which she picks up and reads. This is a key moment of suspense in the opening sequence as it is a moment where the audience start to become concerned and suspect something is happening that is unknown to the women.

In this next section of the opening sequence the women reads the note from her "children" which is on the kitchen side and sighs, wondering where her ex husband has taken them. She gets her laptop and starts to work in the living room as she has some peace and quite away from the kids. This is a key moment in the scene as it is silent which creates suspense in it's self as the audience wonder again if there is something more to what the mum thinks that she knows.  The use of a sound bridge from both scenes suggests to the audience that it is a normal day however something bad is about to happen.

In this section of the opening sequence we are showing the mum looking for something to eat and sitting down eating it doing her work. We then decided to make the environment as calm as possible to show that is is very normal for the women, which makes the audience believe that nothing is going to happen. Furthermore, it shows that the mum has no idea that something bad is going to happen. However, the audience sense something as the quiet background creates suspense and worry as to what is going to happen.

In this section of the opening sequence questions start to arise for the audience of what is happening that they don't know about. Suspense is going to be created by the silence that we are using in the scene to make the audience question if something  bad is going to happen. We are using slow cuts to show that the character is relaxed and carrying on with her normal activities with nothing suspenseful happening.

In this section of the opening sequence it is a very significant scene as it is a key moment where suspense and worry starts to arise for the characters and the audience as they start to realise something isn't right about what is happening. This makes the audience want to watch on as the tension is starting to rise and the music becomes more tense to create a dark atmosphere of the foreshadowing events.



In this section of the opening sequence is significant again as it is a suspenseful part of the opening sequence. The mum starts to realise that something bad has happened. When the dad comes in the door we are going to use very dramatic music to show the audience that something bad has happened like they had originally suspected.

In this section of the opening sequence this is one of the most tense scenes as this is when the audience and the parents start to realise that the children have gone missing and they have no idea where they have gone. The music that we are going to use is significant in the scene as it creates the dark, mysterious atmosphere for the audience of mystery and the fear of the unknown. The black screen where we have the music at a climax is significant as when we researched different opening sequences we saw that they used fading the screen to black with tense music to let the audience know that something bad is going to happen or has happened that they will find out later on in the film.

This section of the opening sequence is one of the most suspenseful scene that we have as the long shot of the children in the middle of the field shows that the children have been taken by someone but questions are still arising for the audience. By doing this it gives the audience some answers more than the family know but also leaves the audience with questions as to who and when the children were taken. After researching different openings I saw that they have the title of the film after the opening as it creates suspense and makes the audience want to keep watching the rest of the film.

Questionnaire

                     Questionnaire Results:

As a group we wanted to ask some questions regarding some aspects of the opening that we were unsure about. We did this by creating a questionnaire on the website Survey Monkey which included 7 questions that we wanted to find out before we went further into looking at what we were going to include in our opening. As a group we each asked all of our friends and family on social sites such as Facebook to answer the questions. Therefore, we would be able to get a wide variety of different answers that would help us. We overall got  87 responses meaning we have been able to analyse the results clearly to see what the target audience would prefer us to do. This has been very useful for us as we have been able to get answers to questions that we were unsure about when coming to what we were going to include in the storyline.

Question 1: What gender are you?

Male - 5%

Female - 95%

 This result can be useful when knowing what the target audience could be. However, it doesn't give a clear understanding as it doesn't represent all of the people that watch thriller film just the people that we asked the questions were mostly female.

                                          
Question 2: How old are you?

  

Under 13 - 1%

13 to 20 years - 59%

21 to 30 years - 7%

31 to 40 years - 11%

40+ years - 22%

The age range at which I found that took part in our questionnaire was mostly between the ages of 13 to 20 year old meaning that we were able to see which genre the different age ranges preferred. This will help us when we come to filming as we will be able to make our thriller opening appeal to a certain age range by using certain jokes or phrases that that age range would use and find funny. The results suggests also that teenagers are more likely to watch thriller films, however to watch most thriller films you have to be either 16 years old or in some films 18 years old. This suggests that we will have to think clearly about what age range we will make our thriller opening.

Question 3:  What movie genre is your favourite from this list?  

Comedy - 37%

Romance - 23%

Thriller - 11% 

Horror - 9%

Action - 12%

Drama - 9%

The results show that the most popular movie genre that people like is, firstly, comedy, romance, action then thriller. As a group we asked this question as we wanted to know what aspects of other genres we could add to our thriller to make it appeal to as many people we can and also to make it original and different from the other stereotypical thriller genre films. This will help us greatly when we come to plan what we are going to include in our storyboard as we will be able to incorporate these suggestions into to make it appeal to a large target audience.

                           
 Question 4: How often do you watch thriller movies in a year? 

1-3 times a year - 34%

4-6 times a year- 24%

7-9 times a year - 10%

10+ times a year - 20%

Never - 11%

The results show that 34% of people watch thriller films only 1 to 3 times a year. The second highest percentage was 4 to 6 times a year with 24% of people watching thriller films. These results suggest that people don't always watch thriller films out of personal interest meaning when we come to creating our opening sequence we will make sure that we include other genres to make it as best a possible and to target a wide audience not just one in particular. However, surprisingly still a large percentage of people with 20% of people watch thriller films 10+ times in a year. This shows that thriller films have their own target audience meaning when you create a thriller film you have to appeal tot at certain amount of people that like watching thriller films over other genres of film. Overall, after looking at the results of how many times people watch thriller films we feel this will be very significant as we will be able to make sure that we have a target audience of people that  like thriller films and we include the aspects that they like to see in a thriller film. 

              
 Question 5: What is your favourite thing about thriller movies?

Explosions - 3%

Chase scenes - 20%

Death - 8%

Plot twists - 62%

Flashbacks - 13%

Fight scenes - 10%

None of the above-5%

All of the above-12%

Other - 6%

The results show that peoples most favourite thing about a thriller film is plot twits with 62%. This is a very large percentage of people that like to have a plot twist in a thriller film as it is very stereotypical to be included in one. When we come to do our thriller opening we may be able to include a plot twist to keep the audience in suspense and wonder what is going to happen in the rest of the film. When I researched thriller films most of them had plot twists which was most significant as they where what the target audience wanted. As a group we wanted to see what was peoples favourite thing about a thriller movie to be able to add this to our own thriller opening to make it appeal to our target audience as much as possible.

Question 6: Which of the following titles of movies appals to you the most?

Ransom - 28%

24 hours left - 38%

The Harrisons - 8%

Family kidnapped - 7%
Stolen - 19%

Originally, when we looked at the storyline of our film we were unsure about the different names that we could call it. We were circling a few ideas around the group and we wanted to see which titles of film people mostly liked out of the ones we liked. We found that the majority of people like the tile "24 hours left" which was an idea that was liked by the whole of the group in the first place. We may decide to change what we call the film however, at the moment we have decided to call it this name and asking the target audience has helped us to come to a final decision.

Question 7: What do you expect to see in the opening of  a thriller movie?

A Death - 17%

Flashbacks - 51%

Kidnappings- 16%

A Fight - 6%

Robbery/Invasion - 3%

Other - 7%

We originally as a group thought of different ideas of what we were going to include in the thriller opening however, we wanted to ask the target audience what things they would like to see in a thriller film. The results that we got shows that the majority with over 50% of people wanted to see a flashback in a thriller film. This is very helpful as we are able to see that by using a flashback with our storyline we are able to create suspense and the aspect of mystery when we come to film our opening. This is very stereotypical of a thriller film and is what thriller films mostly include meaning we can research different thriller films that have flashbacks and incorporate these ideas into our opening.

Question 8 - What is your favourite thriller film?

Gone Girl - 18%
Butterfly Effect - 3%
The Women in Black - 21%
Shutter Island - 6%
The Girl on the Train - 29%
Taken - 24%


The results show that people's favourite thriller film is "The Girl on the Train" this is a very new release and is very suspenseful which is why I think people have chosen this. The second most popular is "Taken" which is again a very suspenseful thriller as it is very thought provoking and is a lesson to people that this could happen if they aren't careful making it very real which is what people want to see. This will help us when making our thriller opening as we can look into making a mystery of something that could happen.

Question 9 - What soundtrack do you like in a thriller?

Starts slow/quiet and builds up - 53%
loud/fast and then quiet/slow - 3%
Slow and then music is loud in certain places - 41%
Other - 3% - "The music should not overpower the words, it's awful and makes it difficult to watch the film."

The results show that the audience want to see the stereotypical aspect of a thriller film where it starts slow and then gradually builds up over time. This will help us when coming to make our thriller opening as we will make sure to create suspense over time gradually not all at once.

Question 10 - What actors/actresses would you expect to see in a thriller?

Matt Damon - 39%
Daniel Radcliffe - 15%
Emma Roberts - 27%
Katie Holmes - 3%
Other - 15%

The results show that the audience want to see Matt Damon and Emma Roberts as they're very well known in America and all around the world and have done several thriller films. We will take this into consideration when it comes to choosing the actors and actresses that we choose as we will make sure that they're well known so it grabs a certain target audience that we want which is an 18.


The results that we got for our questionnaire are very helpful overall as it has given my group an I an idea of what works and what doesn't work and what we need to think more about and what we need to research more about before we come to make final decisions. Also, the questionnaire made sure that our ideas appeal to the target audience and the ideas that we have fit what the genre of a thriller film is and the techniques that a thriller film includes. It's also made us think about the storyline that we want and how we are going o use sound to create gradual suspense.

New Storyline

New Storyline:

After the tough decision of changing the thriller opening completely we finally decided today what the new storyline was going to consist of. We discussed different ideas in the group and improvement were suggested throughout.

The storyline that we have decided to go with is:

The mum walks down the road and comes into her house after a long day of work. She has recently divorced her husband who she had 2 children with (Alice and Jack). She opens the door, throws her bag down and sighs. She yells for her children upstairs and gets no answer. Her eyes are immediately drawn to a note on the kitchen side, which says “out with dad be back soon – Alice and Jack”.

This behaviour is expected of Harry (the father), as he is known to be irresponsible and want to have the kids all of the time. She therefore shrugs it off and continues with her normal activities after work. She cooks her self some food and sits alone at the table.

After she is finished, she starts working on her laptop with a glass of wine in her hand.

She walks into the living room and puts on the TV. However, she is disrupted by a loud knock on the door. She slowly gets up to go to the door sighing as she walks. She opens the door to find her ex husband standing at the doorstep looking very worried but his face shows a slight bit of hope.  He storms in and goes into the living room “where are they?”.  The mum goes on to say “what are you talking about?”.
The mum then goes on to say that she thought that  the kids where with him and that they had even written her a note. She goes into the kitchen and shows him the note. He says “the kids….. They’re gone....”.

The next shot is of the children in a field screaming with tape around their mouths. The shot zooms in to a close up and then zooms out at a distance to show them alone in the middle of nowhere having been taken by someone.

A black screen will then be used and the name of the film will then be displayed before the film carries on. While we were researching different opening of thrillers we realised that the name of the film was used as the climax of the opening hit before the film continues.

We decided that this storyline would be the better to use than the other storyline that we had as  we are able to make this more suspenseful and we would be able to create a huge climax when the parents find out the children were missing. However, still leaving the audience wonder where they have gone until they see them in the middle of a field having been taken by someone. This is significant as it leaves the audience with questions meaning they will want to watch on to find out what has happened. Also, it is easier for us to film and we will be able to spend more time focusing on different camera angles and sound that we can use to make sure it is as climatic as it can be.

Reason for the change in storyline

Reason for the change in Storyline:

While we were having the feedback from the class we were struggling to find answers to the questions as we were unsure about what we were going to do fully. Amy in our group was away which made it difficult for us to come to a final decision if we were going to go ahead with the idea. After having the feedback and talking to my group, we decided to change the storyline and theme of our thriller opening sequence. After a discussion we looked at different storylines and looked at a few ideas that we felt more comfortable doing as a whole group. After some thought and researching of thriller openings we decided to go with the theme of kidnapping. However, a couple of members of the group still liked the ideas that we had from the first storyline, so we decided to still include some of the old ideas and add them to the new storyline.

We brainstormed what we thought would go with the storyline and eventually came up with the plot of what is going to happen and how we are going to include everyone into the storyline. We overall  feel more confident  about this idea as we feel that we will be able to fit all the thriller techniques we want in the 2 minutes to make it the best it can be as similar to a thriller opening as we can.

Feedback from the class presentation (pitch)

Feedback from the class presentation:

In today's lesson we presented our storyline to the rest of the class so we could get some feedback on what to improve and change to improve it. We showed our pitch presentation to the rest of the class( https://prezi.com/fnoat7ce1bzl/thriller-plot/)

We received some questions and responses that made us think about our pitch and ways in which we are going to improve it. Some questions that we received from the class where:

1. A robbery is a very different way to present a thriller -  how are you going to make it as suspenseful as possible?
2. It seems like a lot to fit into a short opening where you don't need to answer as many questions in the first 2 minutes of the film.
3. How are you going to pick a name for the film?
4. What is your target audience going to be and how are you going to make the film appeal to this target audience?

Initial Ideas and Brainstorms

Initial Ideas:

As a group we have discussed different story lines that we think would be best to create the most suspenseful opening to a thriller film. We also looked at different story lines that previous thriller films have chosen to use and judged which ones we think were most effective.

We circled around some ideas of themes that we could base our storyline on, four of them being a kidnapping, murder, stalker and a robbery. We feel these would be a good idea as they fit the stereotypical theme of a thriller film and will create suspense for the audience.

After much thought and discussions we eventually decided that we would look at doing a robbery as we felt that it would be a good theme to have as a base of our storyline. We would make it suspenseful by having the robber be caught by the family in the house making it more suspenseful and add the thriller aspect. This is significant in a thriller film as suspense is a key thing to be able to make the audience gripped and to want to continue watching it.

Firstly, we planned out the key points in the opening sequence to do with what the characters did and said and the main parts in the opening that had suspense.  For example, our first idea of creating suspense is that, it will show the family coming back to the house while the robber is in the house and the robber is trying to get out of the house but is eventually caught.

After looking at our initial ideas of the plot we started to think about possible locations and props we were going to use. For example, we need a relatively big house to show the places in which the robbery is happening and him trying to escape upstairs.

Our task in the next lesson was to present our pitch and initial ideas to the rest of the class and get feedback about ways in which we could improve the pitch and things that we could change to improve it. Below is the link to the Prezi we made of our pitch that we presented:

                           https://prezi.com/fnoat7ce1bzl/thriller-plot/

Opening of a Thriller film - Gone Girl

Gone Girl:

                                               

The opening sequence of Gone Girl begins with the production companies name "19th century fox", "regency" and non diegetic music of the company soundtrack in the background. The scene starts off with non diegetic music which sounds to me as if it's a fire crackling. This creates a tense atmosphere as it gives the audience a clue as to what the rest of the film is going to be like and they therefore want to carry on watching.

The first thing that you see after the titles is a close up of a women's face who is lying down and a hand stroking her head. This makes the audience feel on edge as it creates an eerie feel to what is going to happen. The man who we assume is the one who is stroking her head says "cracking her lovely skull" these words used are both very contrasted as "cracking" has a very negative feel and "lovely" has a very gentle shooting feel. The voiceover makes the audience assume that it is a man who is in fact the one stroking the girls head and saying these things. This creates suspense as the audience wonder why the man is saying these negative statements and why he has the desire to hurt her. The shot then changes to a close up of the girl as the voiceover says "trying to get answers" which allows the audience to see her emotions and that she is concerned about what is happening and what the man is saying. The girl quickly puts her head up making the scene very suspenseful and the audience wonder why she is so worried and they become eager to find out what is happening. The close up of her face is almost from a high angle looking down on her to suggest that she is vulnerable and has no power over what is happening. As the voiceover starts to list questions as to marriage the girl puts her head down again to suggest she is once again calm. This suggests to the audience that she once again feels safe, however the audience wants to find out why she looked so worried in the first place.

The questions that are used before the scene starts to fade out makes the audience want to know the answers to the questions and what the man relationship is like with the girl. This makes the audience want to continue watching as they want to find out the answers. The scene begins to fade out and the titles appear with all the actors and actresses names and the character that they feature in the film.

After the titles are shown there are different shots of different locations, meanwhile in the background there is non diegetic music playing to make the audience feel suspense as to why the locations are important and what they have to do with the film. After this the man is seen standing outside his house looking in the road which isn't seen as normal as this doesn't usually happen. This makes the audience wonder what the man has done and what he is doing. The clock before this shot shows the time 6:55am in the morning making the audience also question why he was awake so early and what he was doing outside at this time. The dark ambient lighting suggests an unsettling atmosphere and that something is about to happen as the dark can be seen as a dangerous time. This is because people are normally asleep in the dark meaning the man is vulnerable to something happening to him. A behind the shoulder shot/ low angle shot is shown after this to show the man pausing and looking up at his house. This suggests to the audience that the man doesn't want to go back into his house for some reason.

As the man starts to walk back to his house a small title is shown in the left hand corner saying "JULY 5th, THE MORNING". This suggests to the audience that the questions at the beginning are going to be answered soon and that it is going to be a series of times and places before the eventually find out what is happening at a later date. This can also suggest that the event that has happened was before so they're going to show what's happening in time order.

Gone Girl was a good example of a suspense opening as it used music, different shots and the use of unanswered questions to create suspense for the audience as they want to carry on watching to find out the answers to the questions.