Script

INT(interior) - Kitchen or Bedroom - Day

Set in the morning - inside of house
Scene in kitchen or bedroom or on landing

house seems empty know ones home

Loud noises are heard - shouting - screaming
a hand rises in the air with an object in their hand
a man is being wrestled to the ground by another man in dark
clothes and unseeing face and beating him with the object

You see someone watching whats happening hiding in a cuboard or
crack through the door way - scared and frightened
whilst focused on her you still hear the noises in the background

Suddenly all goes quite
theres a dead body on the floor with a person standing above it
blood splatter on thr wall showing how brutal the killing was

The body is dragged across the floor heading outside
the 2nd person comes out of hiding seeing if its clear
person sees killer dragging body
killer sees person drops body and stares
person freezes momentarly then runs away
ends with looking over the killers shoulder as he watches
person running away

There will be no dialogue spoken only music and silence
to give a more indepth atmosphere to the film

Story Board

Story Board

Story Board

Production Schedule

This is a schedule of what were doing over the next 3 weeks for our film:

Tuesday 22nd March - Write script
Friday 25th March - Film opening scene between 9-1:40
Tuesday 29th March - Editing of film
Friday 1st April - Editing of film
Tuesday 5th April - Evaluate
Friday 8th April - Make sure everything is done

Who is it aimed at?

Our film is aimed at at people who like thrillers with a bit of my mystery and death.
This would make it a rating of 15 or 18 and even though all the cast are male this is aimed at both sexes.
We will do this by by acting out a murder scene which will  be for an older audience and we will act in roles that would reflect how people react in a situation regardless of gender.

Whole plot of our film

The opening will consist of the the opening scene, where the murder takes place, with the witness watching the kill, hidden, then escaping when the murderer leaves, getting caught and the chase begins which is the lead up to the rest of the film. Through this scene, there will be cut scenes between an interview with detectives or FBI, where the murder will be the flashbacks, where the witness is drowsy.
Turning the witness into the victim.
The story follows on from the opening scene, with the murderer chasing the witness, when the witness meets other people to escape the murderer, with which the murderer catches up and kills the other people.
This continues, across country, but seeing how all the murderers are professionally carried out, without the witness ever seeing the murderer's face, as the interview carries on throughout the film, with questions being asked, and the chase clips are the flashbacks, with the witness getting drowsier, then towards the end of the film the witness realises that the detective(FBI) who is interviewing the witness, is actually the murderer.
Having realised this, the witness passes out from drowsiness, the detective(FBI)/murderer carries the witness to the car, with the witness waking up inside a coffin.
This is how the film ends.

Certificate of our film

Our film would have the rating of 15 or 18 because of the content involved
i.e a violent murder at the start of the film.
After a varied amount of discussion between the group, and focused on the material within the whole film production, we have came to the conclusion that it will be Certificate 15.
We have decided this because the amount of voilence within the film, it may not be viewed much, but displays scenes of a graphic and voilent nature, which pushes the age barrier from PG to 15, along with the language used, would not be suitable for younger people, especially children.

Costume and Props

Victim-casual clothes
Witness-casual clothes
Killer-dark clothes

A murder weapon-bat,tool,large object
fake blood
car

We will use clothes we already own, a car which one of us owns and can drive,
a large object of somekind from someones house and the fake blood which will
most probably be ketchup.

Location

Our film will be set in a house, we will be choosing to use a friends house so we wont need to worry about permission or access, we just need to make sure no one is in when we are filming.

Cast

Killer, Victim and witness

Rich- Killer
Nick- Victim
Simon- Witness

Our thriller opening

 The opening of our thriller film is set in a house where a man is hiding in a cupboard/closest witnessing his friend being murdered by an unknown killer.
It will start with two friends in a house, each in seperate areas of the house, when a masked killer enters the house and murders one of the house mates not knowing someone else in the house.
The second person is then hiding wittnesing their friend being murdered in front of their eyes to scared to do anything.
Later when the killer is finished he drags the body out of the house to a car, where the witness comes out of hiding and makes a run for it but the murderer sees them running away.
The opening will show how people react to a murder and how helpless and frightened they can be.
It fits into the genre because it has suspense- you hope the witness doesnt get seen, victim- the person being murdered and mystery because you dont fully know whats going on or why the victim is being killed.

Equipment

Hand held film camera-Sony MC51-filming
Tripod-filming
Apple IMAC-all work
Final cut express-edit
Fire fox-research
eblogger-planning

Audience Research

I asked a group of people several questions on thrillers.

1.Do you like thrillers?
Nearly everyone said yes

2.Why?
The main reason that people kept saying was suspense.

3.What age are you?
Range between 16-21 most 17

4.What gender are you?
half were female and half were male

5.Whats your favourite thriller movie?
The main ones were blackswan, Pulpfiction, Inception

6.What do you think makes a thriller film?
The main reasons were suspense, action/excitement

7.What was the last thriller film you watched?
There were new and old films like blackswan, Pulp Fiction, Shutter Island and One hour photo.

Questionaire

1.What is the purpose of the opening to a film ?
To interest the audience in the film and to give an introduction to the film and
what it could potentially be about.

2.What techniques can a director use to create suspense in a film?
Often silence is used which also creates tension.
Also when someone does something slowly i.e opening a door.

3.How do you think a thriller film is defined?
By what is involved i.e thrills, crime, victims, cops, psychological etc.

4.What films can you think of that would fit into the thriller genre?
Jaws, Devil, Inception, The Usual Suspects, The hunt for the red October, Shutter island

5.The thriller film can be divided into sub-genres-what different types of thriller films do you think exist?
Action,psychological, horror, drama, spy, supernatural,romantic, comedy

6.what are the characteristics or conventions of a thriller films?
Narrative voices, focus on sight and sounds, crime, cops, cliff hangers, mystery/enigma, thrills

7.What do you think is the audience pleasure of a thriller film?
The build up not quite knowing whats happening till the end.
Something that keeps/makes you think.

8.What do you think are the differences between horror and a thriller film?
Horror- Scary, makes you jump, dark not much light, evil, bad
Thriller- Suspense, lots of going ons, things have meaning

9.Using the internet research the 'top 50 thriller films'. Look at the top twenty- which ones have you watched? If it is not many, why do you think this is the case?
I have seen 10 of the top 20 thriller films:

Pulp Fiction
Inception
The Dark Knight
Fight Club
Psycho
The silence of the lambs
Se7en
Leon
Terminator 2: Judgement day
Alien

Openings of Thrillers

The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects is a 1995 American neo-noir film written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer. It stars Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Kevin Spacey and Pete Postlethwaite.
The film follows the interrogation of Roger "Verbal" Kint, a small-time con man who is one of only two survivors of a massacre and fire on a ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles. He tells an interrogator a convoluted story about events that led him and four other criminals to the boat, and of a mysterious mob boss known as Keyser Söze who commissioned their work. Using flashback and narration, Kint's story becomes increasingly complex.

The Usual Suspects opening scene starts with a pitch black night with violins and piano music playing, credits flashing on the screen with a close up of dark water looking like its in the ocean.
Theres suddenly an extreme close up of a group of matches being lit, where you see a close up of a man sitting on the floor on the deck of a ship, lighting his cigarette, surrounded by debry like something major has happened but you don't know what.
The camera looks to a fuel barrel leaking and it follows it down back to the man sitting, where he lights it with the matches.
You follow the trail of flames down where there is a close up of a dead body as the flames pass.
Suddenly liquid is poured to douse the flames, the camera looks up to a man pouring liquid on the flames but you don't see his face which suggests he might be an important role later on in the film.
The camera then follows the man down some stairs and follows his feet to the man sitting on the floor.
They begin talking to each other and you realise they know one another which really gets you wondering whats going on.
After woods there is an close up of a gun, then the picture changes to a ship side view where you hear 2 shots in the background.
Different parts of the ship are showing the desertion or even the aftermath, then a close up of a barrel leaking and close up of cigarette been thrown to the ground lighting the floor again.
You see the flames following a trail and shown the man escaping, you can't see whats happening, the camera looks away at a bundle of rope and wood then you see a huge ball of flames in the sky which makes it more exciting picturing what it looked like then how it looked.

Openings of Thrillers

The Hunt For The Red October

Is a 1990 thriller film based on the novel of the same name by Tom Clancy. It was directed by John McTiernan and stars Sean Connery as Captain Marko Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan. 

The Hunt For The Red October opening scene starts with an establishing shot from Polijarny Inlet near Murmans, of snowy ice mountains and a dark blue sea.
There are light clouds near the top of the mountains and the sky looks dull but you can see that it is a very freezing place to be in.
There is then an extreme close up shot of an old mans eyes showing that the person is long term and with experience.
The camera eases out to an officers face then he speaks Russian to another officer out of focus in the background, they are talking about the weather so the camera switches back and forth to the landscape and them.
A horn blows and the camera pans round showing two boats in the sea then pulls away showing the two officers talking are on a submarine.
Whilst this is happening typical sea music is playing like they are on an adventure, then the music changes to classical/operatic sounding with singing above it, sounding like communist Russian type music.
After this the screen falls black and red writing of the title comes on the screen like the colour of Communism.





Identity

Identity is a 2003 American thriller film, directed by James Mangold and written by Michael Cooney. The film stars John Cusack, Ray Liotta, John C. McGinley and Amanda Peet. The plot was inspired by Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None.

The opening to Identity starts with a blank screen and a narrative voice talking.
The camera does a close up of a cassette recording with session : 6/8, patient : Malcolm Rivers writton on it telling you this is a recording of an ill quite possibly mentaly.
There is eerie music being played through out in the background showing that the recording is with someone who hasnt got a good nature.
Thunder is added to give a more eerie feeling.
A hand reaches over and fast forwards the tape where there is a rapid cut of images and pictures.
Then you see close up drawn  pictures of stick men with blood coming out of them and other similar drawings.
There are close ups of profiles being read from the patients mother, background as a child, different prisons as this is happening the camera is switching between mans face and profiles and cordinated voice with the images.
There are various close ups of violent pictures of murdered victims which the patient commited but does not remember so there is a another rapid cut of voilent imagery.
Finally there is news paper cut outs of head lines about a psychiatrist testifying for insanity plea for defence and ends with a close up of mans readings face.

Target Audience

I feel the target audience for thriller films are for people who enjoy, suspense, mystery, solving crimes and thrill, things that genuinely make you think and question until the end of the movie.
I think thrillers are for a more mature audience so that they have a better understanding of the film and will enjoy it more.
The thriller genre is for both males and females, unlike action films aimed at males and romantic comedy for females, thriller films complement both sexes because its based on in depth thinking so its more intellectual then just shooting or quick laughs.