Changes

For our thriller we had many ideas, but we decided we wanted to start in a multistory car park. We had many car parks in our chosen area we could have used, and all of them had different characteristics and effects making them individual. We originally wanted to use the East Gate car park in Basildon (shown in the pictures above), however when we went out filming it was closed. We found a different car park (shown in the picture below) which we felt had different characteristics to the others making a bit more spooky.

Social Media

Creating different social network accounts have made it easier for us to spread the word about our film and our progress. Advertising films are usually very expensive, however by using social media such as Twitter, we have been able to advertise for free. This technique has been used by very famous artists such as Beyonce and Katy Perry, to advertise their upcoming songs and albums etc.

We decided to create 3 accounts in particular; Instagram, Twitter and Vine, gaining different followers on each site. We wanted to use these accounts as we feel as though we can show our audience our progress easiest. We will create short 6 second videos on vine showing how we actually go about filming our thriller, showing the troubles we face when finding locations ect. We will also post pictures on to Instagram to show our followers where we have been and what we have been up to in class. By using Twitter we are able to post pictures as well as tweets to keep everyone up to date. Due to the fact that we have the most followers on Twitter, we will post on more pictures and tweets to keep our larger audience up to date.

Marketing

We decided to create a teaser trailer to help marketise our thriller. We used a template from iMovie to help us with the layout, and we simply added short clips from our film to the allocated spaces and changed the writing in-between the clips. We did not want to use the whole trailer provided as well felt it was too long to be a teaser trailer, and so we imported it onto Final Cut Pro and cropped out the bits we didn't need. By doing this we felt that it would help promote our thriller, as it shows exciting and tense moments, hopefully drawing in audience and making them want to watch the whole thing.

We also created a film poster, after researching horror film posters on the internet we recognized a common theme throughout, it had to show the threat in the poster. Whether it was only the threat or the main character as well, it had to be in there. So we picked out what we thought was the best frame in our thriller opening and cropped it down to the shape a professional film poster would be and added writing. We used 'The Return' (pictured below) as a basic template, with the actors and the name of the film at the bottom, and a catchy slogan at the top. This draws in the public and makes them want to watch our thriller.

Influences

Paranormal Activity influenced our thriller opening the most. Many similar shots are used to create suspense, the main being the night vision camera . This type of shot shows the whole room in the picture allowing the audience to witness everything that occurs, leaving them tense and on the edge of their seats. Different features within the film have helped us come up with parts of our film. The feature we like the most is the time shown in the bottom right corner of the image above. This allows the directors to focus their ideas on the times most allocated with danger and crime.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS4sc8OZ6Ug

MAMA had a strong effect on us. We have used this video as one of our influences, in a particular scene near the climax of the storyline, a man is alone, scared in a cabin. His torch 'miraculously' stops working a begins to flash. The torch light is flashing slowly continuously, creating an uneasy presence. Flashes dart around the room from the light and the woman appears and begins to get gradually closer to the camera, this promotes fear into the viewer because it leaves them wondering what is going to come up next every time the light turns off. We were strongly influenced by this and therefore decided to adopt a similar approach in part of our clip.

Risk Assessment

Health and Safety assessment

Hazards	Who’s exposed	Risk at stake	Control measures	Risk high or low
Debris on the floor in the woods	Actors and staff	Tripping over and getting injured	We will clear our path before shooting	Low
Be careful  by the edge of the multi-story car park	Actors and staff/camera staff	Slipping and falling from height	Make sure the surface is dry and keep well away from edge	High/medium
Sharp props	Actors	Lacerations on skin	Make sure they are handled with care	Low
Sufficient lighting in dark areas	Actors, staff and camera staff	No having enough lights and not seeing hazards	Bring sufficient lighting like touches and lamps	Medium
Ask permission for places of filming	Everyone	Not being able to film somewhere	Ask permission	Low
Cars in the car park	Everyone	Getting knock over by a car	Be aware of your surroundings	Low
Stunts	Actors	Injuring yourself	Only do things to your limitations	Low

Pitch/Brief

We have had many influences that have made us decide on where and what to film about. Influences from movies we have seen for instance, have given us an idea on what we intend to include within our thriller.

Our plot originated from several ideas we gathered from films we had seen, and thrillers that took to our liking. We tried to make all of our scenes strongly support the proper codes/conventions of a traditional thriller, by implementing shots and scenes that made the audience feel on edge about what would happen next.

The reasons behind our plot came from group discussions and we all conferred about what we thought would support conventions of a thriller, and what also would compliment the 'nail biting' factor. As audience expectations of a thriller are for it to be tense, scary and entertaining, we made sure our plot suited and supplied all of these techniques.

As a production group, we, TwistedInc came up with the name 'The Following' for our thriller. The name suited our storyline and meant that we could have a name that run smoothly in comparison to our story.

Our thriller consisted of two main characters, John who was the protagonist. He played an innocent character and one that's imagination is tormented and played with. George plays the antagonist. He is the one who stalks the main character and is the mysterious and dark entity behind our thriller.

We filmed our thriller in two locations, both supporting an empty/eerie atmosphere that complemented our story line. An alley was one location, this location gave a lonely and uneasy environment in which caused the audience to feel on edge. We ensured that it was very dark and silent which added to the effect. The other location was a car park. We went on a night when it would be not busy and empty. This supported the theory of it being isolated from others and made the protagonist feel very alone.

Props and costumes in our thriller meant that they had to suit the storyline and characters. George was dressed in all black and appeared very questionable and worrying. John was dressed in a normal apparel which simply supported a stereotypical individual that was of no importance.

Storyboard

This is a picture of the storyboard we created.

• The main character is in a multistorey car park, sees a picture of an alley on a pillar and remembers it from somewhere
• Camera zooms in to the picture so you can see the alley with more detail
• Character gets a flashback to the empty alley shown in the picture
• He hears a noise and turns around, turns back and a creepy man is standing at the end of the alley
• The camera zooms into a closeup on the mans face, and he makes a creepy smile
• The creepy man starts getting closer, and ends up running towards the character
• The main character runs away but trips over and falls on his back (switching to a point of view shot)
• He sees the creepy man walking slowly towards him and his hands reach out towards his face
• Cuts to darkness
• Point of view shot waking up in the car park
• Stands up and rushes over to open his car door
• Gets in car and sees creepy man walk past the front of his car
• Drops keys on they floor
• Struggles to pick them up, finally grasps them
• Sits up and looks in rear view mirror, creepy man is sitting in the back seat
• Man slowly wraps his hand around characters shoulder
• Clenches hand to grip shoulder tighter

BBFC Research

BBFC aim to:

• prevent harm towards the public and not to harm in any way children or adolesents.
• give parents and guardians the opportunity to make decisions on what they want their children to watch.
• give adults the opportunity to watch what they choose to and have freedom to do so.
• reflect attitudes of the media appropriately.
• offer cost effective and reasonable service.

With our personal thriller, we are looking towards a 15 rating. We decided this to allow us to make our thriller without having to worry as much about making it age appropriate. Our thriller will involve strong language, references of violence and discriminatory language as well as horror. Therefore our rating will be 15, and we can express our ideas successfully.

Demographics

We have decided to target our thriller towards those at the lowest level of subsistence and the working class. The reason we have targeted this group because it has the largest poplulation of any of the groups. The only way we would target the upper class would be through dialogue but since we aren't using any dialogue in the opening sequence of our thriller we cannot target the upper class. We found that it would be very hard to target a specific group, here is an example of a demographics table:

Social Grade	Social Status	Occupation
A	upper middle class	higher managerial, administrative or professional
B	middle class	intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1	lower middle class	supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional
C2	skilled working class	skilled manual workers
D	working class	semi and unskilled manual workers
E	those at lowest level of subsistence	state pensioners or widows (no other earner), casual or lowest grade workers

I don't agree with this table as someone with a social grade of an A can like the same thing as someone with a social grade of an E, I prefer the phsycographics table as they are marked on their personalities and not their social grade. This is actually relevant to what film they like and who we can target for our thriller. We are planning on targeting the explorer group, they value difference so then they might give our thriller a chance.

Questionnaire

Click here to take survey


This is a questionnaire which we have created to gather information about what people like when watching thrillers. This will help us when creating our thriller as we know what the audience expect and what they think makes a good thriller. We created this questionnaire on SurveyMonkey (a questionnaire creating website online) so we can a wide range of people filling them out, instead of just asking our friends.







This is an example of another type of questionnaire we created. We decided to create two different surveys to maximise the amount of responses and research available. We handed these out to our friends and our neighbours to get a better range of answers. We also decided to do the hand-out questionnaire just incase people couldn't find the one on SurveyMonkey.

Focus Group Findings

Expectations on a thriller are usually quite high. Audiences often presume that the film is going to excite them and put them on edge at some stage, during the scene. These thrill seekers go to see films that appear frightening, because they want to be entertained and not just bored during the sequence. They want to be put on edge and that is why thrillers are so effective at doing this.

What creates a good thriller is the ability to get the audience on the edge of their seat. Leave the receivers in a sense of unease and so that they do not know what to expect next in a certain scene, like jumping from shot to shot successfully, and implimenting suitable music and sound effects to add to the overall influence it has on the audience.

Quick cuts that mess with the audiences mind and build up a general atomsphere of suspense. Making the audience think about what potentially could happen, giving them all different types of alternatives to what may occour, then rapidly shock the watchers. Providing thrills from various circumstances evident in the story, where the protagonist/main character encounters certain types of menace,mysterious or dangerous situations. When making a thriller movie, the question of what comes next foremost in the viewers' minds as the movie progresses is very key. Fast paced and a lot of actions that the audience must take in to enable to them to fully be gripped by the storyline.

Prelim Task

Our preliminary task was not planned, we were told we had to meet certain requirements. We did the shot/reverse shot although when we actually do it for our thriller we will zoom in closer on the subjects face. We met the requirements for match on action when John is walking down the corridor and we also did the 180 degree rule when we swapped from Cam looking at John to John looking at Cam. We did have a few mistakes in our prelim, one of which was saying "alright" three times and the other was missing out a scene which we had previously filmed. If we were to do it again we would plan what shots we were going to do and take care to not delete any scenes we have filmed.   

Title sequence

Title sequence

Within every thriller the title sequence is a crucial part. This is because it must be something that stands out for the audience and keep them thinking for example in horror thrillers they are a number of colour schemes they use to match the film, they use colours such as Red with black to show a sign of evil and most commonly blood. These schemes as you can see are used a lot however with the title it needs to be able to tell a story within them and create an image for the audience and let their imagination take control and picture things that the title enables them to think of then when they see the film that imagination comes to life. Font is also something that need to stand out within the title because it also need to grab to audiences attention, so therefore they need to be big and bold but also with unique shapes to then so some titles may have a rough shape to them as seen with many Horror films because it must fit the whole theme of the film and not look out of place.

When it comes to naming the film a lot of film makers and editors try to think of a message within the film sometimes that will be portrayed so it keeps the people watching thinking because not a lot has been given away, we mostly see this in films with possession for example “The Conjuring” and “insidious” however some films go for something more obvious like “MAMA” were the main character is named in the title.

When it comes to naming our Thriller these are all things me and my group will all have to consider and think about carefully because it needs to be catchy and grab our audiences attention for it to be successful.

Year 13 Talk

Analysis of Insidious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBCQLGZTBxI

The intro to Insidious gives a clear view of what genre the movie is, it builds up tension even before the film has properly started. For example it starts with complete darkness and soft spooky music playing in the background, this immediately lets the viewer know what type of film it is, also promoting fear within the viewer.

The camera slowly pans down to reveal a spherical lamp, 'James Wan' appears on the lamp completing the sentence 'A James Wan Production'. This man is a known horror film producer and was most famous for producing the Saw film; he has also directed 'Dead Silence', 'The Conjuring' and many more, some viewers would recognise his name and associate him to his other films, knowing that those movies are scary horrors they then have high expectations for the following film.

As all this is happening the music is constantly but gradually increasing in volume; the camera spins round 180 degrees to reveal it was upside down and is actually the lamp in the little boys bedroom. The camera slowly pans around the boys room, this is creating tension and building fear inside the person watching.

As the camera pans around a doorway it shows a figure's sillhouette standing in the window, the music dramatically and suddenly increases and turns into screeching violins. Music carries on as camera turns corner to see an old woman with a veil on holding a candle which is only illuminating her face, this in itself is scary as you can only see her face and nothing else.

The camera zooms in on her face and only stops when the only thing on the screen is her head, sound and camera fade away to complete darkness; just how it started. There is a few seconds silence followed by very loud sudden screeching violins probably making the viewer jump.

In horror films the directors usually use long takes to build the tension in the shot but also for the viewers mind to play tricks on them, you may start to see things in the shadows the longer it goes on. The whole intro for Insidious is filmed in one shot, there are no cuts or fades it is just constant.

Analysis of World War Z

World War Z - Harry Finch      

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKNWQNAH-GQ

The opening scene of the film World War Z is a portrayal of a very intense and great introduction to the film. Without showing too much, the opening gives the audience a feel of how the film is going to turn out, through sound, editing and other factors all contributing towards a general atomsphere of uncertainty and fear.

As the title sequence appears the screen is split into separate parts, crossing and moving along the whole screen. This is further implying how a sense of violence is put across, and it makes the audience develop the representations that these opening parts are trying to create an uncomfortable vibe. The crossing of the title sequence creates two of the same picture which isn't usually used, implying something unnatural will occur in the film. This again is creating an uncomfortable vibe as the audience is able to interpret the danger and fear within the upcoming film.

During the opening scene many different news reports are played in the background at the same time. This is representing the panic and chaos around the world, allowing the audience to interpret a world wide disaster will occur later on in the movie . Different monstrosities occurring around the world are shown, in the animal kingdom as well as the human race. Using different types of animal species instead of just humans, reiterates the world wide effect the disaster has had.

Non-diagetic music is played the whole way through the title sequence to make the audience feel uncomfortable. It is a fairly fast paced piece of instrumental music and the same sequence of music is repeated the whole time giving off a tense atmosphere. This repetition creates a uncertainty amongst the audience, making them feel tense and at unease.

Analysis of Creep

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWHDjFZX19A
 
Creep is a thriller that utilises all aspects of a conventional thriller. It is a different kind of film that makes its originality stands out and therefore makes it a diverse thriller. It combines tension with a large sense of not knowing what is coming next. The opening makes the audience uncomfortable and on edge. The music is mysterious and unsettling causing the audience to feel this way. As well as groans and grunting, giving the impression a victim is in danger, crying is also heard which furthermore makes the audience expect a film with a lot of emotional feel. What the audience see is a camera being moved very quickly. This technique creates disorientation to be felt and also gives the impression of struggling for life and that salvation is being resisted. It is very effective at making the people watching know what to expect and get their adrenaline pumping, and increasing their levels of excitement. Blood and gore is also associated in the opening and someone who is struggling is seen in a bad way, which appears to be bleeding desperately. A general impression of distortion is involved throughout the entire opening, portraying how the film will include many twists and turns. Credits of the directors name and actors names appear all fuzzled even more insisting how the entire film will be filled with a sense of unexpectedness.