Preliminary Task

Thriller Evaluation

Media evaluation from sophiamusmarmedia

Group Screen Flow Evaluation

Finished Thriller Opening

Editing Day 4

We decided to add a clip of our protagonist turning on a radio, this would be he due for us to add the classical music. I really like the audio balance in our opening, we had silence in the first half with a few natural sound effects, then eery classical music for the end scene which is the height of tension. 

We also made some changes to the editing such as adding a bleached effect and changing the opacity and overlapping and layering to create much more confusion and paranoia, this reflected the mental disorder perfectly

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Editing Day 3

Using Dafont we added all our titles and created our company name using a different font to highlight its difference.

We put the titles in in places where we thought they would be the most effective.

I really like the font we decided to use as i feel its eery but also adds to our artistic approach without being too cheesy or predictable.
In this session we decided against the music but we still have a few more sessions left so we might decide to add it in again; although the stillness with a few background noises increase the tension, I think.

Editing day 2

For our second session i was ill so it was left up to Rachel to add some touches to our roughly finished opening.
When returning to school Rachel had added a lot to the audio and a few little tweaks to the footage

Rachel had detached some of the audio of the wildlife in the park and created much more of an atmosphere when our character wasn't speaking. Sound effects were also added from the programme such as drips and breathing effects.

After seeing the edited film up to here as a group we all decided to add some music half way through to create more tension, so our next task was to find this music.

Editing day 1

Day one of editing was a bit slow as we had to get to grips with the programme FinalCut Pro. Our first step was to offload all the footage onto the macs and download them into FinalCut.

We managed to get a lot of the basic editing done in this session, like putting at the right point and achieving the skeleton of our opening. Following our storyboards and shot lists our film looked identical to how we had imagined it due to meticulous planning.

We decided to go for a more artistic approach and chose our shots based on lighting and aesthetic, making our film look much more dynamic.

Animatic for thriller

Thirteen review

After Thirteen being recommend to the Class, a new BBC drama, i decided to give it a go. I was instantly hooked. The story follows a girl who after thirteen years of being kidnapped she escapes, the series documents her broken family life and distress from her past life. Throughout the series you experience many shocking twists and it is an extremely suspenseful and disturbing storyline. I was sad to see that there was only 5 episodes in this series.


The title sequence for this series is really nice having lots of editing and different effects to create more tension. The sequence slightly reminded me of our thriller opening due to the flickers and double exposure effects creating a disturbing sense of phycological distress.

Adding credits

When adding the credits we were very precise with where to place them and how we wanted to edit them coming in and out. We were also very exacts with the font as we wanted it to add to the movie's mise-en-scene and atmosphere, not just be a simple basic text.

For our production company we chose this font, different from the the rest of the text's font as we wanted to make it stand out at the beginning as being different.

This was our main font and i really like it and think it fits perfectly with our opening and storyline.

Oscars 2016

Chris Rock presented the Oscars the year and i thought he was a great presenter, it was much more interesting than usual having moments of entertainment and shock rather than just announcing nominees and winners. It was a revolutionary Oscars for many due to the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio won his first oscar for 'The Revenant' after having six previous nominations and not winning. Brie Larson won her first Oscar for 'Room', Alicia Vikander for 'Danish Girl' and many other well deserved winners.

Finding music

At frist we weren't going to put music into our thriller as we thought it was eery with just the background noise, however we felt something was missing in the end scene of our opening so we decided to add some music. The genre of music we decided to go with was classical, to create a contrast with atmosphere and create more tension and suspense. We used the website 'Incompetech- Royal free' music to find our song. We found it very hard to find a chilling classical song that fit to our opening, however we found it in the end and i think it works extremely well with the opening. We left half of our opening with the silence and sound effects and added the music in half way which i think is much more interesting than having the same music run the whole way through. 

Woman In Black Review

I had read 'Woman In Black' for school and was immediately pulled into the story, so much so that i asked my  parents to take me to the theatre production which they did. The theatre production was breath-taking and extremely terrifying which is hard to create with no computer or editing skills. I remember being extremely exited to see the film version especially as it starred Daniel Radcliffe however i was very disappointed with the film as i felt it didn't use much tension like the book does. I loved how the story had such a slow build in tension, dipping and increasing dramatically at points but mostly just staying in the middle, and I felt the film didn't do this as effectively as i would have liked.
This film received 5 wins and 12 nominations.

Black Swan Review

Black Swan was our main inspiration fro our film. I recently re-watched this film for research and was even more enthralled the second time around. The slow deterioration of such a self-disciplined and together girl is extremely interesting and distressing to watch. The relationship between the protagonist and her mother could be seen as abusive, mentally abusive, which completely matches to our thriller movie storyline. 

It won 1 oscar and had 87 other wins and 242 nominations in total. 

I think Natalie Portman was excellent in this film showing me a different side of her acting as i had only ever seen her in Romantic comedies and comedies, so seeing her take part in a phycological thriller was extremely interesting and new to me

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American Beauty Review

Recently i watched American beauty and i absolutely loved it. I found that the twists and the plot was creepy in a lot of ways, the music especially was brilliant at contributing to tension and conflicting to some of the darker scenes while almost mocking the stereotypical 'american suburban life'. I thought Kevin Spacey was brilliant in this film and was my favourite character, while the film is dark and disturbing his character brings humour to the film making it easier to watch as it is not so heavy the whole way through, the comedy lifted the movie.
This film won five oscars out of 8 nominees, 1 golden globes and 2 BAFTAs, in total American beauty has 108 wins and 96 nominees in total.
                                                        

Filming day

After planning our opening and creates the story board and mood boards to create the perfect atmosphere for our thriller we finally arrived at our filming day. I think it went really well as we had organised the exact scenes down to the smallest detail so we knew all that we had to do on the day. We filmed it shot by shot and followed the shot list and storyboard so it was very easy to tick off the scenes we had filmed so we knew what we had to shoot next. We encountered a few issues such as the location for the bathroom changed on the day as the original house was no longer and an option, luckily a friend of ours lived very near the heath extension which is where we filmed the first few scene, so we had somewhere to film the next bit. Another issue was the mirror, we were meant to film the actress in the mirror and then smash it and have her filmed on the cracked mirror. This did not go to plan as when we tried to smash the mirror it completely smashed and didn't just crack, which was what we needed to achieve the shot we had in mind. We instead came up with a different ideas which worked out to look better in the end.
In general  i think our day of filming ran relatively smooth apart from the two issues we ran into, but these were luckily relatively easy fixed.

Supernatural Thriller

This is also a sub-genre which inspired our film. Supernatural Thrillers introduce otherworldly elements as an antagonistic force. Some people find these films to be less scary than others as they use fictional creatures that are thought of as pretend or made up. However for others it can make them question whether they believe the supernatural characters to be real or not, some people believe them to be which makes a lot of the audience unconfident in their beliefs.

psychological thriller

This was our groups favourite sub-genre and it inspired our idea massively and was extremely helpful when researching into similar films for inspiration. This sub-genre normally involves the protagonist having their mental health threatened rather than their physical health. The battle for the protagonist can sometimes be a personal battle inside their own head or their mental health is being threatened by another character.
 Memento is an example of a Physiological thriller.

Religious Thriller

This subgenre uses the history and myths of religion. Usually a religious artifact or historical secret is discovered, and different people and groups vie for control. Possession and Exorcisms are a current popular genre for thrillers such as 'Stigmta' and 'The exorcism of Emily Rose'. 
Personally i find these films to be the scariest as the protagonist is always out of control and for example in 'The exorcism of Emily Rose' a the beginning of the film they stated it was based on real life events which increases the fear massively for the audience. 
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Deciding on our film title

Deciding on our film title was proved harder than we all thought. None of us wanted it to be cliche but we wanted it to be pithy and for it to capture the essence of our film. We all discussed lots of different names such as 'The Forgotten' but denied this was too predictable so we decided to scrap that idea. We had finally all deiced on a title or 'Remember me' and we searched it into google to see if other films had been title this name. We found a 2010 film starring Robert Pattinson.
 At first we thought this could be an issue but the plot of the films are so different we decided to go with it as within the context of this movie and our movie the title means two completely different things.

Thriller mood board

These mood boards capture the plot of out thriller and the psychologically twisted side of it.they also capture the attitude and aesthetic of the girl which our group decided was important from the beginning as we all agreed that a certain look would make her look more vulnerable and unnerving to the audience adding more to the storyline and miss-en-scene.

American Horror Story

For inspiraation for our thriller we looked at a lot of things but what really caught our eye was 'american horror Story', and most importantly the opening title sequence of series one.

They added flickering and disturbing music along with a slideshow of creepy images of the past and hints to what is to follow in the storyline. There is also a sense of being watched in the opening as the camera moves and so you get a feeling that there is someone controlling the camera. We really liked this flickering effect, and it inspired us to try and create a similar atmosphere using the same technique.

Psycho

Recently at school our whole class sat together to watch Alfred Hitchcock's most famous slasher thriller 'Psycho'. I had previously seen the film so the twists were not a shock to me, however because we had been studying thrillers i took more notice of the slow build and fall's in tension and the excellence of the music. It was really interesting to listen to everyone guess what was going to happen and then be completely shocked when they found out the truth. Psycho is an excellent example of a thriller, having a brilliant storyline and outrageous twists.

Pulp Fiction: Finished remake

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task

Rachel walks into room, walks across room and sits opposite Maddy.

Maddy: Hey

Rachel: Hi

Maddy: You having school lunch today?

Rachel: yeah I am are you?

Maddy: Yeah, you want to eat together?

Rachel: Yeah sound nice, let’s go now.

Both get up and walk out.

Finding location:Part 2

The next location that we needed was the house/bathroom. We all considered our own houses, however none of them were right as we are quite specific on how we want the setting to be. We wanted the bathroom to be the perfect size with quite an old fashioned bathroom.

Rachel came up with the idea to use her friends bathroom as it fits the brief.

Finding location:Part 1

We need two locations for our opening. The first location need to be a park where we begin with the protagonist smoking a cigarette. Our group decided to go out during a free period to check out a few possible locations in the area.

Golders Hill Park

Golders hill park is the nearest park to out school. The park is mostly a hill with lots of trees and sculptures, there is also a zoo there. We liked this park, however we thought the vibe wasn't quite right as it is usually quite busy and we wanted it to be more of an open space for a more eerie feel, whereas this park has a lot going on.

Heath Extension
The Heath Extension is a much more quiet part of Hamstead heath. It has big open empty spaces which gives that Eerie feel that we are looking for.

We decided that the heath extension was the perfect location. We found a bench which is perfect for what we were looking for also it is easily accessible as it is near to school and all of our houses. We will aim to shoot it on a cold frosty day which will be the perfect atmosphere for our opening, hopefully there will also be some mist.

Similar sub-genre films: psychological thriller

Black Swan


Logline: A committed dancer wins the lead role in a production of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" only to find herself struggling to maintain her sanity.

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Our story was heavily inspired by Black Swan. The way the director portrayed a gradual loss of sanity was very interesting. At first you start noticing unusual things but the are not told that it is her mind that is fabricating these things. The director plays on the idea of a split personality especially in the mirror scene. We also want to use similar techniques in out thriller and try to portray the protagonist struggling to stay sane and questioning her identity.

Shutter Island

Logline: A U.S Marshal investigates the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane.

Director: Martin Scorsese

The film's protagonist, Teddy Daniels, who's apparently a US marshal, turns out to be Andrew Laeddis, a demented killer. This is a perfect example of a psychological thriller as the audience is deceived to the true story line of the film. We are seeing the protagonist the way in which he wants to be seen. It portrays mental illness and psychosis in a way that is intriguing to us - when the plot twist happen in the end you are left shocked and you realise how deluded the character was. We realise at the same time as the character the real truth so we are made to feel the same shock and confusion as him. 

Character and prop lost

Characters:
Alice: Nell Sternberg
Mum:??


Locations:
Heath extension
Friends house


Props:
Cigarette
Fake cigarette
Bath
Mirror (to then be smashed)
Make-up remover wipes
Fake blood

Fonts for our thriller

Thriller Fonts

We have been trying to find the right font for out thriller and have been looking at slightly more edgy fonts. We have all decide that the third down isn't too much, like the first or last option which are too arty for what we want, but still isn't too normal so fits to the theme of the film and the style and atmosphere of the  opening.  The font immediately tells the viewer what genre of film they are about to watch.

Opening shot list/synopsis

Opening Shot list –

Scene 1:

-Far away shot of Alice on the bench alone smoking a cigarette amongst the frost and fog.  (TITLE)

-Jumps to close up off face (SOUND EFFECT NELL BREAHTING) looking slightly on edge and then she suddenly looks down.

- Semi close up shot of her hand holding her cigarette with her wrist exposed.

-Quick flicker to a shot with different lighting where someone is stubbing out the cigarette on her hand. (Flashback)

- Next shot of Alice filmed from below where she quickly drops her cigarette, going from her confused and distressed expressions to her rubbing her wrist.

 

Scene 2:

-shot from end of road of Alice walking towards the camera, so there is some distance between her and the camera.

- Cuts to shot shoulder up, Alice look on edge and there is a figure of women blurry behind her. Faded  (title over the blurred figure)

 

Scene 3:

-Alice walking home across a road.

- shot of the scene without her in it, title appearing in her absence.

 

Scene 4:

-shot of Alice walking through her front door from outside.

-close up of the door slamming from the outside (title)

 

 

Scene 5:

-shot of Alice putting her keys on the side

-close up of her hand and the keys as she walks off (title)

- cuts to Alices feet walking upstairs (title appearing in her absence)

 

Scene 6:

-Shot of bath taps being turned and the water jutting out.

- Alice walks to the mirror and starts to take off her makeup.

- close up of her putting down the makeup wipe on the side (title)

-shot of her looking in the mirror blankly

-shot of her washing her face in hands, eyes closed

- Suddenly looks up to see a broken mirror with a blurred figure in the background using the different lighting.

- shot of Alice knocking over the stuff on the bathroom side. Then turning around to see nothing there.

-turns back to see the mirror completely normal again.

-Alice looks disturbed but emotionless. Slightly underreacting to the situation as if shes excepting the fact she’s going a bit crazy.

 

Scene7:

 -Shot from knees  down of clothes dropping to the floor indicating Alice is getting into the bath.

-cuts to  Shot of her in the bath, lying back with her eyes closes.

-everything goes silent as you hear the dripping of the tap

- it drips a few more times before she opens her eyes so see the dripping is blood

- Alice screams jumping up.

- cuts to knock at the door

-looks at the door then back to the bath to see it back to normal.

CUTS TO BLACK – TITLE APPEARS.

 

Final thriller treatment

Group thriller treatment

The scene begins with the girl experiencing disturbing flashbacks and past events that have previously been buried and are starting to be unearthed. The shots are filmed like a flicker between past and present; illusions in her mind which start to make her believe things that aren’t there suddenly are.

As the film progresses she continues to experience these memories that appear to come to life for her.  She talks to her family and they suggest she goes to see a therapist to discuss the possible root of her issues as it is starting to affect her daily life and mental state.

While visiting the therapist troubling realisations come to mind such as the fact that her parents, who she believed were her birth parents, are soon discovered to be her adopted guardians. She slowly starts to unpick her past which makes the flashbacks stronger in her mind; she starts to lose touch of what’s real and what’s not.

Finally the suppressed memories, with help of the therapist, start making more and more sense to both audience and protagonist and matching up with her visual flashbacks. She discovers her past with her birth mum and her sinister childhood, and ultimately why she ended up in an orphanage with adopted parents and was never told about it.

The tragic end to her mum, killing herself in the bath, and the young girl finding her lifeless body at a very young age becomes too much for the girl. She believes she is going insane, living a lie her whole life and having these highly disturbing ‘visions’ which won’t go away.

Driving the girl down a mental downwards spiral it becomes too much and she wishes to end her life, like her mother, by overdosing. As she lies down on her bed awaiting the end she has one last vision of her mum handing her a letter, as she reads the letter she begins to cry as it is the explanation she has been awaiting the whole time. She starts to panic as she no longer wants to end her life, but as she picks up the phone to call the ambulance she is taken over by crippling pains and convulsions. The drugs take control of her system and her life comes to a devastating end, mirroring her mother’s perverse suicide.