Our task was to create an opening for a thriller film. Different film genres have forms and conventions that make it typical to that genre. It was therefore important that we had a good understanding of the thriller genre and aspects that were very important to the genre in order to make an effective opening.
At the beginning of this project we had to look into different thriller film openings to familiarise ourselves with the forms and conventions of real media products. The thriller genre has many different sub-genres for example psychological thrillers, crime thrillers and political thrillers to name but a few. As a class we looked at the openings of a variety of famous thrillers including 28 Days Later, Arlington Road, Collateral, and The Shining. We were analysed and described aspects such as how the camera work creates suspense and found that elements such as setting and lighting also play a major role in creating a thrilling feeling. Each sub-genre has its way of using certain techniques to emphasise the thrilling experience for example the opening to 28 Days Later, directed by Danny Boyle, particularly focuses on location to create a deserted feeling as the film opens with a man waking up alone in a deserted place which then cuts to a view of a completely empty central London which is usually known to be densely populated. In comparison, ‘The Shining’ which is a physiological thriller directed by Stanley Kubrick, creates suspense mainly through camerawork and sound. A loud sound opens the scene which is then followed by a high pitched non digetic edgy sound. An example of the impressive camera work is the hand-held camera effect that follows the little boy riding his bike. A lot of suspense is built as the camera is at the same level as the boy and following him directly which means that the audience only see what he sees adding great suspense particularly as he turns around corners. The non-digetic background music adds to this uneasy feeling as well as the long unedited and slow pace shot.
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In my own time, I watched some thrillers for inspiration including ''Passenger 57 (1992),' 'Con Air (1997),' 'Breach (2007),' 'Taken (2008).' I was mainly inspired by the film ‘Taken.’
‘Taken’ directed by Pierre Morel is a film about a former spy who relies on his old skills to save his kidnapped daughter who has been forced into the sex trafficking trade. This film personally influenced my input into the group discussion about what sub-genre we should do. After watching this film, I was very determined to do a crime thriller as I particularly liked the story line, the great amount of suspense built up throughout the film from editing and sound creating a ‘jumpy’ feeling and a lot of the action involved. I did some research on this film including looking at the trailer where I came across the heartbeat sound effect. I found this very effective in creating suspense and we decided to use it in our soundtrack towards the end on our thriller opening.
From the research into thriller openings we identified conventions that are typical in all or most thrillers. The main convention of a thriller opening is a suspense sequence that is usually followed. This includes posing questions to the audience, characters in jeopardy, and the unfolding of the narrative. Later on in the film these are followed by complications, false resolution, questions answered and people no longer in jeopardy. For example in ‘Taken,’ the main character’s identity (the dad) is unknown to the audience who want answers then his daughter is taken and the storyline begins to unfold. In our thriller opening which we titled ‘Captive’ we posed questions to the audience by firstly cutting between the two young girls having lunch at the cafe and the kidnapper in his car. At the first thought, the man in his car has no relation with the two girls until a little while into the opening he stares at his watch which connotes a stalker type of feeling as the man could now be identified as having something to do with the two girls but not quite sure what. There is a false resolution when one of the girls walks into the cafe to pay for the hot chocolate we almost expect the other girl to be taken. The two separate scenes then come together when the man in the car is looking at the girl in his side view mirror.
Throughout the opening, we restrict the view of the kidnappers face showing only parts of his face or body or through a blurred vision point of view shot. This is quite usual of thriller films to often hide the identity of the criminal or bad character.
One way in which we challenged the forms and conventions of a typical thriller is our opening shot. Rather than having an establishing shot we started off with the action of somebody stirring a cup of hot chocolate in slow motion. We did not want to use an ordinary beginning and wanted to pose some confusion to begin with which is then answered by the shot of the two girls at a cafe.
The main characters in ‘Captive’ are two 15 year old white, London born school girls and a middle aged Asian male kidnapper. Our thriller in some ways represents a particular social group for example when discussing as a group who the characters will be, we stereotypically chose the kidnapper to be played by a male suggesting that in a most likely real case, the kidnapper would be a male. This is a view based on the stereotypes in the media. The mise-en-scene, particularly the clothing of the school girls was an identifiable trait. We chose to wear a ‘school uniform’ which was basically black and white formal clothing, however, we portrayed the school girls in a more innocent way than what is often identified as a typical teenage school girl. For example, the media often represent a typical 15 year old London school girl to wear a mini skirt with knee high socks and lots of makeup. We put across a more realistic view of two young vulnerable girls also wearing appropriate clothing such as trousers and jackets. In terms of religion and race we did not chose specific characters based to represent these types of social groups, it was more to do we gender and age. Finally, we commented on class once again through the mise-en-scene. We particularly wanted the kidnapper to be seen as a higher class male but infact if the film was to continue, he is actually of working class but comes by his money illegally. To show this idea of wealth we panned the up market BMW car, showed the man looking at his expensive watch and having him dressed in a black suit.
If our media product was to be distributed, I think it would be distributed by a media institution that is mainly for U.K mainstream cinema viewers. The reason for this is because I think that the type of thriller that it is is based on a surreal storyline of London and occurrences involving kidnapping of young school girls. This would possibly make more of a thrilling impact on a U.K audience who can identify with such crimes of today. When researching media institutions, one that fit this particular description was Momentum Pictures [www.momentumpictures.co.uk], an alliance film company, who release approximately 20 films a year and is one of the leading companies in the UK.
The target audience for our media product would be a mainstream U.K audience. I would expect that it would attract more males than females due to it being a crime/action thriller however; many females also enjoy this genre therefore attracting a mass market. The age rating would be 15+ due to the violence involved and I think it would appeal to 15 to middle aged people. An example of the type of audience that would watch ‘Captive’ would be ‘Jenny, 19 years old currently in education, enjoys going to the cinema and watching films based around the harsh reality of life whilst also being entertained.’
The success of a film is not just based on the film itself but marketing also plays a major role. It is important that the film is marketed in a way that attracts the target audience. Being a British produced and distributed film, the filming budget would be quite low for ‘Captive’ and as it will only be broadcasted to a U.K audience it is very important that we target our customers effectively yet trying not to over-do the marketing costs. Trailers are a brilliant way to promote a new film and from personal experiences I have found that a lot of the time all the ‘best bits’ are shown in the trailer yet the actual film expresses disappointment. Trailers seize people in a persuasive way to make them want to watch the film by showing off the stars, the genre and narrative. Especially due to our sub-genre being crime/action, a lot of the action and thrilling parts of the film can be shown in the trailer. I also personally find that billboards, television and the internet are ways in which I am attracted to watch a certain film and as I am an example of the type of audience that this media product is targeted at, I think these promotional mediums would best suit our thriller. The internet has widened the potential audience for our media product and would therefore be easier to appeal to the right target audience by advertising on particular websites that they are likely to use. The good thing about billboards is that they generally catch your eyes when travelling in either a vehicle or just walking. It is unlikely that there would be a big premier due to the fact that there are no well-known ‘stars’ in Captive and also due to expenses.
This project has widely expanded my knowledge of certain technology. Firstly, using an Apple Mac was new to me as I am only really familiar with Windows PC which leads on to the programmes on the Apple. Final Cut pro was my favourite program to use. It gave me a great insight into professional editing and the amount of different effects and transitions available to use. Sound track Pro was also a good and interesting programme to use to make our own background music and add sound effects to make the action more believable. LiveType enabled us to add motion credits to the thriller. Learning to use the camcorders properly meant that it was easier to get the right framing and made the process quicker. Another form of technology that was frequently used was the internet. We continuously blogged the filming and editing process and used the internet for research. I used You Tube [www.youtube.com] to look at other film openings particularly when I needed a reminder of what was in the opening credits.
The preliminary tasks played a major role in the final outcome of our thriller opening. Making our ‘mini film’ meant we had to plan, storyboard, film and edit just like our final media product. Each stage from the planning to editing was just as important as each other and proved that each part relies on each other for example bad planning will most likely produce a bad outcome and vise-versa. From this task we learnt improved camerawork techniques such as hand-held and static to match-cuts and framing. The preliminary also enabled us to become familiar with using editing and sound programmes. We can say that we definitely learnt from our mistakes such as the continuity of mise-en-scene and very bad framing. When filming our final piece we made sure that our framing was absolutely perfect for each shot and always had the same props and clothing with us. Another thing that we learnt from the preliminary task was the ‘match-cutting exercise.’ This was an extremely useful exercise as we did end up using quite a few match-cuts which I personally did not know what a match-cut was until the preliminary task. In addition to the preliminary, when we first begun filming we forgot all about reflections as this wasn’t obvious on the small camera screen but noticeable after which we then re-shot.
Overall, I am very pleased the final outcome of my media product. The feedback we received was very positive and reflects that of a real media product. We were credited for the mise-en-scene, framing, match-cuts, clear narrative, continuity and overall editing. If I could have spent more time on this project, I would have liked to spend more time on sound effects and trying to create a more intense soundtrack as this could have been improved.
