Thriller Opening (Planning): Titling Practice

 

 

 

The following is a try out of our titling idea and allows us to think what more we could do with it and how it suits the theme of our opening. I like this form of titling since it looks like it's being typed on as it seems quite technological and our opening is very much like such.

Thriller Opening (Planning): Messing Around with Editing

Me and Millie have been messing around giving a shot at editing for our thriller movie when we tried to figure out how to make the knock at the start have more of a dramatic effect. This is when we came across the option to change the speed of the clip and messed about for a bit before finding the right speed to use. This was what happened;

Thriller Opening (Planning): The Risk Assessment and Shooting Schedule

Below is the shooting schedule and the risk assessment we filled out before we started shooting for the thriller opening. They aren't too clear due to the camera we were using but you can still read it at least a little bit.

 

Thriller Opening (Planning): Camera Angles

I have decided to look at different camera angles to see what sort to use within our film opening as well as how we could use them and what each would represent.

Close Up
- The first one on our list is a close up, the idea is to use this several times within our opening to show, not the typical mood/emotions of a character, but to show, for example, the job that our protagonist is taking which will be shown in a newspaper article. We thought that this shot would suit well as the starting shot as it instantly shows what is happening.

Establishing Shot
- We've kept in mind that we want to use establishing shots to show where the opening will be taking place, as do most establishing shots. We want it so that the shot will show the calm and peaceful exterior before it reveals what truly goes on within the house it shows. Creating a divide and going with the idea of "you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover".


Over the Shoulder Shot
- We decided to use this several times when showing the conversation between the owner of the house and the protagonist, which is the usual way to use such a shot, but the main time we will use this is to show him looking at the house he will be investigating and him walking towards it. This will, hopefully, show it being seen from the sight of the protagonist.


Point of View Shot (POV)
- This shot is to be used after a mid shot to show the male picking up the tablet and seeing it the way the protagonist sees it, focusing on how he then sees things as well. This will, hopefully, immerse the audience more and cause them to feel some sort of attachment to the protagonist.






Mid-Shot- We have decided to use this shot the show the protagonist in concentration and him having finished up putting up all of the cameras about the house. This is one of our more 'casual' shots as it shows him as a normal person sitting down at a table, not as though it's his profession in any way.

Thriller Opening (Planning): Thought Process 2

Thriller Opening (Planning): Company Logo

 

The title of our company will be 'LockDoor Productions' and our logo within this title would be the vault and the lock, varying between the two. We decided on this after we had no inspiration for a company name and we ended up agreeing on an idea which we came across when we spotted a sign saying, "The door needs to be locked." We somewhat went with this idea as well because it sounds like the name for a horror or thriller type of film company.

Thriller Opening (Planning): Our Target Audience and Our Reasoning [Updated]

We decided on our audience being 15 -24 year olds, mostly because we associate ourselves and are closer to this age in particular so it will be easier to produce something that will be appealing for this decided audience.

This is because of the genre of the film and content that’s within the film itself, the suspense and fantasy type of feel to it from the ghosts, an audience younger than 15 may think of it as something real, as though ghosts do genuinely exist. We believe that the audience will be all genders but it may appeal more to the males who typically like ghost and thriller movies more, stereotypically anyway. This is meant for an audience who’s not so much as a serious film goer but watches it for just entertainment and for those who enjoy movies like paranormal activity for example, just films that would keep the audience on edge.
Overall, any age above 15 is our age range.
Looking into it more and researching into the BBFC, a company that classifies movies into age categories, we decided on our film now being more of a 12 rating as 15 contains things such as;
- Strong violence
- Frequent strong language
- Portrayals of sexual activity
- Strong verbal references to sex
- Nudity
- Short scenes of sexual violence or reference to such
- Discrimination through language or behaviour
- Drug taking
Due to our opening not having any of the following, we decided to change it to a 12 which is what most horror/thriller films would pass as. But if this was to be the full movie instead then it would have been a 15 as we thought ahead of what could happen in the entirety of the movie which holds some of the things that's stated in the list above for a 15 film.

Thriller Opening (Planning): One Page Pitch

We did a one-page pitch to pitch our ideas of our movie towards a producer of some kind to look at.

Working title: Systems Down

Film Genre: Psychological Thriller

Length: 110 minutes

Target Audience: 15- 24 year olds

Why?: This is because of the genre of the film and content that’s within the film itself, the suspense and fantasy type of feel to it from the ghosts, an audience younger than 15 may think of it as something real, as though ghosts do genuinely exist. We believe that the audience will be all genders but it may appeal more to the males who typically like ghost and thriller movies more, stereotypically anyway. This is meant for an audience who’s not so much as a serious film goer but watches it for just entertainment and for those who enjoy movies like paranormal activity for example, just films that would keep the audience on edge.

Tag-line: Murder doesn’t stop when you’re dead.

What if premise: What if the psychotic thoughts of a woman drove her to destruction yet still lingered, even in the afterlife? What if the woman who sees ghosts, turns out to be the ghost?

Plot Synopsis: The protagonist is a beginner ghost hunter who has encountered an advertisement, asking for help about something ‘spooky’ occurring within the house. Taking up the job of investigating, he goes to the house to only come across the owner of the house and talk to her about the issues occurring, after hearing the information on the happenings within the facility.

He then installs cameras about several rooms that the owner reported the strange happenings occurred in, the cameras are known to pick up ghosts. He then travels back to the kitchen where he’d set up his ‘base’ before looking through the cameras at midnight, when the occurrences were rumoured to start, he then noticed the ghosts stood before the camera. Staring in awe, he then checked other cameras through the system and spotted them in different locations.

These ghosts seemed docile at first before gradually growing quite fierce and restless as they slowly noticed the man’s existence within the kitchen and slowly approached the kitchen as he could see through the cameras where they were and how fast they approached him.

One by one, the cameras start to go down, showing only static as he falls into fear and panic. Looking up though, slowly from the screen, he spots the three ghosts before him as they just seem to stare at him. Before they decide to take his life though, he catches a glimpse of their past and what had happened to them.

Statement of Intent: This was inspired by the game Five Nights at Freddy’s but has obviously taken a slight turn as we altered accordingly to not be seen as plagiarism. We wanted to tell this story because of it being chilling and it takes a twist of things, as some plot twists occur within it. The audience in the younger range of our audience may take a thrill of all the events that occur so we are hoping they will enjoy it. It’s a film over a TV drama because of it being cut so short as the main protagonist is *spoilers* ‘killed off’ by the ghosts with grudges, hence why it’s a film, also, it’d be difficult to figure out how to continue it.

Visual Realisation: We have realised that a similar thing has been done but with Paranormal Activity though ours isn’t a mockumentary style, instead it’s simply more like a point of view film. The Babadook is how we wish to portray our film as its recent and uses effects that we’ll be able to find now but in particular, how things are shot is good as well. The dialogue is limited to only a little as this is found during the opening sequence mainly with the woman explaining the events that have been occurring before the ghost hunter arrived on the scene.

Audience Appeal: We understand that our target audience may go for things that are visually scary and enjoy watching things to do with the paranormal, believing in the possibility of them existing, so we decided to add in some plot twists as well which would keep the audience on edge as that is what is assumed that the audience will enjoy, an example of the plot twist is that the woman who currently owns this house is actually a ghost.

We decided on some young actors as well, such as Emma Watson as an example as she’s a young actress who appeals to our young male audience that we’re hoping to gain, as well as popular actors such as Josh Hutcherson from the Hunger Games to appeal to a female audience and hopefully attract their attention.

Thriller Opening (Planning): The Original Drafting and Planning Process

This was the original ideas sheet we used to figure out what we were going to do for our thriller opening, let alone how we'd do it as we thought about certain things to do and went through a couple of ideas as well, for example, mannequins that would go about a house that was seen as an attraction.

 

Thriller Opening (Planning): Storyboard

Here is the storyboard for our thriller movie opening, we've decided to stick with this as it's a basic guideline so we have a rough idea of what to do during the filming process. It may be edited though as time goes on through the filming process so this may need to be updated later on.

Thriller Opening (Planning): Thought Process 1