Sound

For our soundtrack, the copyright holders of the soundtrack to 'Shifty' have given us the rights to use it in our opening. We really like the atmosphere it creates as it is not hyperbolic nor too dramatised, but still builds suspense and tension.

Track one: 'Shifty'
For the opening section when we follow the girl home, we wanted to use the track from the opening to Shifty as it's very simple and understated.

Track Two: soundbite

This would play during the golden hour flashback and fade in from track one- it would be very prominent as there is no diegetic sound in this scene. It seems nostalgic and melancholic, but also makes it seem like there's something wrong. 

Track Three: 'Tough Call'

This would be used after she comes in the house and feels compelled to make the phonecall. The music builds to a climax, which is when the second flashback would be revealed while the phone is dialling. It is powerful and tense but doesn't completely distract from what's on screen. 

Style and Tone, and our influences

Our thriller will be in a social realist style, so none of the situations are glamorised- we want to portray a harsh reality which heightens verisimilitude. Some of our influences include Shifty, a social realist film about a lower-class drug dealer and the relationships he has with friends, family and clients, and Fishtank, another social realist film that follows the life of a young girl. We hope to achieve this tone with a combination of mise-en-scene to define the characters and their backgrounds, and non-diegetic and diegetic sound that will be stronger and quieter in certain places to create tension but also empathy for the characters.

For the first flashback, shot in the golden hour in the café with the two characters, there will be no non-diegetic sound which will make it very melancholic and nostalgic, but also like there's something wrong with this memory.

Our inspiration will  be taken from many places such as Shutter Island and The Virgin Suicides. The golden hour scenes in both of these are the sort of lighting states we hope to re-create, but Shutter Island shows a particularly strong contrast between the golden, ethereal past and the bleak, dark present.

For our second flashback scene in red, we love the use of red semiotics in the film We Need To Talk About Kevin. The colour red may also be used in our locations in the house, but this is yet to be confirmed, however we definitely want to use it for the flashback to give it a stylised tone, and connote danger, blood and death.

Certification

After researching the classification for both 12 and 15 rating films, we decided that the film opening will be a 15. This is because an easily accessible weapon is briefly shown (a knife/blade) in the opening, and this will be shown in further length and detail throughout the film. Even though there will be no bad language in the opening, as the film unfolds and the tension begins to heighten, strong language will be used to show emotions running high. Threat and violence are central themes of the film as it revolves around a crime - even in the opening, a suggestion of bloody violence is briefly seen.

Official Film Opening Pitch and Narrative

Pitch

Meg and I will be creating a social-realist crime thriller, set in contemporary South East London. Our ideas are based around memory loss and human relationships, creating both enigma and suspense to keep the audience questioning.

To briefly summarise the plot in the opening, we find out through a series of flashbacks that the female protagonist has killed her friend, but can't remember exactly what she's done or why she's done it.

Narrative

The Final Narrative

• The opening shot will be a wide shot of our female protagonist across the road at night. She begins to walk home to her house (unclear whether it is hers or her parents') that is just off the main road.

• Next door to her house is a cafe, and as she looks up at the hanging sign it triggers a flashback to during the day in the golden hour: she's sitting in the cafe with a man, there is no diegetic sound, only the soundtrack. They're laughing together and smiling, it is ambiguous as to whether they are friends or more than that.

• We cross-cut back to the present, we see the protagonist's hands shaking as she puts the keys in the front door. She walks through the hallway to the kitchen, and feels compelled to call someone, so picks up an old 'brick' phone/ flip up.

• As she does this, she looks over to see a set of kitchen knives, and this triggers another flashback, this time seen in red, and we hear shouts and see the knife and potentially catch the face of the man, but its still ambiguous and vague.

• We hear the sound of the cal going through to voicemail, and as we hear a beep we cut to a black screen and the film title appears

How my ideas have changed since working with Meg

Even though we had separate ideas for our film opening pitches, we wanted to collaborate as we had similar ideas, themes and styles that we both wanted to use. We decided to make a social realist thriller because we both really liked how you can relate to and empathise with characters that could be people you may know in real life. We thought it would be best to simplify our original pitches so we have a couple of flashbacks and one plot to follow, not two people in different locations. As we both liked the idea of shooting a scene in the golden hour we decided to keep that as a flashback, and as we also both liked to shoot in a block colour, so we decided to use Meg's idea of red semiotics in a flashback.



How our ideas have changed since audience research

• As very few people liked having a romance within a thriller, so we decided to make it uncertain as to whether she is in a relationship with the man in the flashback or not.
• We thought that if the opening ended with the sounds of the answer machine, it would seem anticlimactic but also suspenseful, something that was highlighted in the survey, making the audience want to keep watching.
• As the people in both the Survey Monkey and the Vox Pops both really liked the social realist genre, so we want really bring this forward with the mise-en-scene.
• In our second flashback, we want to make it very vague and not rely on gore to make it dramatic, and aspect highlighted in our Vox Pops.

Overall we are really pleased with our concept, and are looking forward to developing our ideas more.

Audience Research- Vox Pops

In addition to our Survey Monkey, we interviewed three of our friends about their favourite films and went had qualitative information about what they enjoy about the social realism and the thriller genre.  Here is the video that we made, interviewing Jonah (16), Calypso (14) and Eliza (17). 

Audience research

My friend Meg and I have decided to collaborate together to produce an opening to a thriller for our coursework. We had some rough ideas of what we wanted to make and how we could compromise using parts from each of our original film proposals, but beforehand wanted to do research about what interests young, contemporary audiences in our target demographic, 15-25 years-old.

To do this we first created a Survey Monkey online survey which we sent to friends on Facebook for them to fill out. We included questions about favourite films and genres, and then more specific questions surrounding social realism and the thriller genre, as these are elements we planned to include in our film.

You can view our Survey Monkey online survey here:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/9WK7FVQ


Here are the results that we received:









Three favourite films, and why:



Least favourite film, and why:

What makes a good thriller film?

Thriller Film Opening idea

As we are starting to bring together research of openings to thrillers, I have been making a proposal to a film opening that I could use as part of my coursework.

Brief Plot Summary

• A woman with amnesia is arrested on suspicion of murder, and she is allowed to make one call in jail, so she calls a man whom she hasn't seen in three years.
• Crime/psychological thriller set in contemporary London 

Audience

• I imagine this to be rated at about 15- there would be frequent swearing in the rest of the film (not likely in the opening itself) and some violence (again, not in the opening)

Narrative

• The male protagonist will be walking along the streets of London, he has been here a long time ago with our female protagonist
• As he looks out onto the River Thames, we see a flashback in the golden hour of three years ago when our male protagonist is with the female protagonist, talking about their potential futures and how they will miss each other once they leave school. We find out later in the film this is the last time they saw each other.
• We cross-cut to an interrogation room, present day, where an interrogator is talking to our female protagonist who we just saw in the flashback. They discuss how she has been arrested under suspicion of murder, but has amnesia so can't remember who she's killed and why she's killed them. It is unclear at the moment why she has amnesia.
• She requests to make a call to someone (as it is typical you are allowed one call to someone having been arrested). She dials a number, and we cross-cut back to the male protagonist who picks up the phone. 

Key Influences for plot

The themes on amnesia and solving a murder are ideas developed from Memento and The Bourne Identity. However, the idea of developing relationships from years ago is from Thirteen, a BBC series from last summer based on the Madeline McCann case, about a girl who escaped her kidnapper after 13 years of abduction and still thinks she has the same friendships as she did 13 years ago. All her friends have moved on with their lives over the years, but she still has the same attachment as she did as a teenager. I was very interested in using this concept, and I think it would add a feeling of mystery to the story, and make the audience feel some sympathy towards her. 

Influences for Location

During the title sequence with our male protagonist, I loved the idea of using locations by the river. In Collateral there is a great opening shot where the camera picks out Tom Cruz in a crowd, which I think would work well with the above location. 

When he imagines flashback, I picture him to be at this location by the side of the river. This location is just one road away from the first location near City Hall, and looks incredibly cinematic, but is usually much more quiet. I imagine him to be look out to the river and seeing the flashback further down the road. 

For the interrogation room I would like to film it in our theatre at school so I can use a completely blue lighting state, and  would be filmed on the stage with the curtains closed. I think this dark blue lighting state would look incredibly eery and mysterious.

Style and Tone

In the opening to Shutter Island,  I loved the look of the stark contrast between the flashbacks and the present day. I hope the look of the cold present day and the golden hour flashbacks is something that I could achieve in my opening.

The Virgin Suicides also has a great flashback scene, and I love this very dreamy, etherial look that it gives the girls. Again, I would use this as an influence for the opening. 

Sound

The sound in the first scene should be parallel to the action. Diegetic sound would be hyperbolic when the male protagonist walks down the path by City Hall (see first location picture), but when he gets to the second location where he imagines the flashbacks, diegetic external sounds of the river and people walking past would be minimal, with complete focus on the dialogue and the soundtrack. In the interrogation scene, the soundtrack would change tone to sound more menacing, but remaining in the same style. I would particularly look at Sofia Coppola's soundtracks as inspiration.