Planning: Final idea- Miss Begum

the aim of this lesson was to display ideas on the final narrative of our thriller.

What makes a conventional thriller?:

• A good soundtrack- for it to be a good soundtrack it must have some effect/ impact on the audience e.g. shock, surprise, confuse etc.
• Tension/ suspense is built to confuse the audience and/ or get a point across.
• There is a use of different lighting techniques and camera shots to keep the audience entertained e.g. fast pace editing used for an action scene; slow paced editing used in order to emphasize a dramatic scene.
• Different scenes are used to keep the audience interested and entertained.
• Use of costumes to portray the age, class, gender or the personality of a character in order to build relations with the audience or build tension/ suspense.
• The lighting used within each scene has a different and significant impact on the audience, for example, in one of my thriller's scenes we see low key lighting used in the corridoor scene, this had the impact of building tension and suspense throughout the audience. Furthermore the lighting used will make the audience feel as though there is no hope for the family when they come face-to-face with the shadow character.
• Facial expressions have an outstanding impact on the audience also; by following the facial expressions of a character the audience can tell how they are feeling without the movement of the characters body, for example if a character is tied to a chair, then the only way the audience can be helped to understand the mood of this character is by their facial expressions and dialogue used, however if we erase the dialogue the facial expressions still have a big impact on the audience whereas, if we erase the facial expressions then the dialogue would seem meaningless to the audience.

Group choices:

My group came up with three different ideas separately and then we sat down and decided which idea was the best and the most conventional. 

Firstly Yasmin's thriller was called 'psycho obsession. It had the theme of obsession in mind as she came up with the idea of a father that was thrown out of his home after his child's birth he has become obsessed with his daughter.
Advantages:

• This idea was very simple and would be easy to produce
• The idea was great as we didn't need many characters which would make the set less crowded and everyone will know what to do and what is expected of them clearly.

Disadvantages:

• Our group didn't feel that this idea would have the impact on the audience that we were hoping for, e.g build up of suspense and tension, this is because we would have to explain a lot before we actually start the process of the build up.
• The location and setting we needed would not be easy to find, this is because we needed a house that had a room that had no wall paper, was damp and utterly nasty. We know that this could of been done by us but we would have to pay someone to use their house and destroy one of their rooms, this would cost a lot of money.

The second idea was mine. The title of my thriller is 'The Descendant' this is because the main character takes his personality and powers from his late father and the word descendant is another word for off spring or child. It is about a young boy who loses his father at the age of  8 and grows up to be just like his father- and that is a super powered crime fighter.
Advantages:

• This narrative was also simple to follow and film, this meant more time could be used to film scenes again and improve the narrative to get the best quality production.
• Furthermore, this narrative had the best settings and locations, for example all of the high priority scenes were to be filmed in locations with great views and places which would in turn help us to improve the impact that each scene would have on the audience.

Disadvantages:

• If we were to film this narrative then we would have to do a lot of travelling in order to get to the locations, this again would cost a lot of money and time.
• Another disadvantage is the effects we wanted to use, for example, in one of the scenes we wanted to create and use the force field effect, this would need a lot of practice and time in order for it to look realistic.

Narrative/ plot:

The chosen idea was Jemar's;  he called it 'The Awakening' and it is about as a young girl called Amy who lives with her mum Natalie and her father Tom. Within this film we start off by seeing four pictures on top of a fireplace showing family pictures within different seasons. The audience will not see the person holding the camera which will create tension and suspense among the audience. When the family arrive home they feel as though something is watching them, which it is. As we see the family become disturbed over little Amy's sightings of moving figures around the house, we also see each family member attacked mentally while they are sleeping, or while their awake, as they may see something look away and then look back again; they start to hear noises around the house and see what looks like shadows moving around the house.  As we move through the opening scene we start to understand what is happening within this household and how threatening it is for the family who lives their. 

These clips will be accompanied by slow- paced music as the audience start to see Amy becoming disturbed by her viewing of something standing outside her house looking at her. She screams and her dad comes running and thinks its nothing until he sees the figure himself and becomes disturbed about what he has seen, his wife comforts him and just tells him that it was nothing.

All the sounds and images build up the tension and suspense in the audience when the family is looking down a corridor they see a shadow walking slowly around the corner, just as it's about to turn around the corner the opening then ends and goes onto a black screen where he hear screaming and the title screen comes up saying "The Awakening".
We chose this narrative simply because it is the simplest idea out of all of them, furthermore it is the most conventional to the thriller genre as our group have done questionnaires on each idea to see which narrative our audience thought would have the biggest impact and would find easiest to build suspense and tension.
This narrative explores a few different themes, for example it explores the themes of being a mystery thriller, this is due to one of our characters identities being a mystery to the audience, also, we are able to state that our thriller also acts as a psychological thriller due to the innocence of a family being played with and slowly stolen from them. The last two genres my thriller explores are mind games and paranoia, the reason i put these two together are becuase mind games lead to paranoia, this is seen as the family start to see sightings of strange shadows around their household and start to feel paranoied within their own home. 
Advantages:

• Jemar's idea had turned out to be the most conventional to the thriller genre, firstly this is due to the setting and location being inside a family home, the audience will at first think that this is the safest place a family could be, however, Jemar's narrative plays around with that idea therefore creating a sense of suspense and tension.
• Secondly our group thought that Jemar's idea was also conventional to the thriller genre due to the fact that the characters were all a family, this was because we thought that the audience would be able to empathize with the families feelings on a whole and not want any one of them to get harmed within the thriller, due to this feeling, they will feel tension and suspense when any one of the family members are in danger.

Disadvantages:

• One disadvantage was that we needed a few different characters, that could look as though they are a family, this would mean that we would have to ask a few people if they would be able to act in our play, while doing this we have to consider time schedules etc. which may or may not work out well.

Characters:

• Amy- young girl 9 years old
• Sarah 35 years old
• Frank 37 years old
• Shadows- mysterious character(s)

Mise-en-scene:

A lot of natural lighting will be used during the calmer scenes in order to make the audience feel as though it is more realistic. e.g. where the parents are seen eating dinner.
Low key lighting will be used when something significant and scary is either going to happen or is going to happen such as Frank looking outside the window to see someone looking up at him.
 We will use a range of camera angles and shots such as close-ups, mid shots etc.
The close-up shot will be used to capture the characters facial expressions when they are screaming or see something e.g. a close up will be used when we see Frank look outside to see someone looking up at him.
A long shot will be used in the corridor scene so that the audience can look at what is happening from each characters point of view seeing what they are seeing, this in turn will cause the audience to empathize with the characters.e.g. the audience will see the families point of view and they will also see the mysterious shadow characters point of view.
 In this opening we will use editing techniques such as a montage, fade to black and straight cuts etc. These will help the audience to follow the narrative closely and it will help them to understand the narrative easier.

Film influences:

• Paranormal activity- this is why we based it inside a house as we feel as though a home is the safest place for a family so invading that sense of safety will have a chilling impact on the audience.
• Sinister- This is because the narrative we chose to use is set within a family house-hold and the family are the victims of an antagonist character, where in our case it is the mysterious shadow character(s). Furthermore one of our scenes is based aroun d

This idea is conventional to a thriller simply because it allows the audience to have expectations of the outcome, it creates tension and suspense among the audience leaving them wanting more from the film. We have explored many different thriller examples and we have found out that a lot of people love to see someone at risk within a normally safe environment as it builds up more tension and creates suspense.
 I believe that our narrative explores many different themes such as mystery and paranoia etc, our thriller's purpose is to be a psychological thriller, which plays with the audiences thoughts and feelings towards their own homes and how safe they really are.