Full script for our pitch

The team

Our group consists of 3 people and they are:

·         Liam Rushton

·         Matthew Johnson

·         Zak Munton

Matt

The jobs we have decided to share out would be to give Matthew the job of the camerawork as we felt he was the one who knows all about camerawork and has more experience than me and Liam and also it is his camera and we felt it was necessary to let him take control of that side of things. The roles Matt has taken on are the Director, Camera Operator, Location scout and titles. Matt has taken these roles as he knows the storyline very well and like said before; he knows many techniques and has experience with a camera. Matt also found us the location as it is a place he knows very well and he researched into common thriller settings and we felt the farm would work very well. Matt has taken the role of the director as he’s the man behind the camera and directing Zak and Liam when acting so we felt it was appropriate for Matt to take that role.

 

Zak

I have been given the role of the actor and I am playing the victim because compared to Liam I am smaller and skinnier and I have the physique which would be linked to a victim and this would help make our thriller seems professional and realistic. As well as playing an acting role in the production I have also taken on the roles of mise-en-scene director, lighting and make up. I am taking the role of completing and making the planning as good as it can possibly be. Although we are all contributing to the planning but I have taken the role of making sure it is up to a good enough standard to get us the highest grade possible. Also being the mise-en-scene director I have to ensure all the costumes, make up, lighting, props, actors, setting are all working well and look good for our production. Also taking a big role in lighting and make up I have to make sure they are up to very good standard. As I am taking the role of lighting and make up I have analysed a lot of thrillers to how they are used in thrillers and blood and low-key lighting features quite frequently so we will need to incorporate this in our production.

Liam

Liam has been delegated the role an actor also and he is playing the role of the killer because Liam has the physique that could be a seen as a thriller killer. He has the broadness and is the most likely to be able to play a killer out of our group. Although Liam may not look like a killer, it shouldn’t cause problems as we intend on keeping the identity of the killer hidden for most if not all of the production. Like Zak, Liam has also taken on other important roles instead of acting. Liam has taken on roles such as continuity, sound and casting. Liam has done a lot of research into the thriller genre and analysing films closely to get ideas for our thriller opening and passing them onto Matt for ideas for our thriller. He has also looked at the typical characters within a thriller film, looking at stereotypical victims and killers and then that helped him choose his cast. Liam has also analysed sound so we  felt it was appropriate for him to deal with the sound in our production as he knows what sound is best for our production.

We have all also decided to be all involved with the editing and producing side of things as we felt it was fair to let one person do it and it also good practise and knowledgeable to know how to create the thriller. Also it would help create a sense of achievement between us all if we all help produce a great thriller opening.

Task -Liam

For this task we have been asked to create an opening of a thriller film which has to be about 2 minutes long which also has to include titles in the opening sequence. So far we have been researching into the thriller genre and conventions to help us achieve the best grade and make our thriller film as professional as possible.

Sub-Genre

The sub-genre of our thriller will be crime. We feel this would benefit us as we can easily create a narrative for our thriller. Crime was one of our first options and we looked in detail at some examples like "A walk amongst the Tombstones" Starring Liam Neeson and other more gangster like thrillers like "Snatch" and the sinister "Dexter" helped us gather ideas for our own individual thriller. Crime thrillers are very common but we tried to take a novel twist on this and make something that was similar to the films we looked at but had our own special thing as well.

Target Audience- Matt

Our target audience is going to be of young people between the ages 15-30 as we know a lot about this age group as we're part of it so we know what people will like to see, also when we did our Vox pops we also got a better understanding of what people want to see in thrillers. we will aim our thriller at the higher socio economic class as it has more complex story line with some clever twists so we won’t be people to notice and understand these  twists and story lines as it adds to the tension and makes for a better viewing experience.

Narrative- Matt

In our thriller we're going to have a mysterious man going about his daily routine of what the audience think is him going to work, we're going to make this routine seem sinister with the use of jump cuts to another shot of something graphic to increase the tension and create a sense of mystery while being watched. We're going to have the man walk to his car and get ready to drive off, but as we do show the mysterious jump shots until the end where we reach a location and all becomes clear on what the man is doing we will also reveal his identity at the very end. In the thriller we're going to have Zak playing the victim who has being kidnapped and is going to be murdered, he'll be dressed in torn worn clothes to show that he's been tortured. Liam is going to play the murderer/kidnapper. He will wear a suit in this role as it looks as if he's about his daily routine going to work.

 

Mise en scene

 

Lighting - The use of low-key lighting will needed to be used when filming the more violent scenes, such as when the killer is being shown the lighting around him should be dark. This will be to create nerves amongst the audience as it will represent danger and will show his dangerous side. Also the low-key lighting around violent scenes will create tension as it will stress the danger and show the brutality of the action on screen. Although a problem that may occur will be the natural sunlight that will prevent the darkness although the use of woods may darken the setting and also we could use filters to darken the lighting when editing is taking place. 

 

Setting - The scene of the violence that will take place will be at a large farm or woods. This is away from the general public and also is a place where we have permission to film and is a place that has been used in thrillers before to show a murder scene which is why we have chosen the farm as we've found that a farm can be used for a murder scene through doing our research. Also when researching thrillers, we found that the use of woods to take bodies too is a very common and we have decided to use the woods to take a body too as it is a typical feature in a thriller film.  

 

Actors/Costume - We have 2 main actors in our production and they are playing the roles of a detective, a killer and a victim.

Killer - Liam Rushton

Victim - Zak Munton

We have thought about who to play the roles and Liam has a big physique compared to most of us and can be seen as a killer through his presence. Although he doesn't look like a killer, the killer's identity is going to be hidden and isn't going to be shown much, so we don't feel any problems shall occur. The use of Zak as the victim was used as within our group he is the smallest out of the group and this can show his insecurity when being killed.

Victim’s costume - The costume of the victim has to be thought about carefully as well. The victim will be wearing just a t-shirt which is quite thin material as this will represent his insecurity. Also the clothing will be dirty and have blood stains on them at some point to show how he has been abused and the brutality of the murder. If there was a colour the victim should wear he should wear light colours such as the colour white. This is representing the innocence of the victim as the colour white has connotations with purity and innocence.

Killer’s costume - The killers costume has to look good, and this has to be done to make him look not like a killer through his attire. As we are making our film look like an everyday event that most people do we need to make the killer look like an everyday person. This should be done by wearing a suit as this creates a sense of normality and also helps the audience link themselves to him. Although the colour of the tie or the shirt of the killer can help create danger; if the killer is wearing an all-black suit this will create a sense of danger and evil as the colour black links to danger and evil.

Make up - There will be some make up to be used within this thriller film, things such as fake blood on the clothes and face of the victim as this will show the brutality of the murder and we have decided to do this as this is seen in a thriller film. Also the fake blood around the hands and clothes of the killer to show he is responsible of the murder.

Props- We have chosen many different props for our thriller. Props are a big point we felt as it helps us tell the narrative of our thriller. One of the props we chose was a car; this was because we are doing a narrative of an everyday situation turned sinister. So we need the killer to drive this and we will perform sinister things around him. Another prop that links in with the car idea is a flick knife as when the killer goes to enter the car we will use a graphic match to the knife from the key. This will help us create this sinister atmosphere were aiming for. One of our other props is a chair, this is a easily obtainable object, its part will be for the victim to sit in during the attack scene, whilst in the graphic match between the man putting the car in gear and the victim being punched. A prop we have used without a graphic match is the driving gloves these will be out on by the killer in a aggressive way. This helps to show the type of person the killer is. Another prop we will use is a newspaper with a picture of the missing person on, this helps to tie the narrative of a normal car journey to a sinister undertone creating the tension we are looking for. One prop we are currently considering is the use of a gun as a graphic match for the exhaust however there are limitations to do with this as guns are illegal in the UK if possible though we will use it. Props were a big point for us as we wanted to use them to create the sinister narrative. As you can see we've used quite a lot of graphic matches as this creates a lot of tension in the audience and also shocks them.

Sound- We would now like to talk to you about sound in our thriller; we saw sound as a big point that needed a lot of our attention. We decided that we would follow similar conventions of sound from other thrillers, like diegetic sound being emphasised to increase the tension. In addition to this we are going to add Non-diegetic sound during editing which will increase tension as it will be loud and have a fast tempo. Because our thriller opening will involve graphic matches we felt it best that when a graphic match were to appear that we should use loud non-diegetic sound as this will shock the audience, but when the "killer" is going about his everyday jobs we should have a sinister undertone which alerts the audience to his psychotic behaviour, with only snippets of loud, out of tune sound in those places of graphic match. We took inspiration as well from films like "Physcho" and their orchestral sounds to create the tension we would require in our film. We have to abide by the laws of course, so all of our sound will be non-copyrighted and be created for specific use for our thriller only, with some clever editing this will be very possible and this means we can create the perfect thriller. As we mentioned earlier we will use editing to enhance our diegetic sound in places where it is required as this will increase tension in the audience and again give our crime thriller that sinister undertone.

Camerawork-

The camera work we've planned to use is a variety of close ups, extreme close ups and mid range shots. We have chosen to use these as they are a good way of creating tension as they do not show the entire object or person that’s being filmed. This will leave the audience wondering what is being filmed and leave them asking questions on what's going to happen, as these shots don’t give away to much. This'll create a good sense of mystery while being watched.

Editing-

To edit our thriller we're going to use Final Cut Pro X we chose this as our main editing software as it has a large array of good tools to make our thriller look more professional. We will also have a go at using Adobe After effects to create some of the titles as we can get some very good effects with this to make our thriller titles blend in to the video we plan to use it on. In our editing we're going to use lots of jump cuts as these will create a lot of tension. We may use some fade to black transitions to show the passing of time or to end the thriller, like its someone dying vision. We will also use non-diegetic sound in this case a scary kind of music with this it'll create more tension when being watched back. We will also add at the end of the thriller some breathing and foot steps and stop the music as this'll create tension that something is going to happen.

 

Conventions of thriller opening

When deciding to do our thriller we have decided that the sub-genre for the thriller would be a theme associated commonly with a thriller and it would be a psychological and crime thriller as throughout our opening production we will be playing on the mind of the audience by unnerving and disturbing them. For our thriller we will be using techniques which are all seen in thriller movies and we have researched the conventions of a thriller to help us with ours. We have decided to use violence towards one character but the violence will short clips, this will keep the audience on edge as they won’t see what is going on as they are only seeing one or two seconds of violence and it will also help create a sense of mystery over the two characters. We will also be using everyday items in a sinister way to unnerve our audience, such as the items that are found in a car will be used in an aggressive way and this will unsettle the audience as they will sense a strange and mysteriousness surrounding the person driving the car.

Why will it appeal to our target audience? - It will appeal to our target audience as it contains the correct conventions of what people look for in a thriller. We learnt from our Vox Pop that our audience likes violence and mystery these are two large sections of our thriller so this is why it would appeal to them. It would appeal to people with an everyday life as it can show what people hide behind closed doors. We thought about our psychographics and we decided aspirers as they are young audience and live an normal everyday life which relates to our narrative.