Review

Review of the project so far:



Our original plot involved Lola Gray actually being kidnapped and focused on her being captured and tied up. When coming to film, using the altered script, it seemed to work well, however when we later reviewed the film we couldn’t match the clips and we felt the acting wasn’t satisfactory. Therefore we decided to further alter the plot, choose a different actress and change the setting.

            Changing the setting was mainly due to it being more available for our use and it fitted in well with our new plot. As the majority of the opening would have to be filmed outdoors we decided to choose somewhere rural quiet where there wouldn’t be other people around. We chose a muddy lane behind some houses, this gave a rural effect but also showed that the location had civilisation as the plot involves Lola living outside of London.

We changed the plot to focus on the character’s escape and to use flashbacks of the character being captured, this lets the audience get an insight of Lola’s thoughts- emphasising the psychological element of our genre. Another adaptation to our plot was Lola having schizophrenia. Now the whole plot is based around Lola’s mental battle between her past and the present. The film would be from the view of Lola and would show what she’s imagining and believing to be true rather than what is happening in reality.

It was difficult trying to find someone suitable for acting in our film as we didn’t want to experience the same thing twice and to have to start from the beginning again. Ultimately we weren’t able to find anyone who wasn’t in our group and as we were restricted on time we chose to use Alice to play the part of Lola.

With the script we wanted to have something which allowed the actress to be flexible and improvise since we had difficulties trying to stick to the script when previously filming. For that reason we decided to use a basic script which included the key elements, like the movement of Lola and what shots we would use.

New plot

After we filmed our opening, we started to edit it and we realised our clips didn't fit together well. We'd used too many shots and angles which made it hard to make the continuity right. As we were filming, the sun also went down affecting the continuity. So we decided to film again. We decided to make it a bit simpler and use less shots

 

New Plot:

 

Lola Gray is a 22 year old woman from London, England. She had a very troubled childhood; her mother abandoned her after she was born and for as long as she can remember her father has been kidnapping and abusing young women. He would keep them in an abandoned building, Lola would hear the screams.

 

After years of neglect and mistreatment, Lola turned to drugs to deal with the pain, this lead to severe schizophrenia. She thinks she was kidnapped and tortured.

 

The film is about Lola Gray's battle with her mind and reality. The audience see's a traumatic journey from the victim's perspective

Altered Script

We decided to make some changed to our original script which we feel would improve our project.

Script/ Stage Directions


During the research of the sub-genre we discovered changes we can make to comply with the genre better. We can instead use first person narrative of the obsessed man so the audience have an incite into his mind and how he thinks. This will show him as a solitary figure which is a convention of the genre, it will also pose the question: is the narrator reliable? This will add to the psychological element.

New Draft:

Starts with black screen 

Narrator: Lola Gray. A beautiful model. A beautiful mess. I watched her you know?  I was always watching her. She had no idea who I was. She didn't know I was there. She didn't care I was there. It had to be done.

Sound of heart beat fades in, black screen fades out to show an extreme close-up of Lola’s eyes. Her eyes are shut, then when open the camera flicks to a point of view shot which is blurry and out of focus. When the shot comes into focus it then changes to a shot of Lola’s eyes which then become panicked and glance around quickly. The camera then slowly moves out to get a close-up of her face which is when the name of the actress is shown. It continues to move out until it eventually becomes a wide shot of Lola tied up. This is at a slightly higher angle as it is from above.


Narrator: She looked so beautiful. She shouldn't have been that way. She shouldn't have done those things.

Lola: (muffled scream) She struggles with the rope binding her hands. It shows a cut-in of her hands struggling until they finally become free. It then goes back to a wide shot and she removes the gag.

         (Heavy breathing)

She staggers to stand up, leans against the wall for support. When she stands up she looks around. Switches to a point of view shot scanning the room. It focuses on the window, and the table. It goes back to a wide shot of Lola and the room, she clumsily walks towards the window which she then tries to open the window, which takes great effort as she is weak from malnutrition. When the window is open she glances outside, it flicks to a point of view of outside the window then back to wide shot.


Narrator: She didn't want to go. I know she didn't. She didn't want it any more.

Lola then clumsily walks over to the table and drags it over to the window, again it takes a lot of effort. Once the table is placed in front of the window Lola clambers on to it and escapes through the window.

Once outside it continues as a long shot of Lola whilst she flees. At one point it changes to a point of view shot of her feet running, using a hand held shot. It then goes back to her eventually escaping the scene.

Narrator: I just let her run.

Plot

A model named Lola Gray is kidnapped by a man who is obsessed with her. She escapes from the house that her kidnapped took her to.

After the kidnapping Lola tries to get back to normal but finds it difficult. She suffers from depression and becomes a heavy drinker. She takes a lot of medication to handle her depressions. Since the kidnapping, everywhere she goes she see’s the same man, however she does not know it was him who kidnapped her and neither does the audience. She blames her drinking and depression for these constant sightings.

In time, the man approaches, he seems normal, they get to know each other, he becomes a shoulder to cry on. She feels she’s beginning to heal. Eventually she goes back to his house with him - from this moment on he keeps drugging her, making her weak and fall in and out of consciousness. One night she awakes after being left for a long time, she struggles but manages to remember where she is. She runs as before.

Script

Initial Script/ Stage Directions


This is our first draft for our script. This is how we imagine our film to go. We realise that during the filming process there will be some improvisation from the actress and things may work a little better so we'll make some changes. We plan to add non-diegetic sound as this was in our feedback from our preliminary task and this is also one of the conventions of the thriller genre.

Starts with a black screen with news bulletin about model disappearance:

News reporter: British police are anxious to find world renowned model, Lola Gray. She was last reported seen five days ago at a party in London. Police urge anyone with possible information about her disappearance to come forward as soon as possible. Family and friends know little… (Fades out, title of film is shown.)

Sound of heart beat fades in, black screen fades out to show an extreme close-up of Lola’s eyes. Her eyes are shut, then when open the camera flicks to a point of view shot which is blurry and out of focus. When the shot comes into focus it then changes to a shot of Lola’s eyes which then become panicked and glance around quickly. The camera then slowly moves out to get a close-up of her face which is when the name of the actress is shown. It continues to move out until it eventually becomes a wide shot of Lola tied up. This is at a slightly higher angle as it is from above.

Lola: (muffled scream) She struggles with the rope binding her hands. It shows a cut-in of her hands struggling until they finally become free. It then goes back to a wide shot and she removes the gag.

         (Heavy breathing)

She staggers to stand up, leans against the wall for support. When she stands up she looks around. Switches to a point of view shot scanning the room. It focuses on the window, and the table. It goes back to a wide shot of Lola and the room, she clumsily walks towards the window which she then tries to open the window, which takes great effort as she is weak from malnutrition. When the window is open she glances outside, it flicks to a point of view of outside the window then back to wide shot.

Lola then clumsily walks over to the table and drags it over to the window, again it takes a lot of effort. Once the table is placed in front of the window Lola clambers on to it and escapes through the window.

Once outside it continues as a long shot of Lola whilst she flees. At one point it changes to a point of view shot of her feet running, using a hand held shot. It then goes back to her eventually escaping the scene.

Script/ Stage Directions


During the research of the sub-genre we discovered changes we can make to comply with the genre better. We can instead use first person narrative of the obsessed man so the audience have an incite into his mind and how he thinks. This will show him as a solitary figure which is a convention of the genre, it will also pose the question: is the narrator reliable? This will add to the psychological element.

New Draft:

Starts with black screen 

Narrator: Lola Gray. A beautiful model. A beautiful mess. I watched her you know?  I was always watching her. She had no idea who I was. She didn't know I was there. She didn't care I was there. It had to be done.

Sound of heart beat fades in, black screen fades out to show an extreme close-up of Lola’s eyes. Her eyes are shut, then when open the camera flicks to a point of view shot which is blurry and out of focus. When the shot comes into focus it then changes to a shot of Lola’s eyes which then become panicked and glance around quickly. The camera then slowly moves out to get a close-up of her face which is when the name of the actress is shown. It continues to move out until it eventually becomes a wide shot of Lola tied up. This is at a slightly higher angle as it is from above.


Narrator: She looked so beautiful. She shouldn't have been that way. She shouldn't have done those things.

Lola: (muffled scream) She struggles with the rope binding her hands. It shows a cut-in of her hands struggling until they finally become free. It then goes back to a wide shot and she removes the gag.

         (Heavy breathing)

She staggers to stand up, leans against the wall for support. When she stands up she looks around. Switches to a point of view shot scanning the room. It focuses on the window, and the table. It goes back to a wide shot of Lola and the room, she clumsily walks towards the window which she then tries to open the window, which takes great effort as she is weak from malnutrition. When the window is open she glances outside, it flicks to a point of view of outside the window then back to wide shot.


Narrator: She didn't want to go. I know she didn't. She didn't want it any more.

Lola then clumsily walks over to the table and drags it over to the window, again it takes a lot of effort. Once the table is placed in front of the window Lola clambers on to it and escapes through the window.

Once outside it continues as a long shot of Lola whilst she flees. At one point it changes to a point of view shot of her feet running, using a hand held shot. It then goes back to her eventually escaping the scene.


Narrator: I just let her run.

Research on Psycho-Thriller

These are the definitions according to Wikipedia:

Psychological – Elements that are related to the mind or processes of the mind; they are mental rather than physical in nature. Sometimes the suspense comes from within one solitary character where characters must resolve conflicts with their own minds. Usually, this conflict is an effort to understand something that has happened to them. These conflicts are made more vivid with physical expressions of the conflict in the means of either physical manifestations, or physical torsions of the characters at play.

Thriller – Generally, thrillers focus on plot over character, and thus emphasize intense, physical action over the character's psyche. Psychological thrillers tend to reverse this formula to a certain degree, emphasizing the characters just as much, if not more so, than the plot.

Psychological thriller – Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies (which is often the case in typical action-thrillers), but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind. The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.

Psychological Thrillers are much more intense and deep which makes them more serious. This could actually contradict the fact that people want an element of humour according to our questionnaire results; however it is clear that psychological thriller is the preferred sub-genre. Personally, our favourite is psycho-thriller so we have more knowledge of it.

Psychological Thrillers are very much focussed on the characters and their minds. They often just focus on one or two characters as to comply with the psychological element the audience must have an incite into the main character's mind. The plot has less focus, unlike average Thriller films.

Themes of a psycho-thriller:

Reality – This is where psycho-thrillers can become confusing -  the characters usually have uncertainty on what is real and what is not - characters are taken out of their normality and the comfort of their minds. The audience experiences this with them.

Perception – As we focus on main characters, particularly if it is in first person narrative, we see their perception of the world. This links to the idea of an unreliable narrator. How does the audience know they can trust the narrator

Mind – The human consciousness; the location for personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. The mind is often used as a location for narrative conflict, where characters battle their own minds to reach a new level of understanding or perception.

Existence/ Purpose - The object for which something exists; an aim or a goal humans strive towards to understand their reason for existence. Characters often try to discover what their purpose is in their lives and the narrative's conflict often is a way for the characters to discover this purpose.

Identity - The definition of one's self. Characters often are confused about or doubt who they are and try to discover their true identity.

Death - The cessation of life. Characters either fear or have a fascination with death.

Literary devices and techniques

• Stream of consciousness - a literary technique which seeks to describe an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes. In psychological thrillers, the narrative tries to manifest the character's psyche through word usage, descriptions, or visuals.
• First-person narrative - a literary technique in which the story is narrated by one or more of the characters, who explicitly refers to him or herself in the first person, that is, "I". This direct involvement that the characters have with the story in turn makes the reader more involved with the characters themselves, and thus able to understand the mechanics of the characters' minds. This technique is often paired with the concept of the unreliable narrator.
• Back-story - the history behind the situation extant at the start of the main story. This deepens the psychological aspect of the story since the reader is able to more fully understand the character; more specifically, what the character's motivations are and how his past has shaped his current cognitive perceptions.

Questionnaire

Audience Research:

The typical age of the audience who we're aiming our film opening at is roughly14-18. Our film plot would most likely fit an age 15 category, therefore the most likely people to watch it would be this age. This means there are certain factors like language and violence which we need to consider that would be appropriate and not offensive for our audience. This age range is similar to our own age, we can benefit from as we will personally be able to understand what they think makes a good thriller film.

            Our questionnaire will be completed by local people from the area who will all share similar backgrounds and possibly similar incomes. Because of this, we have a good idea of what makes a believable plot and setting for our film. With people earning similar incomes means that their interests will be generally similar, for our case locals from Whittlesey area aren't over critical, more-than-average-wage earners giving us an idea of the quality that the filming of our film requires.

            Linking this is the possible location for our film; it will be local therefore realistic for our audience. The more realistic and familiar the setting is, the more believable the overall plot will feel to our audience. Whittlesey is a rural town which will probably reflect in our film, taking in to consideration that there are limited places we could film it is likely that we will involve some rural aspects. To keep our plot realistic and connected to our audience we will keep the plot to our time period, this will stop anyone from being confused too.

            The demographics for our film opening isn't specific, it needs to be appreciated equally by both genders

Question 1.  Are you:       Male       Female

Result:

We intentionally asked 10 females and 10 males to ensure we get a fair result. Opinions and preferences can be determined by the gender of the person because of the different ways in which males and females are treated; males are brought up to be very masculine and females are brought up to be very feminine. Men tend to have bravado; they have to appear brave for the approval of people. Females tend to be more vulnerable and sometimes like to appear slightly weaker than males. These aspects influence opinions.

Question 2. What age range do you fit into?

As previously stated, everyone we asked was between the age of 14 and 18. Our film will be aimed at this age range so we thought it would be best to receive our audience research from the relevant people.

Question 3: What do you think makes a good film?

Peoples opinions:

Ÿ         Strong story

Ÿ         Good actors

Ÿ         Believable

Ÿ         Good directing

Ÿ         Must look high-quality even if it's low budget

Ÿ         Action

Ÿ         Element of humour

Ÿ         Violence

Ÿ         Good vs. bad

Ÿ         Epic parts

Ÿ         Horror

Ÿ         Unpredictability

Ÿ         Good acting

Ÿ         Realism

Ÿ         Imaginative

Ÿ         Interesting

Ÿ         Engaging

Ÿ         Follows conventions of the genre

Ÿ         Something which captivates the audience

Ÿ         Suspense

Ÿ         Questions to be answered

This gives us a lot of elements to consider with our film:

Ÿ         We must have a strong plot and this must show in our opening, the opening initially captivates the audience and depicts whether they keep watching or not. The point of the film is to tell the story, if there is not a good plot, the film will not meet it's purpose. Every media text is created with an intention. The thriller genre is a broad genre which allows us to be imaginative (which has proven to be another important feature) therefore we can make a strong storyline.

Ÿ         The actors play a big part in attracting the audience. This is through the two-step flow - people see an actor they like, they then recommend the actor's films to friends or family. However, for our task we obviously cannot use 'good' actors, but we can do our best to improve the acting from out preliminary task. Instead of improvising, we have a volunteer from the performing arts group therefore the acting should be of the best we can access.

Ÿ         The plot needs to be believable and have a sense of realism. If the plot is too unrealistic it tends to irritate people and it won't keep them interested. It can be imaginative and it is fictional so it doesn't have to be an exact representation of reality, but the interpretation must be believable on some level.

Ÿ         Good directing is key. As a group we have to be in control of the whole production. We have to direct the actor, manage the setting, manage the costumes and manage the camera work. The piece has to reflect confidence, if a film is not well-directed, it shows.

It must look high-quality. We must use what we have to the best of our ability. We are incredibly low budget in that we have to improvise with the setting, the actors and the costumes. We also have to make do with amateur lighting and camera work, but it is possible, with editing, to make the film look higher quality than it is. This will require rehearsing before filming and practising of the camera shots

Question 4: What is your favourite thriller?

  

This chart shows the most favoured films of 20 people aged 14-18. There a 4 obvious favourites, 'The Strangers', 'District 9', 'Panic Room' and 'Saw'. We can now use this information and investigate these films to find out the elements that make our intended audience like these films. The information obtained isn't as useful as hoped as the largest number of people that like a film is only 3, which is 15% however it will give us a better idea than we had before.

Question 5: Why is this your favourite thriller?
The most occurring answer for this question was that the film held the viewer in suspense. This made us consider that if we wanted to make a successful thriller opening, we would need to add suspense for it to appeal to a majority of the audience.

Other elements people considered to make a good thriller film:

Question 6: What do you think is needed to fulfil the criteria of the thriller genre?

For this question many of the respondents answered with suspense and tension. Again, this made us realise that to make a good thriller we must add these components for it to appeal to a wide audience.

Other  factors considered by respondents:

• Character point of view
• Shocking moments
• Realism
• Unexpected scenes
• Scared victim
• A twist in the plot
• Action
• Death or separation
• Scary scenes

Question 7: Do you prefer a realistic plot or a more imaginative plot?

75% of the respondents answered that they preferred a realistic plot over a imaginative one. By them saying this, we decided it was best to base our opening around a realistic story line so it appealed to a wider demographic.

Question 8: What is your preferred sub-genre of the thriller genre?

 10% of respondents enjoyed the crime thriller sub-genre, 15% enjoyed mystery thriller and the remaining 75% preferred psychological thrillers to the other sub-genres. As psychological is the most significantly popular sub-genre, we decided it would make sense for us to base our opening around a psychological thriller.



Question 9: What perspective would you prefer a Thriller film to from?

 Over half of the respondents would prefer the film to be from the victim’s perspective along with the extra 5% saying they’d watch any. It is then followed by 25% preferring it from the villain’s; there is a wide difference between the two answers therefore we can confirm that the majority of our demographic would like our film more if it was from a victim’s perspective. This is helpful for us to know as it will make our film more popular and therefore successful.

Question 10: What sort of atmosphere do you think needs to be created in a Thriller?

There were numerous answers to this question though they all related to each other. The most common answers were suspense, tense and dark, typical features of a Thriller genre. Other answers included:

·        Isolated

·        Shocking

·        Inquisitive

·        Scary

·        Panic

·        On edge

·        Uncertainty

These are all similar answers and therefore give us a clear indication to what our audience consider important to make a Thriller atmosphere. We can now apply our results and consider possible ways to produce the appropriate atmosphere, including the film plot, sound and lighting effects.

Question 11: What do you think would be a good location for a Thriller?

Bearing in mind we have limited access to an appropriate location some of the answers won’t be possible.

The results varied somewhat however there were some which were repeated quite often.

It is clear that there are three dominant answers, an old house, an abandoned place/building or a forest. In a way these three can be linked given that an old house could be an abandoned building and a forest could be an abandoned place too. These locations are also suitable for us to consider as they are all accessible to us.

Conclusion:

Now that we’ve gathered the results and studied each of the question’s responses I feel that we are able to produce a film appropriate for our demographic. The use of the questionnaires has allowed us to see what certain media conventions should be used to make a ‘Thriller’ film.  We are now aware of what our audience favour and expect from a thriller film, therefore we can make a successful opening. There are media elements we are now aware of that should be used to make a ‘Thriller’ film.