Concept

Our group has the idea of making something of a preparation of a murder. We

learnt from our last task to avoid camera movement and make the shots
more simplistic rather than trying to make it complicated. We want to have
minimal dialogue. We want to capture something similar to the theme of the
Dexter TV show introduction. We would implement many close up shots and
create tension with this lack of visual information which is suspenseful. Our
concept will be easy to keep at an M rating and will appeal to our chosen
audience as we will use the information from the research weve gathered
and the knowledge from the experience of preliminary task #1. The codes
and conventions which we will implement will be heavily focused on music,
titles and visual cues as we from our research have found this to be the most
effective in creating an enjoyable viewing experience for us and created
suspense. However, we will use all of the knowledge we have gathered from
the research tasks into our Thriller opening.
This will appeal to the target audience because from the research we
gathered we found out that the audience likes suspense and this introduction
could heavily focus on this. The idea of stalking would also create a sense of
action which the audience was excited to see implemented in out opening.
We also have to note that our introduction must be engaging to the audience
rather than something that has no story or plot. The audience will be amused
by an element of plot development.
The audience will likely find this suspenseful and it will generate many
questions inside the audiences head such as; who is this person? What is
happening? Why are they doing this? This generating of questions is effective
to make the audience become engaged by a compelling introduction.
Suspense is something they will heavily enjoy and ours will likely involve
dramatic music with themes of action so hopefully the audience will be sitting
on the edge of their seats.
The objective is to create a piece of tension and implementing the common
conventions of Thriller films of all elements in; editing, camera work, sound,
etc. We based these conventions off of the research we gained from Research
Task #1 and are further described in the production, sound and visual
treatments. We hope that implementing these conventions will assist in the
telling of our story and make an effective piece that is engaging for an
audience to watch and to successfully create something that is typical of the
Thriller genre while maintaining a sense of originality.
We want the mood of our opening sequence to change very dramatically,
from an atmosphere of innocence and peace to a suddenly very tense and
uneasy feeling. Proven from our survey results, suspense is a key element of
thriller films, so we are hoping to achieve this mood at some point throughout
our sequence. The thriller sub-genre of the film we are creating is a Crime
thriller, as an abduction of a young child takes place. Crime thrillers are some
of the most suspenseful, which is what our audience wants. Although we
want our film to be completely unique, we have taken inspiration from the US
TV show, Dexter, as part of the opening of our film. In this we will watch our
killer (him being the killer is not known to the audience at this time) getting

ready and preparing himself in his daily routine. All shots will be extreme
close up of only one action at a time, like brushing his teeth or combing his
hair. This from the very start of the film will make the audience feel uneasy,
as the whole face is never shown, so we dont know who this man is and why
we arent being shown him as a whole.
Mood and Tone
We want the mood of our opening sequence to change very dramatically,
from an atmosphere of innocence and peace to a suddenly very tense and
uneasy feeling. Proven from our survey results, suspense is a key element of
thriller films, so we are hoping to achieve this mood at some point throughout
our sequence. The thriller sub-genre of the film we are creating is a Crime
thriller, as an abduction of a young child takes place. Crime thrillers are some
of the most suspenseful, which is what our audience wants. Although we
want our film to be completely unique, we have taken inspiration from the US
TV show, Dexter, as part of the opening of our film. In this we will watch our
killer (him being the killer is not known to the audience at this time) getting
ready and preparing himself in his daily routine. All shots will be extreme
close up of only one action at a time, like brushing his teeth or combing his
hair. This from the very start of the film will make the audience feel uneasy,
as the whole face is never shown, so we dont know who this man is and why
we arent being shown him as a whole.
Treatment of Sound
A large influence for our sound as well as the project as a whole is the Silence
of the Lambs opening. In this opening the sound is used extremely effectively
to create tension and suspense as well as setting the scene. Seeing as our
introduction is planned to be in a forest type scenario, the Silence of the
Lambs opening can be used a helpful reference in creating an effective aural
experience to create tension in our opening scene. The opening of this film
effectively makes this experience through a layered soundtrack to suspend
the audience in the moment and perfectly create an immersive feeling with
the realistic sounds of nature and the interesting soundtrack.
In the sound of our Thriller opening we will make sure to include things that
are heavily conventional to Thriller films in terms of the use of music. Music
can be seen in the vast majority of Thriller opening and as a group we want
music to be a prominent aspect of our opening and we will have effective
music that fits the purpose and stands out to clearly portray to the audience
of the mood and tone. There is a large amount of royalty free music that we
could use that would fit the purpose of our Thriller opening sequence. We are
likely to include an orchestral piece of some sorts that gives a distorted feel
as this is traditional in Thriller films and heavily contributes to setting the
mood and tone of our piece. Music is one of the key components for setting
the mood and tone so we will take extra care in selecting this music to create
our vision. This is commonly seen in Thriller film openings and this will
achieve our overall goal of the treatment of the music in our opening.
Seeing as in our original plan the girl who gets abducted in the opening
sequence while walking her dog through a local reserve must be taken into
consideration. We will implement noises such as the sounds of; footsteps,
crackling leaves, breathing and sounds of animals such as birds. Not only is

this extremely important in contributing to setting the scene but it also will
create a sense of anticipation as noises such as the footsteps, if used
effectively, are extremely suspenseful and effective in making the audience
anticipate a major plot point. If these sounds are heard the audience will
subconsciously recognise these sounds and place themselves in the area of
the setting which is planned to be Macleans Reserve. This will also create
some sort of enigma and fear as these sounds associated with these isolated
areas are usually considered fairly scary to many in a night-time setting and
will assist in setting the tone and mood for the opening which we hope to be
fairly dark.
We hope to keep the dialogue to a minimum in our opening piece as it is
fairly conventional to avoid dialogue in the opening of a film. This is
commonly seen in the works of Hitchcock films such as Rear Window and
other famous Thriller films such as Silence of the Lambs. The lack of dialogue
can help increase tension in the opening of the film as the lack of human
sound makes the audience feels tense without the dialogue as there is
nothing to settle the tension through human voice. However, we do intend to
use some types of human sound such as heavy panting to clearly portray a
more suspenseful mood and make it clear that there is a potential threat in
the opening. We are also likely to use the sound of a scream as the girl is
abducted to give a chill and the audience a sense of sympathy as the girl is
abducted and the shrilling scream can be heard. This will all assist in creating
a major sense of tension and suspense.
Our concepts for the sound design in the opening sequence of our Thriller
films is possible due to various reasons. Due to equipment limitations making
original sound tracks will prove to be difficult as the equipment is not of a
very high standard for recording audio, however, is sufficient enough for the
task at hand which will be recording some dialogue and sounds of the nature.
With a wide variety of easily accessible sound from the internet for free it
proves that finding music and extra sound effects will not prove to be
extremely difficult and will be well within our low budget. We will also have
access to a wide variety of music so this will be a simple task to find music
that creates suspense and set the tone which we would like to achieve in the
opening scene. Hence, sound design is not going to be a major problem while
making our Thriller film introduction.
Overall we hope that the sound design creates a major sense of setting the
scene as well as setting the tension and the mood and tone that we want to
establish. We hope that it creates a sense of sympathy for the girl and pure
fear and suspense throughout the kidnapping through the use of sound. We
have learnt from the research that this is what the audience hopes to see,
and that sound is vital to make this idea realised. Sound is often overlooked
and not taken into deep consideration but as a group we aim to place great
importance of the sound design of the Thriller film introduction in order to
create an effective piece. The sound should be effective and emphasis and
complement the other aspects of our Thriller film introduction such as visuals
and production in order to collectively create an extremely effective opening
that achieves our vision as a group.
Treatment of Visuals

Our aim with the mise en scne is to make it obvious to the audience that our
main character is mentally abnormal and that he is indeed a psychopath. This
could firstly be portrayed by the fact that he lives alone in a large house. As
he chooses to isolate himself from people shows that there is an obvious
mental reasoning behind this. Though social isolation does not necessarily
correlate to psychopathic tendencies, it shows that the character prefers to
be by himself. The setting of an upper-middle class neighbourhood as well as
a large house depicts the social background of the character. He is obviously
well off for someone living off a single income. This might create questions
amongst the audience to how he manages to support himself and more
importantly why he chooses to live alone. As well as the home of the
psychopath, we also see live action in the second half of our opening
sequence during the abduction scene. The tone that we wanted to be
realized in this scene was mysterious and so that the audience to have a lot
of questions on the life of the main character. The props in the house will be
quite simplistic and minimal to emphasize the emptiness.
As for the second half of our opening sequence, the setting for this is going to
be the Macleans Reserve. We chose this setting specifically as whilst it is still
in the suburban region, it gives a sense of mystery and danger with the
unsheltered connotations of the bush. The setting of the reserve is also in
close relation to the home of the psychopath making it easy for him to stalk
and abduct the child. This particular bit of live action needs to be
suspenseful. The setting of the particular reserve is going to have a dirt
pathway with bush on either side. This gives the image that the child is
enclosed and foreshadows the abduction about to take place. From our
research task, our target audience has stated that they prefer suspense and
it is an element of the thriller genre that they really enjoy so it is crucial that
we are able to create this well during this scene.
Its crucial that we distinguish to the audience that the characters choice to
live alone is so much more than a personal preference if we want the state of
his mentality to be prominent. In terms of props, we want the home of our
main character to be quite pristine and tidy with the house hold items all
being in their place. This is because we want the audience to see that firstly,
the main character is extremely organized and this would create the image of
him having a high intellect. Secondly, the time taken for the psychopath to
actually organize his home to the extent that it is, shows that he possibly
either has a lot of time on his hands or that his home is never visited by
others, or used by anyone other than him. It is human nature to socialize and
complete isolation from the outside world is something that is often used as
punishment, such as in prisons. This complete isolation that our main
character thrives on will be shown in a lot of the props. For example the main
character owns a telephone, and which might seem a fairly normal household
item but however it is not plugged into the wall. This shows that he is
disconnected from society by choice as he prefers not to make
communication with the outside world nor does he want people to
communicate with him. The fact that he owns a phone is possible to
emphasize the fact that he wants to appear normal on the outside, that if in
the unlikely event of a visitor, he appears normal on the surface by owning
these items. Another way to emphasize this is to show the characters mobile

phone with no contacts available on the phone. We wanted to have shots of

our main character completing basic tasks for what could be his morning
routine. When it comes to preparing breakfast we want to get a shot of a set
of knives, for whilst this might simply just be a basic kitchen utensil, it
symbolizes far more. Knives often symbolizes violence and death with the
connotations of stabbing and cutting so if the audience see a shot of a set of
knives or a singular the knife, they are going to assume that it is more
meaningful than just a kitchen utensil for this film and they are going to
consider its blatant connotations. For the live action scene with the child, we
want to have a female actress as in many cases females are seen as more
vulnerable than males and we really want to use this stereotype to our
advantage so the audience sympathize more with the abducted girl and
therefore resent the person who has taken her. The purpose of her walking
through the reserve on her own is that she is walking her dog. This is again to
make the audience more sympathetic as they are likely to feel sorry for the
animal as well as the girl.
In regards to costuming, we want our main character to be dressed in basic
casual clothing. This is because clothing is something external and on the
outside our character looks normal. But as we begin to examine his actions
later on we are disproved by our first impression of him. This foreshadows the
plot of our opening sequence as we examine what looks like basic daily
routines and actually uncover the deep psychological reasoning behind the
main characters mentality. We want the girl who is abducted to be the image
of innocence, wearing white or light colours. Possibly a dress or skirt with her
hair down.
For the title sequence, I want credits to appear whilst the main character is
going through his daily routine, subtly in the bottom-right corner, and for
aesthetic purposes we will use black sans serif font in capital letters. The
actual title of our film will not appear until after the live action when we see
the girl kidnapped. This is because after a suspenseful scene we dont want
to cut straight to more live action and would rather have the audience sink in
the abduction that has just took place. We want to use the same font as was
used during the title credits and also it black but this time, far bigger and in
the centre of the screen.
In terms of shots and angles, we want the shots of the main character
performing his morning routine to be done in a series of close-ups and
extreme close-ups. The narrative plot was something that our target
audience said was very important in our survey and we think that this will
give them a good insight to character.
The purpose of the use of close ups will be to create a sense of enigma as the
audience will not see the main characters face or body in one shot. This is
makes it initially hard for the audience to connect with him. With such basic
routines examined so closely, the audience do not fully relate to him. The
purpose of this is that it foreshadows the two ways in which the main
character is perceived. One as a normal person as on the surface no one is
aware of his underlying thoughts, and the second way as a psychopath.
For the shots of the young girl we want the first shot of her to be shown quite
far away and then have it cut to a shot where she has walked a few meters
towards the camera, then have it cut to another shot with her walked another

few meters towards the camera and so on. The purpose of this is because we
dont want to have a continuous shot of her walking and this can be quite
monotonous but with her getting closer in shots also speeds up the scene
and makes it obvious to the audience that something is going to happen to
her. This creates suspense; something that our target audience has told us is
very important to them and it is also traditionally seen in thriller films.
Treatment of Production
As we want to portray a picture of innocence on our young victim, the light
associated with her must be either a warm light or a very pure white light.
This lets the audience see that she is the victim, and they already begin to
fear for her safety. Our villain will be mostly hiding in the shadows, always
having a dark light around him so the audience never properly sees his face.
He will mostly be shown from behind or in extreme close up shots. The young
girl will be walking her dog alone in a forest, leaving her very vulnerable,
again creating suspense, which has been shown on our online survey as a
feeling that the audience want to be left with. The forest she will be walking
in will be dense and hidden from the outside world, so anything that happens
will be hidden from onlookers. There are many bushes and shrubs, which are
a perfect place for our psychopath to watch from. As the victim wanders
through the forest, the rocky terrain could make it hard to walk on, leaving
her focusing on her footing rather than anything else. This again makes her
more vulnerable to attack and makes the audience fear for the girls safety.
For costuming, our psychopath is most likely going to be wearing black. This
is symbolic of his dark soul, and reflects how he does not show any emotions.
Black clothing creates a very dark aurora and will automatically let our
audience know that he is our villain. The young girl walking her dog will be
dressed in pink, white or yellow. These are colours of innocence, especially
when put into a dress and worn by a young girl. Her hair will be tied up with
ribbons and clips, to again help create the image of a normal young girl. Her
dog is also a constant reminder of normality, and the girl being taken will
shock audiences as many of them will have dogs and will walk them alone, so
the movie will hit very close to home and makes them feel like the same
thing could happen to them at any time. The props in our opening scene will
mainly provide by our landscape, such as bushes and shrubs. The opening
sequence will consist of a man performing his daily routine, and all the items
he uses to prune and prepare himself are all significant in showing his OCD
for everything to be done the same in exactly the same way every morning,
as it will look very practiced and meticulous. Items such as a toothbrush,
floss, a razor, a comb and possibly some other items will show him making
himself look perfect, which again shows us another of his psychopathic
tendencies, narcissism. The dog being walked by the young girl will create a
symbol of normality, as most people have/know people who have dogs. When
the girl is abducted, her dog will be left alone in the forest. The dog being
alone will reflect how the girl is now feeling, as her and her dog were together
and they had each other, but they have now been separated and are
confused and lost, which will be shown through the dog. Throughout the
scene we would like to create as much tension and suspense as possible, as
the audience knows that the girl will be a victim, but hopefully the abduction
will still shock them. Extreme close ups and camera lenses shifting focus will
be a key factor in creating this success.