R2-49 : THRILLER PROJECT 2008/9

Final piece!

2008-12-18T06:52:00.000-08:00

Credits

2008-12-12T01:44:00.000-08:00

The starting credits are an important part of any opening sequence, they must provide the information necessary while keeping the atmosphere of the sequence. For our credits we are going to use photoshop as it will allow us to create interesting and original text. once the credits are made we will edit them into our sequence using final cut. We made a list of possible names for our credits:

- A Black Horse production
- Dark Room cinema presents
- Director of photography John Appleton
- Starring Sebastian Barnsley
- Julia Roundtree
- Susan Harriets
- Louis Rooker
- Catriona Ball
- Micheal Regner
- David Freemall
- Casting by Sam Hope, Kathryn Knots
- Costume design Patricia randall
- Edited by Stephen Franklin
- co-director Benjamin Hainsley
- original story by Richard moore

Matt and Bryony

2008-12-06T13:33:00.000-08:00

Thriller As A Genre

To get a better incite into the thriller genre, so that our thriller would fit into the 'Thriller genre', we investigated into what a 'Thriller' is defined as and what sub-genre ours would come under:

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, television, and gaming that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres.
Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action. Literary devices such as suspense, red herrings and cliffhangers are used extensively.

Thrillers often overlap with mystery stories, but are distinguished by the structure of their plots. In a thriller, the hero must thwart the plans of an enemy, rather than uncover a crime that has already happened. The plots usually go along the lines of, serial or mass murder, terrorism, assassination, or the overthrow of governments.
Jeopardy and violent confrontations are standard plot elements.

Similar distinctions separate the thriller from other overlapping genres: adventure, spy, legal, war, maritime fiction, and so on. Thrillers are defined not by their subject matter but by their approach to it. Many thrillers involve spies and espionage, but not all spy stories are thrillers. Thrillers may be defined by the primary mood that they elicit: fearful excitement. In short, if it 'thrills', it is a thriller.

There are also many 'Subgenres' which are listed below:

Techno Thriller
Supernatural Triller
Action Thriller
Spy Thriller
Psychological Thriller
Political Thriller
Legal Thriller
Medical Thriller
Horror Thriller
Erotic Thriller
Eco-Thriller
Drama Thriller
Disaster Thriller
Crime Thriller
Conspiracy Thriller

We thought that our Thriller '3igma' would best come under:

Horror Thriller:

In which conflict between the main characters are mental, emotional, and physical. What sets the horror thriller apart is the main element of fear throughout the story. The main character(s) is not only up against a superior force, but they are or will soon become the victims themselves and directly feel the fear that comes by attracting the monster's attention.

AND

Psychological thriller:

The conflict between the main characters is mental and emotional, rather than physical.

We thought it would be under these two genre's: horror because we plan to carry the feeling of fear all the way through the story, the main character makes victims out of people but also he is a victim of his own actions. And psychological because he has something wrong with his head and his feelings towards the 3 girls and his thought process of how he treats the girls.

Bryony

Filming

2008-12-04T13:23:00.000-08:00

For our rough cut of the thriller opening, we need a series of shots relating to our animatic. These consist mostly of close-ups.

As for the location, we mainly need a darkroom and a place/room that would be quite eerie and should not seem 'lived in' at all. Costume isn't much of an issue (apart from the people in the photographs) as the shots are close-ups and should not give away much about the main character who's in the opening.

The location that we've chosen to shoot our rough cut is the janitor's room on the 3rd floor of the college. The strong points of the location is that its quite big, kind of dark, with peeling paint, creepy staircase etc. The room basically has all the characteristics of a place that would be secretive and secluded which is how we want to portray the main character in the opening as.
For the darkroom we used the Long Road photography darkroom and shot a series of shots of Bryony and Adam developing film etc.

So far these are the shots that we've mainly filmed for our rough cut.

Mina

Props

2008-12-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

To shoot our many small flashy short shots, we will need many props, these are just a few that we think we are definatly going to use in our thriller, all of our props are important part of our thriller and the thriller convention of MISE EN SCENE....

A Camera Reel + negatives

Books and paper and pages, to leaf through and cast shadows over!

A polaroid camera and polaroids of the three girls which will be shown with the mans hands all over them.

Some old/gnarled hands to fit the part of the obsessive man.

A pair of rusty old scissors which will be shown cutting up negatives and pictures of the 3 girls.

We decided that all of the props shown in the shot should all look dirty and 'well used', and the mans hands should be dirty and gnarled to show what sort of person he is and the conditions he lives in. Also it gives all the frames a more rustic vintage look than if we had sparkling new props!

Bryony

Title

2008-12-02T07:58:00.000-08:00

How we came to 3nigma

At first we couldnt come up with a title and we had much deliberation over the name.

These are several examples of Thriller titles that were possibilities:

Twisted
Obsession
Riddler
Neglect
Captive
Captivated
Stalker
Phobia
Infatuation
Enigma

We chose the title Enigma because it suited what our thriller was supposed to be about.
The definition of Enigma was:
"An enigma is a puzzle, something mysterious or inexplicable, or a riddle or difficult problem"

Once the title Enigma was chosen, we thought more about how the title could tie in with the story and had the idea that we could change the letters to numbers, and thinking that there were 3 girls, we could change the E to a 3, and it would give the title and extra twist.

Our storyline is basically based on a stalker, that has been hurt by 3 girls. Now his anger has built up and he wants vengence. So he starts playing games with them, in the form of puzzles.
This is why we came up with the name Enigma! (puzzle, mystery)
There was then a spark of intelligence to change the E to a 3 as there are 3 girls.
We then started looking for fonts, that could be used and decided we wanted to leave it original, so maybe a handwritten style, but still having a creepy look to it.

Animatic

2008-12-02T06:46:00.000-08:00

This is our animatic story board.
We tried to get the effect that we hope our final thriller will be like, this is:
Fast snappy shots,
Flashing of images,
Certain images bringing back the audiences attention to the idea that there are 3 girls hence:

3nigma

Bryony, Adam, Matt, Mina

Analysis of Se7en intro.

2008-10-14T06:41:00.001-07:00

Se7ens intro is very effective, for setting the seen and giving a quick insite to the story. From the intro, you can see various shots, of an oldish guy creating what seems to be a scrap book. This includes shots of B&W photo's, twisted diagrams, developing photo's and random objects. This gives the veiwer an eary felling and shows that the film is about twisted feelings of a guy that obviously wants some type of vengence.
Most shots are extreme close ups, of this scrapbook being created. With the credits flicking, in between shots. THe colour is saturated in most shots aswell, propelling this eary type feeling, as it seems as most the colours are within objects. This focuses you mind on them. The shots are also very short and often just flash. There are also a few subliminal messages that flash rather quickly. To introduce the seven sins into the storyline!
The music on top is also very basic. With just a simple beat and then a melody entering later. Also as the music becomes faster, the shots become quicker. Then near the end there are some lyrics 'You've got me closer to God', once again pushing on the fact its about the seven sins.

Adam