Main Influences

Collectively, we were all influenced by different films - these influences were then worked into our own production. These influences varied from camera angles, to characters, to plot lines; however it's safe to say each of us were inspired by different things.

These are some of my personal main influences;

The Book of Eli

Refer to my brief analysis of the opening scene of 'The Book of Eli' to further understand my reasoning. . .here. 

For me, 'The Book of Eli' influenced the camera work of our production greatly, especially the opening scene. The panning of the dark, still, gloomy forest sparked my mind into planning my idea of a thriller, and in the end inspired us all into deciding that the setting would be a forest of some sort. The smooth slow panning created suspense and tension within me, and we therefore attempted to re-create this within our own production. The close up of the body created variation in the visual depth of the shot, making it a very eye catching moment.

Another aspect that influenced me greatly was the eerie non-diegetic sound, it was calm yet suspenseful. Again, we have included this type of music within our own opening to enhance the eeriness of the forest, and the circumstances to come.

As you will notice in the trailer below, the figure is wearing a gas mask. Although I had already intended to introduce the idea of wearing a gas mask within our own production, this further confirmed that it would be a good idea. The inability to identify this figure as an actual person is very un-nerving, and makes the viewer automatically uncomfortable with this character; this is what we wanted to achieve within our own thriller.

The Book of Eli - First Scene

Predators (2010)

Predators was another film that influenced my vision of how our production would be. Again it's another film set in a forest, symbolising imprisonment and isolation. However the main influence was upon our choice of camera shots and angles. The low angle shot within the Predators trailer created an illusion of stars in space, disorientating the viewer; I really liked this effect and we therefore tried to recreate it in our own production.

Watch the trailer here.

Donnie Darko

I can safely say that Donnie Darko was my main influence. Donnie Darko is one of my favourite films, it has such a strong ability to make you think for yourself, and work things out independantly. I really like the fact that it's not putting it all on a plate for you, and spelling it out; you have a part in understanding this film. I would love to be able to effect our audience to this extent. 

I find this psychological thriller a perfect representation of it's given genre, it twists and warps the mind as well as raising your pulse. However it goes against normal thriller conventions regarding setting, normally you'd expect a thriller to be set in a woodland or a prison etc, but in this case it is set in an 80s sub-urban town. This setting is very unusual, it gives the viewer a false sense of safety, and the later strange and violent happenings are therefore brought closer to home.

Our characters and back story were very much inspired by this film. Our character Rhys was based loosely on the aloof Donnie Darko - an ordinary looking teenager, but with a dark secret regarding his mental health, controlled by a physical manifestation in his mind - Frank the bunny rabbit.

Frank is a great character for a psychological thriller; he is mysterious, frightening, and makes us as an audience unsure as to whether we should trust him. Initially, Frank is presented as a figure of Donnie Darko's imagination, yet later in the film this is strongly challenged; this confuses the viewer greatly. I wanted to include this in my plan for our thriller, and therefore designed a character that would mirror these qualities - the lady in the gas mask. Also the way Frank is visually represented, being dressed as a large rabbit would normally trigger a positive response within the viewer, yet his disturbingly distorted face creates a darkness; we now perceive him in a negative light.

I was inspired to mirror the confusion and responsibility of independant thinking within our own production, and I've attempted this through little hints within our opening regarding the reality of the lady in the gas mask - she's said to be in the mind of Rhys, but how is she causing such physical harm?

Again, Donnie Darko (for me) was the greatest inspiration and influence upon our own thriller, and I just hope that ours is half as effective, and psychologically teasing as this brilliant film. I will be posting a case study on Donnie Darko soon.

Audience Response and Feedback

Upon creating a rough edit of our thriller opening, each group screened their own thriller production in order to gain feedback and constructive criticism. The screening was on Thursday 25th November, to the rest of the class and a few other college students. During one of our lessons we were given the task to create feedback sheets to hand out to the audience, in order to gain an idea of how well it was recieved. Unfortunately I was absent on the day, so therefore was not able to witness first hand our audiences reaction to our thriller, however I have been informed that it was all very positive.

See Catrin Hamer's blog for full updates on our audience feedback:

Feedback Sheet Questions

Feedback Session Results

No Country For Old Men - Coin Toss: Semiology

Within this scene from No Country For Old Men, semiology plays a large role in creating a strong tension-filled atmosphere and casting it upon the viewer. This scene in particular is incredibly tense, unpredictable and unnerving, due to various different aspects of semiology, these include: Signs, Body Language, Facial Expression and Tone of Voice.

           

            Straight away this scene is foreboding and almost hostile, due to the harsh barren desert that opens the scene. The dark dead trees in the background most likely represent death, and the vast dark shadow cast upon the distant landscape creates a sense of doom, giving this scene an eerie and bitter quality already. In the next shot we now find ourselves within a small gas-stop store with two characters. Immediately the eyes are drawn to the rope/cable hanging above the window, the most striking thing about these ropes is that they strongly resemble nooses; obviously representing death. The room is cramped and cluttered, indicating that this scene is going to be closed in and intimate. One other key symbol is the wrapper that the character places onto the worktop, this wrapper is able to tell us about the character. It's scrunched up, symbolising the character to be destructive and powerful whilst also acting as something to intimidate the old man behind the counter.

            Another key aspect is the body language within this scene, and how it enhances the atmosphere. Firstly neither character make eye contact, immediately introducing a sense of hostility and tension. The two proceed to stand very still and sturdy, almost like a standoff, further enforcing hostility. Also, the old man behind the counter frequently looks the other up and down, giving us the feeling of his judgement and uncertainty, causing us as the viewer to also feel unsure of this man.

            Body language then leads onto facial expression, which also plays a large part in helping the viewer to understand the temperament of the scene and the characters. Initially when the two first start talking, there is no tension, therefore the facial expressions are relatively relaxed and empty. However, as the scene progresses into a more hostile and tense situation the characters expressions change quite significantly. The old man develops a very confused and contorted expression, which reflects well on what the viewer is going through; confusion and wariness. The other man has a very different expression, he develops a frown with furrowed eyebrows, making him seem powerful and intimidating as he is in control of the situation.

            Lastly there is tone of voice, which, as the others, plays a substantial role in defining the mood within the scene. Initially, both characters hold a very matter of fact, and relaxed tone of voice. However, this changes in sync with facial expression. As the scene grows tense, both tones change. The confused old man adopts a questioning and innocent tone, whereas the other mans tone becomes quite assertive and hostile. However, although he speaks with a hostile and intimidating tone, he sometimes switches to a more relaxed or even slightly cheery tone. This sort of inconsistency within his voice works very well in throwing the audience off and making himself very difficult to read, causing the viewer to feel unsure and on edge about this man. As this mysterious man leaves, he clearly leaves the old man, as well as the audience, bemused and mildly stunned.

            Semiology plays a very large part in generating a thriller, as it asserts strong feelings and thoughts upon the viewer. All of these aspects combine to create an incredibly tense and almost disturbing scene, representing fear, uncertainty and intimidation; making this scene a very effective part of the film. 

           

What is a Thriller?

thriller

- n

a book, film, play, etc, depicting crime, mystery, or espionage in an atmosphere of excitement and suspense

A thriller film generally aims to excite, scare and thrill it's audience, as well as raising anxiety and a sense of mystery; meaning just about any film could be regarded as a thriller. The genre itself can be split into a vast amount of 'sub-genres', these include: Horror, Psychological, Science Fiction, Crime/Detective and Action Thriller - although these genres are very different, they can all share the elements of a thriller. However, what are some of the main aspects that make a thriller. . .a thriller?

Conventions/Plot line

Conventions are what capture the audience, and what make them feel part of the thriller they are viewing. They can induce various emotions within the viewer, and determine how the audience may react to a scene/film. For example isolation is a key convention, it makes the character within the film seem vulnerable and at great risk; causing the audience to feel vulnerable also. Isolation is often prevalent within psychological thrillers and horrors, the feeling of loneliness and threat are very popular within these two types of thriller. Examples include John Carpenter's 'The Thing' (1982) where the crew of a polar research station are hemmed in on one side by inhospitable Antarctic weather, and on the other by a deadly extra-terrestrial threat, with the ability to assume the form and mannerisms of any organism it comes into contact with. . .posing the question, who do you trust? Another example of a thriller in which is based around isolation is 2007 horror/thriller '30 Days of Night' - a small Alaskan town find themselves trapped by a blood-thirsty gang of vampires during the annual 30 day black out, with no way of escaping. Another form of a convention is voyeurism; being watched or followed. This makes the audience feel as though they're somewhere they shouldn't be, and that they're witnessing things that they should not know about.

Characters

Much like many other film genres, conflict (of any sort) is essential to a thriller. Conflict can be between numerous different types of characters; hero and villain, man and extra-terrestrials, man and the mind (as featured in our production). Conflict within thrillers is usually a murder of some sort, or very one sided, however in other thrillers the conflict can be equally matched and non-violent such as in 'Catch Me if You Can' - in which a con artist is forever trying to flee the law. Sometimes to fool the audience, characters are presented as their opposites, for example Watchmen's Rorschach - a key example of an anti hero. Initially from the way he is presented, you would assume that he is a villain, this is not the case however; he is indeed one of the 'good guys'.

Setting/Iconography

The right setting to a thriller is essential, it determines the atmosphere and temperament of the film. Settings within a thriller would generally include a sense of isolation and entrapment, this could be anything from a forest to a prison. However this is not the case for every thriller; some are set in busy urban areas to 'break the mould'. This could be in order to give the audience a false sense of security, no one really expects something abnormal and dangerous to happen in an openly social area.

This then leads further into Iconography. Iconography is the symbolic representation of different images, such as trees, running water or street lamps. Trees are often prevalent within a thriller, as the tall, intimidating bodies represent prison bars, keeping you contained and confined; this is why you see a lot of thrillers (and horrors) set in the woods. Running water is also a key symbol in iconography, as it often represents life being washed away. Another symbol is a street lamp, you will often see a character standing underneath a street lamp (or any other light for that matter), this usually intends to create a positive light casting over this 'good' character.

Script (Lack of)

It is fairly obvious that the reason behind our lack of a script, is that our opening contains no dialogue. We felt that the lack of speech within our thriller opening will create more of an impact on the audience, enhancing the silence of the woods and a sense of isolation.

Click here for the more in-depth reasoning behind our lack of a script. 

Sound

Although we all had an input in deciding on the appropriate music for our opening, Jordan McDowall took on the task of editing it to make it match in with our footage; he was very successfull in doing this.  

See here for more details on sound.

Props

Our thriller opening required very little props, however the few that we did use held significance.





S10 Gas Mask

We used an S10 Gas Mask as part of our costume for the Lady in the Gas Mask, one reason being that it was at hand (a member of my family owns one) and also because we felt a gas mask would further enhance a sense of power and intimidation within our character. The inability to see the face makes it all the more eerie and un-nerving for the audience.  

The second prop used was fake blood, we needed this as blood was a key visual element in our opening scene. The image of blood immediately brings to mind danger and violence, which is what our scene includes. 

One other prop featured was a bloodied rock, the image of the rock is a key feature of iconography. The image holds a sense of power and fear, as it has clearly been used as a very distructive weapon.









See Jordan's Blog for the full Equipment and Prop List

Synopsis

As a group we collectively discussed a basic 'frame' as to what our thriller would entail; the content of our film, how the rest of the film may conclude, and how our character ended up in the woods in the first place. We came up with the idea that the Lady in the Gasmask was a childhood hallucination, and a life long 'companion' of our character Rhys, and that as he grew older Rhys was continually told how his imaginary friend was just that. . .imaginary. It was further discussed that as he was told otherwise, he grew more hostile and frustrated. . .causing the Lady in the Gasmask to follow suit.

Jos then took this information, and developed it further into a synopsis. Jos also came up with the idea of drug involvement, and then developed a storyline that combined a mental illness (schizophrenia) with drug abuse, we then all agreed that this was an appropriate storyline. It was then decided that to make our opening more exciting and interesting, we would feature the ending of the film at the beginning. The rest of the film will then entail the reasoning and build up to our conclusional opening. This technique was inspired by the film 'Brick' (2006), which proved it to be a successfull way of ordering a film. Also the idea of jumbling the order of our production will further enhance the conventions of a thriller, this mixed up technique will primarily confuse and disorientate our audience; causing them to feel un-easy and slightly uncomfortable, but also keen to watch the rest of the film.

Synopsis (Jos' Blog)

Character Development/Background

Catrin Hamer was given the task of creating the backgrounds for our two characters; Rhys and the Lady in the Gasmask. We all lightly discussed the content and how our characters would be. Catrin then went away and developed these ideas much further into detailed back-stories; explaining the characters appearances, life stories and temperaments.

Follow these links to view the posts on Catrin's blog:

Character Background - The Lady in the Gasmask


Character Background - Rhys

Thriller Opening Costume Ideas - Rhys

Here are the original annotated sketches and image compilations of the other main character's (Rhys') costumes.
We will probably go ahead with these ideas as we want this character to appear fairly simple and scruffy, therefore his outfit is not too complicated.
Sketches

Image Compilation

Thriller Opening Costume Ideas - Lady In the Gasmask

Here are the original sketches and computer application of costume ideas for one of our characters (the lady wearing the gas mask).
A character background with details on casting should follow shortly.
Sketches
Image Compilation

Casting Choices

Rebekah Bigwood as The Lady in the Gas Mask

Becky from our group has been chosen to play The Lady in the Gas Mask. Our reasons for this include the fact of convenience, as it's easier to choose somebody from our group to be apart of our film as then we don't need to sort out filming schedules with a lot of people. By view of appearance, Becky is a good choice as she has a feminine build to clearly show that the character in the gas mask is a woman. She is also fairly tall, which adds to the character's feature of intimidation and power – this goes against many film conventions of women being submissive and powerless to the comparison of men. Also she has longish brown hair which is a feature we wanted for the character, and extends on what she and her features represent i.e. brown hair is fairly generic and not necessarily modern which could build on the fact that gas masks were also used in wars a long time ago which perhaps could represent the duration that this woman has existed. There is also the point that Becky owns the appropriate clothing and props to be used for her character.
In high school I worked with Becky in making videos for certain subject projects and she is a very agreeable person to work with and also holds fairly good acting skills.

Jos Banham as Rhys

Again, for convenience we decided to choose Jos to play the character Rhys to prevent having to arrange a filming schedule with people outside of our group. Rhys is a character that looks fairly normal but in fact is not; and Jos is pretty ordinary looking and has a fairly casual personality which fits the appearance of our character. As Rhys is meant to look fairly ordinary, but in actual fact is not. He is also relatively tall and has dark hair, so could come across as frightening and suspicious is filmed in the proper way to emphasis this. We chose this kind of character in order to show the audience that ordinary-looking people can have severe background stories and problems; the casting of Jos allows us to create this illusion of a normal person.

Location, Location, Location

We went to look for locations around the Reepham area... We found a couple of places in Reepham but the brambles and other plants were too overgrown. We had a look near Cawston on Marsham Heath and have decided to film there...

Here are some pictures of the location we are filming at:

This location has been selected as it uses the conventions of a thriller in that it is in a big crater, which refers to the feeling of being trapped...

Also, the trees could represent bars, another thriller convention...

Thriller Questionnaire Results

Here are the results from the questionnaire that each of us handed out in order to determine our target audience.

Thriller Questionnaire Results

View more documents from MissBehaviour.

Thriller Questionnaire - Analysis

1) Please select your gender…

·        We asked for this information to identify the gender of the majority of thriller viewers, different genders would probably require slightly different content within a thriller film.

·        We found that within our sample group the majority of thriller film viewers was male.

2) What age category do you fall into?

·        We asked for this information to be able to suit our thriller to the majority age category, different age groups will require different content.

·        We found that most of the asked audience was aged between 16-18

·        Our thriller is intended to be aimed at this audience, as we have included violence and more-adult themes.

3) What type of sub genre (of thriller) do you prefer?

·        We asked this question in order to establish what most popular ‘sub-genre’ was among our selected group. We will then be able to write our thriller to suit our target audience.

·        The results show that the most popular sub genres are horror and psychological thrillers.

·        Our thriller film is going to be psychological.

4) What would you be looking for in a thriller?

• We require this information in order to gain ideas for our thriller, we will consult these ideas (the most popular and relevant) when it comes to writing our thriller.
• The most popular themes within a thriller was gore, unexpected endings and twists.
• Our thriller will therefore include violence and ‘red-herrings’

5) What is a recent thriller film that you have enjoyed?

• This question was asked so that we can get a rough idea of what sort of thriller our main audience would enjoy, we can therefore take inspiration from these films.
• The most popular film was ‘Shutter Island’, selected because of it’s suspense and plot twists.
• We will therefore include these conventions within our thriller to suit our audience.

6) What kind of characters would you expect to be featured within a thriller?

• We can utilise the answers from this question in order to design our characters and what good character conventions an audience is looking for.
• We found that mainly people expect murderers, psychopaths and victims within a thriller.
• We therefore will include these characters; we have created both a villain and a victim.

7) How would you describe an ideal villain? Visually and personality wise.

• We need the information from this question to give us an idea of what our audience is looking for in their ideal villain; we can then meet these expectations when it comes to character design.
• Our results showed that people generally wanted a villain with intelligence and mystery about them.
• In our thriller our villain will be female, dark and mysterious.

8) What is an ideal location for a thriller film in your opinion?

• We can use the information given to determine the best location for our thriller film, according to our audiences expectations.
• Our results identified that people generally wanted a space that was normally associated with safety, in order to make the audience unsure and no longer feel safe.
• One of the second highest rated locations was a forest, where we will be filming our thriller as we feel it fits the story line better.

9) Where is you favourite place to view a film?

• We can use this information to determine what the best hypothetic release for our thriller would be; cinema release, straight to DVD, or simply an exclusive internet release.
• The highest rated place to view a film was the cinema.
• This means that if we were to release the film the best way would be to release the film in the box office, so that it would attract more of an audience.

10) Which would you rather do? (Various different places to purchase or see a thriller film)

·        As the previous question, we can use this information to determine what the best hypothetic release for our thriller would be; cinema release, straight to DVD, or simply an exclusive internet release.

·        Again, people chose to view a film once at the cinema.

·        This means that we would release our thriller in the cinema as it would probably be more successful that way.

Shooting Schedule

Location: Cawston Heath

Date: Saturday November 6th

Equipment: Camera, Tripod, Gasmask, Costumes, Fake blood

2:30pm

• Arrive at Cawston Heath
• Begin to set up all of the required equipment

2:45pm

• Begin filming the flashbacks - Gas mask woman and Rhys

3:15pm

• Begin filming the rest of the thriller opening - Gas mask woman and Rhys

4:00pm

• Pack away equipment