The Turquoise Team

     

The Turquoise Team !

Bella Woolger (left) Me (middle) Megan Havard (right)

This is my group for my thriller opening sequence

Initial thriller ideas

This week we started to work on some ideas for our synopsis and opening sequence. There are three of us: Bella, Megan and me but the greatest idea was Bella's  and the name of it is "The gift", so here it is:

Charlotte has a rare gift, she can see numbers in only some peoples eyes, and she doesn’t know what these numbers mean. Until one day she finds out that the true meaning of these digits she sees in peoples eyes are in fact their death date. The story focuses on the day she finds out what the numbers mean that only she can see in peoples eyes. One day Charlotte is sitting in a bar at the age of seventeen when the man next to her begins to sob by himself. As she looks closer at him, she notices the numbers in his eyes, she takes no notice of the numbers because she has being seeing them in random peoples eyes ever since she can remember. The next day at home she sees on the news the man she was sat next to the day before in the bar, has committed suicide by throwing himself of a bridge, the date being the 18/01/14. She recognizes those digits because those are the exact same numbers she saw in the mans eyes. So she then realizes that the numbers she had seen in the mans eyes the day before had in fact been his death date. She tries to live her life from that day on without having to look at anyone in their eyes but one day while having breakfast is forced to look into her mothers eyes. Unfortunately she sees those deadly numbers in one of the people she loves most. Her mission from that moment on is to try and prevent her mothers fate, who is destined to die in a weeks time according to the numbers Charlotte can see in her eyes. 

This is the original synopsis which is followed by the opening sequence:

 The first scene is set in an airport where Charlotte is running towards her gate number for her flight back to England. She is late. The sequence opens with a close up shot of the flight board where we can see the current date. The scene then cuts to an establishing shot that trollies to the left as charlotte is running through the airport to her gate. She arrives at the gate, the shot cuts to an over the shoulder shot of her talking to the stewardess who is closing the gate. She asks if she can go through but the lady shakes her head and says it is too late. The camera zooms to a close-up of her eyes where we can see the numbers of that current date. 151213 (same in both eyes). Shot cuts to charlotte on the sofa drinking a can of beer, watching the BBC news. It opens with an establishing shot, the news is heard as a diegetic sound announcing that a plane crashed the day before. Charlotte drops her can on the floor in shock. The shot cuts to a close up of the TV screen with the news of the plane crash and then cuts to a close up of the beer trickling out of the can.

We've presented this idea to Matt and he criticized it in ways of

1. filming in airport is a big problem, so we need to change the place, overall he said to avoid public places like train station, cafes, clubs
2. the idea of the opening sequence is a bit similar to the plot of the movie "Final destination", so we need to change the surrounding and the situation in which Charlotte finds out about her gift.

Understanding film genre

Genre is a quite an abstract concept and it is easiest to explain with examples. Sone common genres include western, film noir, horror, love stories, comedies, bio-pics, rites of passages, science fiction, war film and etc.

Each of them has its own characteristics so it is easy to realize which of them it is.

For example, in horror genre the central character is usually a victim, religion and belief are significant, conflict is often between good and evil, children are usually significant and have special powers or insight and the location is usually very important.

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, and television programming that uses suspense, tension and excitement as its main elements. Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewer's moods, giving them a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and/or terror. Films of this genre tend to be adrenaline-rushing, gritty, rousing and fast-paced.

A thriller provides the sudden rush of emotions, excitement, and exhilaration that drive the narrative, sometimes subtly with peaks and lulls, sometimes at a constant, breakneck pace. It keeps the audience on the "edge of their seats", akin to a sensation of hanging from a cliff, as the plot builds towards a climax. Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists and cliffhangers are used extensively. A thriller is usually a villain-driven plot, whereby he or she presents obstacles that the protagonist must overcome.

Common subgenres are psychological thrillers, crime thrillers, erotic thrillers and mystery thrillers. Another common subgenre of thriller is thespy genre which deals with fictional espionage. Successful examples of thrillers are the films of Alfred Hitchcock. The horror and action genres often overlap with the thriller. Thrillers tend to be psychological, threatening, mysterious and at times involve larger-scale villainy such asespionage, terrorism and conspiracy.

Here is an extract from Alfred Hitchcock movie "Birds". 

Evaluation of prelim task

Week 5

Last week we were shortly introduced to the editing program so this week we also spent one lesson continuing our work on prelim editing. After a short peer review of each other's work, there was an introduction into thriller opening and title sequences as an example we watched an opening sequence of "Leon".  This was made to get us thinking about the opening of the thrillers as an epilogue/precursor to the main body of the film.


 Finally, we made our first prelim and post it on Youtube.