Initial brainstorming!

In our group we have begun brainstorming our thriller opening yaaaaay!!

Ruby will upload our fantastic spider diagram of some different ideas we had but we also wanted to write up our ideas in writing! So here are some of our initial ideas for all aspects of our opening!! (Also added some nice pictures to show how happy we were during our discussion)

So to begin with we needed to come up with some different storylines that we could possibly work on, we came up with these 4;

1. A family hostage situation (our research showed people enjoy watchning hostage situations!)

2. A code cracking situation where a man is being made to crack a code before a deadline (our research suggested our target audience think deadlines make the opening more tense)

3. A pyschological theme in a mental asylum (according to our research, pyschological genred thrillers were peoples favourites!)

4. A stalker situation (once again, our research showed people thought stalker situations were good to watch and appropriate in thriller openings)

After discussing which storyline we would all enjoy working on most and which one we had the best ideas for we decided to go with the family hostage situation - we feel that even though pyschological was the favourite sub-genre, we could do more with this storyline and all had some fantastic codes and conventions to add into the filming!
So then we dived deep into this storyline to come up with an in depth (well sort of in depth) storyline that our opening will consist of;

A family are taken hostage apart from the dad, who we see waking up in the morning and searching for his family; when he realises they are missing he becomes frantic and runs around the house looking for them or any clue to where they may be. He comes across a RANSOM NOTE (we're not sure exactly what it will say yet- but it's going to be pretty tense) giving him a clue to the whereabouts his family are, and a DEADLINE saying when he needs to get them- as soon as he reads it a countdown clock will start in the corner. When he finds the note we begin to see short clips of the family in the place they are being held. We then follow the dad as he thinks he knows where the family are being kept - this is when it gets realllyyyy tense! The dad gets out of the car and runs to the door of where he thinks his family are, the clock is around 00:05 now. He opens the door and turns out he's in the wrong setting, he becomes enraged and scared as the clock turns 00:00.

- We think this is a good storyline which we can build suspense and tension throughout, whilst using a huge variety of camera shots and movements, lots of meaningful props and costumes, tense music and a lot of other stereotypical thriller codes and conventions!
This is how happy Ruby was after we came up with our storyline....yaaaay;

So after coming up with the storyline, we wanted to figure out exactly what narrative techniques we could actually use in this opening;

Narrative techniques we could use:

* Plot twists and turns = dad going to wrong setting, audience won't expect that.

* Cross cutting = between hostages and dad in family home

* Narrative retardation = audience will want to know who the antagonist is and why he has kidnapped the family!

* Pursuit = dad trying to get rescue family

* Deadlines = the ransom note, and the countdown clock

Camera techniques we can use:

* high/low angles to show power of certain characters (high angles on family as they have no power)

* POV of antagonist to create tension as we never see his face.

* Over the shoulder of protagonist, therefore the audience will feel like we are in his place and sympathise with him!

* establishing shots on house to show setting clearly

* close ups on family as hostages to show their emotions - audience will sympathise and understand how scared they are, therefore they will want the dad to rescue them

* long and mid shots to show certain scenes or certain actions of characters.

Sound effects and music we can use:

* Gravel path sound, for when dad is running to his car

* Tense music begins as he finds the ransom note

* Loud sounds of struggling when we see hostages, makes it tense!

* Subtle stereotypical 'morning' sounds at beginning - false sense of safety for audience.

* Music which becomes more tense as the opening goes on

Little picture of me and Ruby doing interpretive dance (not in a media lesson obviously, we never mess around in media)

Settings we will need:

* family home and garden

* 2 warehouses, or similar settings where hostages will be

* car for when dad is driving to find family

Lighting we can use:

* Exaggerated shadows in warehouse (connotes mystery and evil)

* Lighting in warehouse will be dark and sinister

* Bright outside, especially at beginning to create a contrast between normality and when dad finds note

* chiaroscuro on hostages

* key lighting on dad

* bright lighting on dad throughout - shows he is protagonist!

Costumes:

* dark for antagonist, prehaps scruffy or leather - connotes evil!

* casual and light colours for dad - shows he is protagonist and audience will immediately know this

* family in scruffy clothes or pyjamas- shows they were taken in a rush and forced to leave!

Props:

* rags to tie up hostages with

* ransom note

* car

* photos of family together

Editing pace:

* slow at the beginning when dad gets up to show he thinks everything is normal

* when he realises family is gone, editing gets faster - builds tension!

* slow long shot as he finds and reads ransom note - shows seriousness of note!

* quick shots of family from then on - audience want to see more shots, builds suspense!

* fast cuts as dad gets in the car and drives to setting

this actually is in media, this is how happy me and Kath are when we do media YAAAAAAY!!!

Hope you enjoyed our initial ideas, we know there aren't looooaads at the moment but when we focus on each individual aspect we will go into thorough detail so we use techniques which will be most effective! The other girls may comment on this post but we wrote it together in class as a group :D

Byeeeeee x