Actors

The actors in our Openning are going to be as followed:

Matthew Pike - Man A (Shadowed Figure)

Chose this person because they have dark clothes and wanted to take part in the acting.

Costume: Dark coat, Jeans, plain shoes and a hat to cover his face with.

James Cook - Man B (Scared Figure)

We chose this person because they were eager to take part in the acting part of the project.

Costume: Ordinary Civilian clothes, the choice of this was to create the thought that this could happen to anyone.

Man A in the shadows, he's partially hidden by the trees.

Man B steps on a twig.

Camera will go back to the first image but Man A has disappeared.

Camera goes back to man B and he has a scared look on his face.

Close up on Man B's eye.

Extreme Close-up on Man B's eye.

Man B runs away in panic.

Camera moves to an image of the bushes rustling as Man A is running through them.

Costume Research

Trilby hats

We looked at Trilby hats, as we originally wanted to use the hat to cover one of the actors faces, but now we have decided to use one on top of a mask, this way we could save time creating the top of the mask.

Waistcoats

We looked into waistcoats to give an old fashioned weird feel into the character, but then when we decided to create a mask for the character the idea of having a waistcoat didn't work, so we had to abandon the idea.

Top Thrillers from IMDB

1) The Godfather (1972)

2) The Godfather: Part II (1974)

3) The Dark Knight (2008)

4) Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

5) Rear Window (1954)

6) Cidade de Deus (2002)

7) The Usual Suspects (1994)

8) Fight Club (1999)

9) Psycho (1960)

10) The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

(http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Genres/Thriller/)

Research and Thrillers

Conventions of thrillers opening sequences:
Thrillers often have long drawn out scene in order to create tension for the viewer, making them thinks what's going to happen next. The sound used is often eery to increase the amount of tension for the audience. The lighting is often used effectively to create dark settings, adding even more depth to the tension, also, it creates a feel of mystery.

Genre:
The main part of thrillers is to create a feeling of tension and mystery, sometimes the target to fear audiences is often introduced to thrillers. One of the main aims during the film is to make the viewer jumpy and tense, with a feeling of not knowing whats going to happen next, often with a use of cliffhangers between scenes.

Risk Assessment

There are relative few risks involved in our filming process but we will minimize any risks that may occur by ensuring that we do any filming on dry days so that we can see what we are doing, minimising the risk of falling and damaging the equipment. We will also film in the day rather than at night as it will be safer and we will also get better shots. We will also take phones incase anyone has an emergency.
This Risk Assessment was done by James Cook and Matthew Higginbotham.

Members of Group

The members of my group consists of -
Matthew Pike - Me.
James Cook
Matthew Higginbotham
Stephen Elliot

I have decided to work with this group because I see them frequently and have managed to work well with them in situations in the past.
We decided to make a questionnaire and brainstorm ideas for setting so far, we'll be doing the research at the next chance we get. We haven't had the chance to do so yet due to us feeling it would be a better idea to get an idea of what people like to see in thrillers before advancing any further.

We then moved onto making a questionaire to find out what people watch thrillers for and to see what people would like to see in a thriller.
Myself and James Cook went around asking people using the questionnaire, while Matthew Higginbotham wrote down all the answers that we were recieving. Unfortunately Stephen couldn't be with us at this time due to having an appointment elsewhere.

Here are the results we collected from the questionnaire:

What gender are you?
Male - 7
Female - 1

How old are you?
16 - 4
17 - 3

Do you like watching thrillers?
Yes - 6
no - 1

What thrillers have you seen recently
Slither - 1
The Spirit - 2
The Strangers - 1
Disturbia - 1
National Treasure - 1
James Bond - 1

How would you like your thriller to start?
Violence - 1
Scene Setting - 1
Mysteriously - 5

What type of setting would you want?
Woods - 3
Abandoned place - 3
Normal place - 1

What do you like to see in thrillers?
Scary scenes - 5
Violence - 1
murder - 1

What do you find scary about thrillers?
Dark settings - 4
Freaky hair - 2
Blood - 1

Is there anything that you inappropriate about thrillers?
Nudity - 2
Blood - 1
Happiness - 4

We have taken parts from the answers who had the most amount of people wanting them. We've decided to take the wooded area setting and make it dark and mysterious.

Also, we're going to come think of how we can give the thriller a scary side to it, as people seem to like the idea of this being an addition to our sequence.

Settings.

Firstly, we brainstormed possible settings that we could have to set the thriller openning in. Here is an image of the possible places we discussed.

Preliminary Task

For the start of the preliminary task we hads to come up with a few ideas on what the sequence was going to be about.

A list of the things we thought about were:

Settings:
Coffee Shop.
Classroom.
Sat outside on a field.
Home.

Costume:
Ordinary Clothing.
Suits.
Coffee shop workers outfits.

Actors for the group were chosen as:
Matthew Pike
Stephen Elliot

Camera Person:
Oliver Allcock

Props:
Chairs.
Table.
Coffee Cups.
Newspaper.
Hat.
Scarf.
Gloves.

For the costumes we looked at websites such as www.topman.com and www.burton.co.uk to see what kinds of styles we could wear for the preliminary task.

Jeepers Creepers 2 Opening Sequence

Jeepers Creepers 2 - Openning Sequence

White text appears on black background mentioning something gets to eat for 23 days. - Creates suspense as the audience don't know who/ what gets to eat for 23 days.

Pan on a Corn field. Mid-shot on boy in field.

Pan while older man is moving things around in the field.

Boy moving through field, pan on him while he's moving. This keeps the audience with the action thats going on.

2 shot of a Younger man working on a car, with a dog in the background, this shows ordinary life on a farm, with someone working hard trying to fix something. This is done to create a feel of realism to the film.

Camera goes to the family dog who starts barking at the scarecrows in the field, this gives the impression that the dog knows something that the human's don't yet know about.

Shot moves to one of the scarecrows in the field moving quickly, but then returning to normal, this is done so the audience knows something that they don't, creating a sense of power for the audience, because they know more than the characters in the film.

Scarecrow shadowed while boy stares at it and heads towards it to investigate what he's seen out of the corner of his eye.

Long shot on the Scarecrow as it launches into the area, showing the panic through the boy's body language as he realises what is happening, a long shot is used to show the whole of the scarecrow, and how high up it can jump, showing the power this being has.

Pan on the boy as he tries to run away, showing how scared he is during the scene.

The Spirit Opening Analysis

Black background with white text, wipe effect on text.

Shadowed figure with dialogue claiming to be death.

Phone ringing in the background during all of this.

Figure disappears and a heart rate monitor appears on screen, linking to the shadowed figures dialogue about death.

Misty landscape with shadowy figures.

White writing appears on floor.

Phone gets answer by shadowy figure.

Close up on the faces of 2 Shadowed figures talking to each other via the phone.

After phone is answered a white silhoutte of a figure is seen running through an area with white text fading into view on the middle of the screen.

Whole sequence is in black and white, but has a bold red tie on the main character.

Conventions for a thriller

A crime narrative, the story revolves around a crime (often a murder).
A complex structure, with false paths and resolutions.
False clues given throught the film.
Protagonist - Systematically disempowered, often drawn into complex or complicated situations.
Often a scene at the end of the film where someone is in danger, most of the time it being the Protagonist.