Initial Planning - Choosing An Idea

In order to build a captive story for the audience, we will need to put as much information into two minutes as possible to hook the viewer, therefore we decided to use a montage technique for our opening. We will use a non-linear narrative as it will jump backwards and forwards in time through the use of flashbacks and flash forwards. We will use these flashbacks to confuse the audience and add mystery to the opening. This will conform to Barthes enigma code.

We decided the narrative will follow two characters who are close friends. Our main character (character 1) will be the main focus of the plot. Our opening will show a montage of character one transforming from a happy, sociable relatable teenager girl to a damaged, vacant empty shell of who she used to be. The second character, her close friend, will play a large part in her decline as it will show scenes of fights between the two as she gradually becomes more distant. The montage will follow both the girls through happy uplifting memories to eventually dark and tormenting fights and dark lonely memories following the disappearance of the second character. The loss of the best friend will make the audience question whether she was real of just a hallucination, this conforms to the genre stereotype.

This mood board shows a visual representation of my film opening:

Our opening will have an open narrative as the audience will not be completely confident at the end of the opening what was real and what wasn't. The audience will question the existence of the friend, whether she was there or was a fabrication of the first characters imagination. This is appropriate for our opening as it will keep the audience watching, there would be no reason to watch if they had all the answers. 

Initial Planning - Initial Narrative Ideas:

Psychological thrillers are recognised within the thriller genre as they focus on the characters mental and emotional status resulting in their loosening grasp on the reality they are surrounded by. A common storyline used in this sub-genre is the main character battling their own mind to stay sane. Therefore to create a successful psychological thriller opening we will need to display the decline of the mental health of our main character throughout the opening. To do this we will include a protagonist and an antagonist. The antagonist will play a large part in the mental stability of the protagonist. We will also need to confuse the audience and make them question whats real and what the protagonist is imagining. We will do this through different techniques such as: cantered angles, flashbacks and jump cuts. We will follow a first person narrative, this will allow the audience to become familiar with the character and understand their mind better, therefore in some parts the audience will experience the decline for themselves. This is a key element in the psychological thriller genre. We will also offer the audience a brief back story to the main character, this will show the audience what life for them was like before the trauma, this would play a large part in the recovery towards the end of the film.

Typical elements included in psychological thrillers are:

• Mental Illness
• Reality
• Loss of identity
• Death
• Perception

We initially planned to base our film opening around two best friends who argue which ultimately leads to the diminish of one of the friends mental stability. However as we aim to make our audience question reality from the imagined, we then changed this and make the antagonist more ethereal and out of reach. This would make the audience question whether the friend was imagined, therefore reflecting on the mental health of the protagonist. This will also add enigma to the opening as the audience won't be completely sure of whats real and what isn't.

Like a typical psychological thriller we won't be revealing everything during the opening of the film. This will keep the audience hooked and will make them continue to watch the rest of the film. As the opening will show a brief montage, it will quickly show the vast difference between the protagonist at the beginning and the end of the film. It will shock the audience making them want to fill in the blanks, therefore they will continue to watch the rest of the film which would answer their questions. The lack of answers will build suspense for the audience.

Introduction To Our Main Task

For our main task we were asked to produce:

• To create a film opening in the genre thriller with a sub-genre of your choice
• The opening to be around two - two and a half minutes long
• To include a range of shots
• A range of editing techniques
• To be appropriate for your chosen target audience