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

Planning - Target Audience

Many psychological thrillers are aimed at older viewers with many of them having an age rating of either 15, or 18. This is due to the violence included. There are also psychological issues which are included that can be disturbing for many younger viewers and is not deemed appropriate. Viewers of psychological thrillers need to have a strong focus and mind on the plot as they play a detective role within the film in trying to figure it out generally along side of the main character. As the conflicts are mental instead of physical, the genre tends to attract more females than males, this is due to the struggle of the main character being more emotional.  

Our opening will be aimed towards either males or females who are 15 years to 25 year olds. The age rating of our opening will be 15+ as it doesn't include very graphic elements, for example violence will only be hinted at or implied it won't be directly shown. On screen violence would look unprofessional in our opening as with a low budget its hard to make it look realistic. With our lack of experience it would be difficult to create a sequence that looks real without harming any actors. Our opening won't be an 18+ as the content won't be overly explicit. There is no locational target audience for my opening as the conflict is of the mind, there isn't a geographical location necessary for the audience to understand the plot. Our secondary target audience will be females above 15 years old to 25 year olds, this is due to the age of our protagonists. Our two main characters in the opening are two females, this reflects many other successful psychological thrillers with female leads such as Black Swan (2010) and Psycho (1960) and also reflects our target audience.

For our opening to successfully appeal to our target audience it has to build tension and suspense successfully. The plot will have to generate questions within the audiences' minds and make them question what is real and what isn't.

Planning - Sub Genre (Psychological Thriller)

Psychological Thriller

The sub-genre within thriller we have decided to choose for our film opening is a Psychological thriller. Popular themes within the sub-genre include: 

Realism: Characters often struggle to figure out whats real or not. 

Perception: Often perception of the world is misperceived due to outside factors within the narrative. 

The world is perceived through the main characters senses which are often distorted.

Mind: The narrative is often explained through the characters mind. They often face psychological battles e.g. they can't figure out what is real or what is imagined. The characters battle their own minds and reach a new level of understanding.

Existence: This could be represented by a characters need to find their purpose or reason for existence. Conflicts that test mental strength often tend to lead to discovering their purpose. 

Identity: Characters doubt who they are and try and discover their true identity. 

Death: Characters either strongly fear death or are tempted by death with a strong fascination with what happens at the end of their lives.

Mis En Scene:

• Shadows and low key lighting - These are used to build suspense and in cases represent the inner darkness of a character.
• Props (Mirrors) -  Mirrors are popular as they are used to reflect a characters inner self or their dark side. Its a doorway into the real depth of a character. 
• Costumes - Most people were casual clothing, or in the scene suggests, smart clothing. Clothing generally represents urban and modern settings.
• Location - Popularly set in modern, urban settings. Generally not in countryside as it could be confused with horror. 

Sound:

• Very eery and tense music - used to build tension and create shock within the audience. 

Camera:

• Quick camera movements - used to build suspense and panic. Makes the audience sympathise with the characters. 

Editing:

• Obtrusive and Montage - Highlights feelings and emotions to build tension and suspense, used mostly in important scenes.
• Flashbacks - Gives insight to the audience to show them what has previously happened. Highlights the past and important events that have happened. Commonly highlights an important message that is relevant within the scene, shows the audience why the character is the way they are.
• Black and White Colouring - enhances the effectiveness of shadows. 
• Slow Motion - Builds suspense 
• Past Pace -  Generally used to conclude a story, displaying all the events which led to the penultimate moment or used to display a character piecing together information to figure out a mystery. 

Thriller Survey

Link for a online survey I made and the results:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-PGK9C7BQ/

From this survey I learned:

• Females are a larger target audience than males for thriller
• The best target audience is 16-25
• People like having a plot the audience has to figure out as it gets them involved as well.
• Psychological is the most popular sub-genre.
• Sound is very important for creating an atmosphere 
• Thrillers are more interesting in the daytime.

Consolidation of Preliminary Research:

After filming my preliminary task, due to my experiences, I learned some adjustments I could make to the process of filming when it comes to creating my film opening.

One thing I have learnt that could help the filming process is to plan which shots I wanted to use for the opening beforehand through either lists of possible shots or storyboarding. This would save crucial time during filming, meaning we can shoot more on the day and use all the time available as efficiently as possible. Therefore we won't be wasting our time on the day as well as our actor's time trying to figure out what to do on the day.

I have also learned that editing plays a very large part in the final cut of the film. By using tools such as the filter option as well as adjusting the colours of the clips can change the mood of the scene completely. I will be sure to use this knowledge of editing when coming up with the concept behind my opening.