We changed a majority or scenes but not the story line. We changed the sound to have the greatest impacts possible.

We didnt face any problems when filming only when the protagonist was thrown in the car. There was no sense of realism and it seemed to be a little fake. Apart from that filming went well. We used Sony Vegas 9.0 to edit. The editing process was simple and got done in one sitting.

We thought that overall it was a great success especially the sense of mystery and how much it was like an intro to a film.

A little extra. We added a dvd menu at the start adding the option to view candidate info or play the movie this was created in Adobe Encore.

The changes we will make are:

Change of Actors – we will change Jim for Anthony, and Luke for Mike.

Change of location – we will use mikes house instead of Jims.

Some new scenes – We will remove the scene where the antagonist is in the bed and replace it with a reaction shot of the protagonist from where the antagonist is.

The parents scene will be re-done.

We will use a tripod to stabilize shots needed.

The use of props such as a knife and bin bags will be used.

we will re do most of the scenes just slightly to add an impact of sound.

Jim King – Protagonist

Luke Darling – Antagonist

After comparing this with our newer cut we can see a huge improvement.

This is our thriller rough cut. Jim wakes up with a shock and sees someone standing in front of him. He quickly rubs his eyes and the person vanishes. The antagonist is then seen behind jim and as jim turns slowly he sits up to his alarm clock. Jim goes downstairs to get some water and on the way the camera goes inside the parents bedroom showing they are dead. When he’s getting his glass of water the man appears in the garden. Jim gets dressed upstairs and then comes back downstairs. When he leaves the antagonist puts a bag on Jim’s head and puts him in the boot of his car. The title Taken then appears. We have kept it simple so that the target audience can relate to the character.

Feedback Sheet 1

Feedback Sheet 2

We were told that – We needed more close-ups and some trimming. And we had great use of non-diegetic sound. The ‘parents’ in the bedroom scene needed work. Develop horror and mystery through techniques. Also that it was a very good first draft. We received 38/60 which wasnt bad at all.

Anthony Smith – Protagonist – He will have a mixture of two costumes. The first costume will be something he sleeps in at night a simple T-Shirt and Boxer shorts. This is to add some relaxation to the start when your watching. It also allows the male viewers to relate to him as its what men tend to wear when they sleep. When he gets dressed he will wear casual clothing so it allows the viewers to relate to him again.

Mike – Antagonist – Mike will be wearing mainly black. This is to hide his identity. This adds a sense of mystery of who he is.

Props – The Knife – The knife tells us that the antagonist brings some danger and makes us wonder what will the knife be used for. We see this knife in the point of view shot at the start and in the kitchen.

Black bags – The black bags are used in the parents bedroom and when the antagonist attacks the protagonist.

Setting – The whole setting is inside Mikes house. This is because we are treating it as a normal school day and it relates to the audience as its what everyone does.

Mise-en Scene – What makes this effective is the deafening silence followed by sudden impact of loud noises. The silence makes everything seem normal then the sudden impact of sound scares the audience.

The Dark Knight’s sound track is a mixture of orchestral sounds composed by Hans Zimmer. This collection of orchestral music suits the film perfectly. They are used because the type of music fits everything, it can be calming yet it can be chilling, much like the film. Some of the songs in this film are very effective. The song Why So Serious? Is played whenever the Joker appears. This song is named when the Joker tells Gambol Why So Serious? This tells and relates to the audience telling us that the joker is evil and when you hear this song you know something bad will happen, this also tells us that the character the joker has such a presence that he has his own song.

The Silence of the Lambs soundtrack is again an orchestral mixture of songs. The soundtrack is chilling and suits the film very well. The soundtrack is used to chill the viewers when needed during the film. The songs used are eerie and make the audience have a frightening experience.

The Godfather Soundtrack is once again an orchestral mix. The soundtrack is a light and fluffy mix of instruments. This soundtrack works well with the film as it is about family and protecting them, yet is also about crime and violence. The music works well especially when the famous song plays when we first meet the godfather it asserts his authority and tells us that he is all powerful.

We aren’t 100% sure of the sounds that we will use in our thriller but, I think we decided to mainly have sound effects. The use of only sound effects will make it seem like a normal day and have a strong effect when needed, e.g. we will have a muffled sound when the boy wakes up after being startled in a flurry. There is no relationship to the soundtracks in those films with ours because we don’t want a whole orchestra as for a short thriller we believe it’s over the top.

Strenghts

1/ Extensive storyboard.

2/ Use of editing within storyboard.

3/ Use of arrows to indicate movement of camera/characters.

4/ Sense of dramatic irony, see eye diluting

5/shot 12 has a use of quick editing.

6/ docu-style in shot 16,17 & 18

Areas to Improve

1/ shot 1 + 2 have close ups of different things like face, hand moving etc

2/ 3, research the diluting eye effect.

3/ 3-4, rubs eyes, squinting.

4/ 7-8 need more shots for when figure vanishes.

5/ Between 6-7 have more variety of shots, close up of phone, alarm clock etc

6 between 6-7 call parents and add shots

7/ look at old thrillers, what establishes suspense

8/ 9+10 focus on sink and head

9/ 11, maybye zoom and jump cuts

10/ shaun of the dead influence shot

11/ 13, possible ‘goodbye’ see shot of cracked door then shot of dead parents

12/ 23 swinging lights the shot gets closer with every swing.

Feedback

From the feedback we have considered a few changes. We also thought about spacing and wether or not it would be possible to shoot them. We have decided to change;

We will add one more scene showing the doorframe of the parents room again to reassert the parents are dead and he is still oblivious. We will also consider moving the scene where to man runs at him to the front door as we know that there isn’t sufficient space. When the light is swinging at the end we will experiment which is best the zooming shot or just the one still shot.

Mike is the Kidnapper/Man and either I or someone else will be the boy.

Our group drafted up 4 different rough ideas for our Thriller Opening. Each in the form of a spider diagram. Here are the scanned images of the notes we made for 2 of our ideas. We slimmed it down to our favourite 2 ideas and added notes.

Popular Thriller Openings

To get an idea of what makes a good opening to a thriller we looked at a few of the best thrillers, as ranked on IMDb. Out of the top ten we chose a few of our personal favourites to use as examples and to look closer at the openings to see what makes them good and how they engross the audience straight from the start, using various media techniques, like character enigmas.

Here are the openings to the films we chose:

The opening to The Dark Knight is very crucial to the film as it sets up the main antoginst of the film. The opening itselfs shows characterists of the Joker in the not only by his actions but the content of the scene that we see reflects the character and have similar qualitys (mysterious, physcological, clever, etc). We think this is the best opener to a thriller as we as an audience feel instantly grabbed by the scene, like a good thriller opening should. Other than the content of the scene, we also noticed the affects good music can have on creating the mise en scene. For example in this scene the music helps to create the heavy tension between the characters performing the robbery. We think that any good thriller needs a good opening to instantly grasp the audience and get ingaged with the story, The Dark Knight is no different.

Here are some other thriller openings…

[Silence of the Lambs]

[Pulp Fiction]

[The Godfather]