Section 1: Background to the Thriller Genre

There is not a set definition for a Thriller, different directors/film producers have slightly different idea's, meaning thrillers can be very original and often bend the conventions. There are also many factors adding to make a Thriller which capture the audience and add suspense.Here are some theoretical approaches to the thriller (from Martin Rubin's 'Thrillers', Cambridge 1999) :

G K Chesterton- 'The Transformed City' He was a British author who identified the thriller as like a transformed city- an everyday, boring setting which gets turned into one of action and adventure. It is set in mostly urban environments and is what separates it from most other genre's such as the wild west- as they are already exciting in the setting.

Northrop Frye- 'The Heroic Romance' This builds on Chesterton's' ideas and is believable because it is close to the ordinary life like in setting. In his view the hero is described as 'one of us' -an everyday person who, because of circumstance, is portrayed as a hero and forced to act in a certain way. This, he says, is similar to romance- the 'laws of nature are suspended slightly'.

John Cawelti- 'The Exotic' This again, is developed upon the first two critics views- an everyday boring and industrial setting/ scene is turned into one which has enchantment, mystery and excitement. This is usually done by the introduction of a foreign object, something that wouldn't usually be there. This brings exotic cultures to other dull places such as, bringing Chinese or Japanese to England or Indian to an American setting.

W H Matthews- 'Mazes and labyrinths' He says that a thriller should be a mental or physical looking maze full of dead ends and puzzles. It should be full of twists and solved using logical deduction, strategy and skills rather than trial and error. To catch and defeat the enemy it must be complex as if it is too easy the audience will predict the ending and lose interest as audiences gain pleasure from prolonging the mystery and questions rather than guessing the ending half way through.

Pascal Bonitzer- 'Partial Vision' Pascal's ideas link into the labyrinth as it includes only partial sight and awareness of what's going on. What the audience hasn't seen is just as important as what they have seen- it adds to the mystery and suspense. This also means that the hero could seem really close to the enemy and so near to succeeding, yet when information that was before unseen is known, they feel that they are right back at the beginning again- the audience is only shown part information so they do not fully know how far the gap is.

Lars Ole Saurberg- Concealment and PortractionBasically, Lars Ole Saurberg points out two main components in a Thriller that captivate the audience and are a staple to the genre. Concealment is where the audience are purposely not shown an important key or clue, such as the identity of a killer- much like the partial vision idea. Portraction is where a known outcome is legnthened to add suspense and can be in such things like a timer on a bomb etc.

Noel Carroll- 'The Question-Answer Model' This is where a question is clearly stated in the film with no answer leavuing the audience in suspense answering it. Suspense is further added to by the illimination of only a very few amount of possible answers- inviting the audience to join in with the clues and detective games. Other factors that add to the suspense is the probabilty factor: a battle against the odds is much more exciting; the moral factor- if the hero is trying to stop a bank robbery will he succeed?

Some sub-genre's of thrillers can be mixed together and messed with creating an original story line and twist to the genre but still under the 'Thriller' heading. Some of these are:

• Action Thriller- De Ja Vu
• Psychological Thriller- Inception (out in 2010)
• Disaster Thriller- 2012
• Political Thriller- Vantage Point
• Drama Thriller- Obsessed
• Religious Thriller- Angels and Demons            
• Crime Thriller- Columbus Day                                
• Fiction Thriller- Deep Blue Sea 
  

  

Section 2: Research into examples of thriller opening scenes

Se7en Opening Title

Seven has a linear narrative structure as it has a chronological order. The audience can see this as we see the two men wake up and go through their day-to-day business -go to work, have tea etc.
Due to the extreme close ups and very dark scenes we see very little of the location and so the setting remains unknown and boring. This fits in with G. K Chesterton's idea of 'The Transformed City' as it is what happens in the setting -and not the setting itself- that is intriguing and keeps the viewers watching. This creates mystery and suspense but also means that the film relates to everyone- it could happen where you lived.

The opening scene is very dark with it being early morning, very dull cloudy and raining heavily. This all adds to the classical scary scene- 'bad things happen in the dark where no-one sees them happen'. It also reflects the mood of the scene as a rotting body is seen- this wouldn't have the same effect if it was a sunny day and everyone was happy and smiling. The location the body is found in is also very dark which creates tension and fear as we see the main characters walking through the darkness. There is also a very subtle green over-light to the scene which signifies eeriness and jealousy (all negative things). The title's are in white, black and red- keeping it simple. These together make it look sophisticated and the white could mean intelligence -possibly of the killer as he always seems to be one step ahead. The red and black connote blood, death, goth, anger and evil which make the audience feel uncomfortable and vulnerable.
Props used in the opening scene's include very thick, ancient books which again could signify intelligence and also old fashioned and old moral values. In addition to this, a metronome is used which is also very old fashioned and pages are stitched together instead of stapled. Other props that tie in to this 'old fashioned semantic field' are the black and white photo's and also when 'John Doe' processes photographs in the traditional way. Razors, needles and scalpels are also shown in the opening scene which show the typical codes and conventions of a thriller as both could be used to inflict harm on someone. Furthermore, american money is used which not only provides the audience with a clue to the setting, but also, the importance of the 'In God We Trust' shows the irony that underpins the entire film. Many props, including the scalpel used to remove his fingerprints also take any personality away from the killer- even the name used (John Doe) suggests total depersonalization of the character.

Characters
Somerset - Morgan Freeman.

Has a long-standing service as a detective who will not allow emotions to cloud his judgment. He is a rational character, thoughtful with a very traditional view on his work, always thinking before he acts. The final case of an exceptional detective who refuses to be beaten.

Mills - Brad Pitt.

He is the complete opposite of Somerset, being a very young 'new on the job' detective with a modern approach to society and the law. He is spontaneous and almost careless in his approach and is quite scruffily dressed with unkempt hair and an unshaven beard.
These characters are conflicting in almost every aspect of their personality and lifestyle: age, race, choice of home, marital status, moral views, dress and approach to the job.
These remarkable differences serve to create mounting tensions which keep the viewer hooked on the strange but developing relationship between what become two unlikely friends and work colleagues.

Section 3: Brainstorm of ideas for your film

In our group we came up with quite a few idea's for a thriller film. We tried to incorporate many of the different approaches to the genre such as an everyday setting and the labyrinth ideas. Here is what we came up with:

• Orphan- about a young women who receives a letter from someone claiming to be her mother, but ends up being a killer who wants revenge on her dead mother.
  
• Decision making- about a family man who is forced to decide whether he saves his wife and son or a class of children when a killer comes.
  
• PhotoShoot- a women takes her dog for a walk to find a dead body and pictures of her from when she was little right up to when she started the walk lying next to it.
  
• Run- a man gets a letter from the governments secret forces ordering him to leave Europe or face the consequence's. Completely baffled, he goes on a quest to find out why he got it and unravels a web of darkened family history.
  
• Hostage- An ex-convict and recovering alcoholic wakes up one day to find his son has been taken hostage by his ex gang he helped the police to bring down. Knowing that they follow through with their threats, can he rescue his son back in the time he's given?
  
• Home Time- a group of high school students are walking home from school down a wooded path that they always do. But, when only one comes out the other side with no apparent injuries other than amnesia, can the police work out where the remaining four teenagers are?
  

Section 4: Audience Research - and research into BBFC film classification syste

Target Audience

The film should have a strong appeal for older teenagers, young adults and older (15 onwards). In particular an audience who will relate to the characters and there situation strongly. We also put out our questionnaires and research around Priestley college, some year 11 students from a nearby school and to our siblings who are all aged 15 and over.

Therefore the film will have an 15 certificate as multiple murder scenes are shown and may shock the audience, but, we feel an audience of 15 will be able to cope with these scene's. In addition to to this, there will be mild references to Eva's one-night-stands and drinking in pubs.

Questionnaire and evaluations
Q1 - Are you male or female? and Q2 - How old are you?

In total we asked 30 students our questionnaire. Since our film will be certificated 15, we assume that 16 and 17 year old would be the target audience who are most likely to view our film, so we asked their age category in order to see what they thought would suit our film best. We asked 18 males and 12 females, 10 of those males were 16 years old and 8 were 17 years old, we asked 3 females who were 17 years old and 9 who were 16 years old.

Q3- Do you prefer violent or psychological thriller?We found that females greatly prefer psychological thrillers, but males like both psychological and violent thrillers. Therefore we decided to make our film a psychological thriller which will make our viewers think and try to solve the mystery, but also included a touch of violence in order to satisfy the public who enjoy this too.

Q4 - Do you think children should be victims in thrillers?We found that on average the sample asked didn't want children to be victims. this may be because they thought it to be morally wrong, althought some people said it increases the sympathy of the characters.

Q5 - Do you prefer male or female victims?We found that the sample asked prefered female victims significantly more than male, so we decided to include female victims in our final film after evaluating this result.

Q6 - Do you prefer male or female murderers?These answers were varied we found that on average females prefered a femal murderer and on average males prefered a male murderer, especially the 17 year old males. Our group decided to try to incorporate these results in our film and considered the possibility of two murderers of different sexes.

Q7 - What is your favourite thriller film?This was an open question which allowed the sample to put down any answer rather than the previous closed questions which they were given a choice for. We found there was a number of different answers but the most noticeabley recognised films were: Se7en, Saw and Silence of the Lambs. We decided as there is a mixture in the samples favourite films to try to included similar styles from different films in our film, rather than focus of one particular style to base our film on.

Q8 - Should the setting be everyday or spooky?We found that there was a mixture of results, with almost all 16 year old males choosing an everyday scene and all 16 year old females choosing a spooky setting. We decided to try to choose an everyday yet spooky setting. Such as a forest or an farms meadow.

Q9 - How many characters should be in a thriller?Our results shown our group that the public thought the more characters the merrier, so we are going to aim to include many characters without getting to complicated, by giving certain characters smaller roles.

Q10 - Do you prefer the identity of the killer to be hidden or shown?The results shown that many people prefer to keep the killers identity hidden, but since some like it shown we have been thinking of showing glimpses of the killers identify without showing the whole picture.

Q11 - Do you think there should be an obvious murder weapon?Althought some people liked an obvious murder weapon the majority didn't. Therefore we decided when making our film we wouldn't have an obvious murder weapon

Q12 - Should the music be upbeat, slow or a mix?These results were varied in most catergories except 16 yr old females, who obviously prefered slow music to built tension. We decided to pick music that suited the rythum of events in the film rather the focus on slow or an upbeat tempo of music.

Q13 - Do you prefer hybrid or pure thrillers?
When completing the questionairre, many people asked what a hybrid thriller was, we explained that it was a mix of two genres within one such as horror-thriller. Many people liked this idea and therefore we decided to make a thriller which included a few characteristics of the horror genre when we start making our film.

Q14 - Should there be one killer or multiple?
We found that 16 year olds chose both one victim and multiple in their answers, but no 17 year old chose one victims. Therefore we decided to have multiple victims as the majority of the sample prefered this.

Q15 - Do you prefer a narrator or not?
Many more people chose that they prefered no narrator and only 3 out of 30 people said they liked it so we aren't going to include narration throughout our film, although we thought this idea would help the audience understand what was happening in the scenes better.

Q16 - Do you like clues through the film or not?
The answers slightly favoured there to be clues on average, so we are going to try and include subtle clues throughout our film. Whether they are clues to the killers identity or the mystery we have not decided yet.

Q17 - Should the thriller be in black and white or colour?
Colour won by a large margin, as the idea of black and white films in this generation of the public (16 and 17 year olds) wasn't very successfull. Therefore our film will definently be in colour.

Q18 - Choose your favourite plot line. (I couldn't fit the desciptions on the table so instead I labeled them idea 1, 2 and 3)
Idea 1 was - A man kidnapps a politician and holds him randsom
Idea 2 was - A group of girls mysteriously recieve the same letters, whoever gets these letters will be the murderers next victim
Idea 3 was - An orphan finds her parents, and is so annoyed tried to kill them, but their is a secret hidden in their dissappearance when the orphan was young.

We found that the wasn't much between the three ideas but idea 2 was the most popular slightly so we decided to go along with it and adapt it to our liking.

Q19 - What age rating should our thriller be ?
Although we had already decided to give it a certificate rating of 15, we thought we would check if we had made the right decision. The results show that apart from 17 year old males, all the other catergories agreed with us, so we will keep the film a certificate 15.

Q20 - What title do you prefer?
We gave the sample three options. Don't look back, Captured and Dead and Buried. We found that all three names got a number of votes, Captured was the most popular slightly so we are going to keep this name for our film.

Section 5: Treatment

Treatment for Captured:

Captured will be an unusual film – where one of the protagonists is secretly helping the killer.

Concept

Two girls are walking through a forest, seperate and unaware of each other. A woman is seen following them. The two girls are both holding an identical letter and establish that they are both orphans meeting there mother here. You do not see what happens to them but know that they get killed. A young girl recieves a letter exactly the same as those seen in the woods, she reads it and leaves in a hurry.

Synopsis

Opening Scene;
The scene starts two sets of footprints walking through a forest in the snow. One is of a victim (Katie) the other of the killer. The killer continues to stalk Katie and hides in the bushes to avoid being seen and arosing suspicion. Whislt the killer is still lurking in the bushes another victim (Imogen) walks past. Imogen walks through the forest until she hears a branch snap behind her. She quickly turns around to see Katie. Both victims believe that they are meeting their mother, who sent them letters which they have with them. This is not the case. A creepy hand is lurking towards and a scream is heard. The killers identity is only partially seen. On a bed lies Eva, bottle on floor, obviously hung-over after drowning her misery with alcohol the night before. She finds a letter in her room that was not previously there and reads it. It says it was from her mother who she presumed had passed away; this makes her curious and leaves hastily for the destination given in the letter.

Beginning; 

Eva goes straight to the location stated on the letter (the forest we saw katie and imogen in). Meanwhile, we are introduced to Detective Milton who is working overtime, as usual, when he receives a phone call where a woman screams and tells him to help her in the forest. Milton and Eva then meet in the forest and suspiciously ask questions about each other before seeing a dead body lay by a tree. There is a picture of Eva lying on the body. First, Milton will not listen to Eva's pleas about helping him solve the murder,but, after much persuasion and to the dismay of Milton he finally gives in and allows her to help. Together they research Eva's mother and find out about the victim in the woods all the time, bickering about their opposing views on the situation. Detective Milton makes it very clear that he despises Eva and thinks she is a disgrace and unnecessarily poking into the case. When researching Eva’s mother, the only information they can find is that she worked as a manager in a Photo-processing company and she had passed away in a road accident, as Eva already knew.

Middle;

During the film more deaths occur, all with a photograph of Eva on the dead body. After investigation, Milton finds out that all the victims were all old colleagues of Eva’s mother but Eva had no memory of knowing them so she researched the company with Milton. As they spent more time together, Milton and Eva begin to find a mutual respect for each other and show a sign of an unlikely friendship. Milton soon begins to feel sorry for eva and her partying antics as she tells him the story of her life from her perspective. However, at times, they still both argue and annoy each other creating an uneasy tension. Eva then when researching on her own one night when she finds information Milton had not showed her- her fathers record hat showed he was very abusive toward her mother and so she took Eva and ran away to protect her. Suddenly she thinks she knows who is after her. She believes that her mum did not die in the car crash but it was instead staged and whoever killed her mother has come back for her. Her father. Eva and Milton were not the only one researching her mother- he was too and had come across the same work recods and was killing anyone who knew her- her work colleagues.

Ending;
She checked her answering machine and found one from Milton informing her of the last alive colleague of her mother and her address. She quickly races against what the audience and her to believe is the time in which she has left to save the colleague and get away from her father. When she gets there she finds the women and quickly tells her of the danger and why she must run. Instead of being scared the woman laughs loudly and says 'ahh I was beginning to think Milton was never going to lead you here'. It is then she realizes that she has been tricked and that Milton was working with the killer, not with her. The killer then explains that she used to be very close friends with her mother and when she had died in the car crash so had her daughter who was sat next to Eva in the back of the car. Eva's mother had been on the phone whilst she crashed and so the killer believed it was Eva's mothers fault that her daughter had died. Ever since she has been waiting for the perfect moment to kill Eva- eye for an eye, daughter for a daughter. Just as Eva is about to be murdered, police suddenly burst in the door and arrest the Killer- Milton had rung the police last minute as he knew he could not live with the guilt after becoming friends with Eva. When Eva finally arrives home at her apartment she gets a panicked voicemail off Milton informing her that the Killer had got away from police. On the bed in front of Eva he suddenly spots a photograph of her, her mother, the killer and the killer's daughter. All but the killer have a cross through them. On the back of the photo it reads:

Smile, you have yet to be captured.

Other Details;

The actors in the film will be unknown to the audience making the characters more realistic and easier to relate too. In addition to this, the locations will be nondescript and ordinary-jut like anywhere once again making it seem more realistic to the audience. 

Section 6: Charater Outlines and Script

Eva
Eva is a nineteen year old girl who has had an unfortunate past- she never knew her father and her mother had died in a car accident whilst she was still so young with few memories of her. Since then she has been lonely, sad and obsessive about the memories that she does have of her mother as well as the few photos, as they are the closest thing she has left of her. She goes out drinking heavily, getting with lots of men and partying, suppressing her sadness and using alcohol and one-night-stands as an escape. One day, after a particular heavy drinking session at the pub, a letter addressed from her mother appears in her apartment bedroom. She suddenly is filled with curiosity and a sense of purpose again as she sets of to the location given to her on the letter. Her excitement cloaks the unusual situation she finds herself in, and so carries on, leading this lonely girl into an adventure which leads all the way to her past.

Detective Milton
His past is as much of a mystery as the cases he has to solve. Milton is a sophisticated, intelligent, hard-working detective who doesn’t talk much about his past but always seems like he has something to hide. He receives a phone call from an unknown caller one day and his and Eva’s paths cross at a murder scene. From then on Eva follows him wherever, hoping he can be the man to solve this case, find her mother and stop her confusion. At first Milton despises Eva and her drinking antics. As the film goes on though, we see the opposite characters sparking off an unlikely friendship which eventually is the reason for Milton changing his mind and being killed for trying to save Eva's life at the last minute.

she still doesn’t want to trust him completely and the two completely opposite characters share an unusual relationship.

The Killer
The name and purpose of the killer remains unknown in the film, however, slight clues throughout the film slowly reveal clips of the master plan. The audience are led to believe the killer is a man and Eva comes to wrong conclusion about "his" plan, meaning that the audience does too. The plan is finally explained to Eva as the killer reveals who she is and what she is after just as the audience believe Eva is about to be killed. The killer is in fact a women who is stealthy, unforgiving and seems to be powered by an objective she wishes to complete. There is another twist as we find out that Detective Milton is helping the killer.

Victims
The start of the film introduces the first two victims -Katie and Imogen- who are drawn into the same mysterious forest where Eva and Milton met each other. They both hold identical letters and too believe they are there to meet there mother like Eva did. We never learn much about the other victims in the film, although Milton discovers they all worked or still work for the same company that Eva's mum did when she was alive. This and the strange letters seem to be the only bond connecting them. 

Script
Scene - In the forest.

Voice - Katie... I want to play a game... Katie.
Voice - (Whispers loudly) Imogen.
Katie - Mum
Imogen - What you on about, i'm meeting my mum.
Later on, Katie and Imogen - (Together) Scream.

Section 7: Production Material - Storyboards & shotlists

Section 8: Recce And Location sheets

Section 9: Production Schedule

Name of Film: Captured
Directors: Aimee Robertson
Producers: Julia Bottemly
Written by: Jonathan Harrison
Screenplay by: Rhiannon Lewis
Client: OCR Media
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Date production started: 10/11/09
Completed: 6/01/10
Date Treatment Started: 10/11/09
Completed: 14/11/09
Date Storyboard Started: 11/11/09
Completed: 15/11/09
Date Shooting Started: 18/11/09
Completed: 06/01/10
Date Post production started: 07/01/10
Completed: 12/01/10
Date rough cut submitted: 12/01/10
Final show tape completed: 14/01/10
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Location Equipment required: Camera, Tripod
Transport Required: Walked to locations
Actions: Cars going past, Forestry
Props: Letters, Photos, Newspaper articles, Pen, Alcohol bottles

Section 10: Edit Decision List

Section 11: Audience Feedback

For our audience feedback, we let our fellow classmates (who are all over 15, so part of target age for our audience) watch our film. Afterwards we allowed them to ask us questions and we asked them questions, so we could find out what they liked and disliked and gain their opinion on what to do, to help the film improve.

Section 12: Analysis of completed sequence

Question 1:

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?

There are many codes and conventions of media films- some which are listed in section one of this blog, but, not only does our film use some of these conventions it also challenges them and goes against the 'norm' for most films.

Firstly, we based our film on Noel Carroll's 'question and answer model'- our film has the audience guessing as to what's going on, building the suspense as throughout the film, every question that has been answered, opens up another. This is seen in many films and an example of this is in se7en, whenever the detectives find a body and answer a question, the dead person always leads to another question with a clue. In our film, there are many questions such as 'Who is the person reading the letter? Why are them girls getting killed in the woods? and the question which finally gets answered at the end- who is writing the letters and why?' Some of the answers get answered during the middle of the film but the main question is seen at the very end when the 'missing piece of the jig-saw puzzle' is put together. This is good to keep the audience hooked onto the film. 

Other conventions our film fits in with are; Pascal Bonitzer's partial vision and Lars Ole Saurberg' Concealment and protraction: the audience never see the killers face until the very end of the film.  

However, all the way through the film we lead the audience to believe that the killer is a man- like most other thrillers. Unlike most other thrillers our killer is actually female. This twists the usual codes of a thriller- females are often seen as helpless, innocent victims in films.

Below is a clip from the 1933 thriller, the invisible man of footprints going through the snow. This is like the shot in our film where the two girls are walking through the snow but we just see their feet leaving footprints in the snow.

Question 2:

How does your media product represent different social groups?

In our film, Eve is in her young twenties, goes out a lot, drinks a lot and often has one night stands with men she doesn't know. This is the typical view of a late teen/early twenties girl from this age group and is seen in many thrillers, such as the blonde girl from Taken. 

We portrayed Detective Milton as a middle aged man with no feelings- he never married and his only love is for his job. As time progresses however, we begin to see a change in him- like Detective Somerset in se7en. Both Milton and Somerset are detectives and this is because it is the typical view of a detective- hardworking intelligent hard faced etc.

For our killer, we completely flipped the usual; view of a woman from the helpless victim to the deranged killer. There are only few films that do this the blair witch project being one of them.

Question 3:

What kind of media institution would distribute your media product and why?

When looking for a media institution that would distribute our films we have to take many things into account like budget- our was a very low-budget film so universal studio's is hardly going to distribute it.  However, i feel institutions such as Goldcrest, hammer film productions and LionsgateUK would distribute it. Lionsgate Uk focus on British low budget films (like ours) and they have previously made thrillers like ours. Hammer film productions also do low budget films and have a well respected history of films such as Dracula etc. They have a partner with warner bros. and so this would be really good for our film.

Question 4.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

As our film is a 15 I feel the audience would be suitable for 15-18 year olds as it would suit what they like to watch as well as fitting in with BBFC's age range guidances. There are mild references to Eve's one night stands and heavy drinking but we feel that 15 year olds would be able to cope with this and it fits with the BBFC standards.

Question 5:

How did attract/address your audience?

To make sure we were making what our target audience wanted to watch, we gave out questionnaires beforehand -audience research- to get their opinion on everything. Once we had our results we began making the film incorporating it into every aspect of our film. This way we knew we were giving our audience what they wanted so we were addressing our audience. Below is a clip of our classmates giving us feedback on our film. They are all aged 15-18 so perfect as our audience. From doing this, we knew what they liked/disliked and s ultimately, what we need to do to make it better or what we should take into consideration next time.

Question 6:

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing a product?

Question 7:

Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

On our first task, we didn't realise how much work was actually involved in making a product with no editing and even hardly any sound. Because of this we didn't do too well in this task as we didn't comprehend how hard it would be. However as we got on to the thriller filming, we had a better understanding of the work and so we were more prepared when starting it. Our planning within our group wasn't our strongest point but we did mange to pull together and get everything done in time. We all had a turn using the camera's and editing and so we all learnt every aspect of making a film. Overall, I believe we all learnt a lot from the experiance and our group was pleased with our final piece.