Sound

In our opening sequence I will use this piece of score as the protagonist is walking around the house. The piece has a very slow pace and low pitch, which creates a very sad and sombre mood for the audience, allowing them to understand how the character is feeling. The score also repeats over and over which represents how the protagonist is just living his life doing the same daily tasks over and over again with no real reason for doing them. This creates an upsetting tone for the film and allows the audience to get an understanding of what kind of themes will arise.



This score will be played during the dream sequence at the very beginning of the opening sequence. The use of a choir creates a very angelic and surreal tone for the audience which allows them to recognise what is going on isn't real. The score also creates a positive tone which shows how the protagonist is only happy when he is dreaming of his partner, emphasising how much he misses him.

Plot Synopsis

The plot of my film follows a homosexual police officer following the death of his husband. The protagonist is slowly killing himself through the use of strong alcohol and lack of sleep, due to him being depressed following the death. The film starts showing how badly the protagonist is living, followed by an attempt to kill him by an unknown character. The protagonist defeats the assassin and attempts to find out who he is, and what he wants with him.

The protagonist finds out that his husband was actually murdered, despite being told he died during a robbery, in an attempt to save him the pain. Finding out this information he can no longer trust the police and goes about on his own in an attempt to solve the mystery.

After fighting his way through attempted assassinations the protagonist discovers a plot around him and his late husband. You find out that the protagonist's husband worked for an agency, and the only reason he married the protagonist was that he wanted to get information on him. However the husband wanted out on the mission and was killed for trying to quit, and they felt as if the protagonist knew too much so they tried to have him killed too.

The protagonist shows the agency's crimes off to the world and the people responsible for his husband's death are put into jail.

The film ends showing how the protagonist moves on from the death of his partner and attempts to get his life back on track and start over.

VoxPop

In my VoxPop I asked 5 key questions to get a greater understanding as to what my audience will be expecting in the opening sequence of a thriller and what they would expect in the entire film. Using this information I am able to edit my own opening sequence to follow what my target audience would expect to see.

Do you expect to see fast or slow paced editing in a thriller opening sequence?
From our VoxPop I found that the majority of the people asked said that they would expect to see slow paced editing used. Taking this information I will use a very slow paced editing throughout my piece to help set quite a calm tone and help to add a sense of suspense.

What props do you expect to see in a thriller opening sequence?
Everyone we asked said that they would expect some sort of weapon or blood to be used in the thriller opening sequence. Using this information I wall attempt to add some form of weapon, possibly in the background to help create more questions for the audience such as; what will the character us it for? why does it he need to have a knife? can this character be trusted? The use of weapons will also help to add a very serious tone to the film as they hold connotations of death.

Do you expect the titles to be played over a moving image, a black screen or to be animated?
In my VoxPop I found that everyone thought that having the titles over black would be the best. Due to this I will put my titles over black such as the cast, production company and the name of the film.

Do you expect to see low-key or high-key lighting in a thriller opening sequence?
I found that everyone I asked thought that low-key lighting would be most effective. Because of this I will have low-key lighting in the majority of my clip which will help add a sense of tension and mystery as it will help to conceal information. It will also enforce the serious and sad tone of the film.

What plot do you expect to see a thriller film follow?
The VoxPop shows that my audience feels that a story which is shown clearly but still has a lot of twists is what makes a good thriller film. Due to this information our plot will create a lot of mystery for the audience and will make the ask a lot of questions, causing them to watch on to try and find the answers. 

Key Shots

Key Shot 1

This shot is a low angle shot showing the protagonist walking past the camera very closely with a wall full of awards and images in the background. The protagonist's legs will be out of focus however the wall with be in focus. This will allow the audience to see the protagonist's past and get hints as to what is happening without directly showing the audience. This also helps to obscure some information from the audience as they cannot clearly see what is happening due to the lack of focus.

Key Shot 2

My second key shot is a two shot/long shot/master shot of the protagonist sitting in an armchair with an empty chair next to him. This chair will be empty to allow the audience to see that someone is missing, and hints to the fact that the protagonist has lost someone in his life. This will help to set a very sad mood for the audience as it will help to emphasise how lonely he is following the death of his partner.

Key Shot 3 + 4
The shot on the far left shows a bird-eye view of the protagonist's bedroom. His room is in a mess which shows how he has stopped caring about his appearance and taking care of himself due to his depression. It also shows how he is only laying on one side of the bed, whereas the other side is made and perfectly clean which hints to the audience that he has lost his partner and that he still misses them.

The two shots on the right show a graphic match between a sink running water and whiskey being poured into a glass. This graphic match shows the audience the extent of his alcoholism due to water being shown as whiskey, showing that the character drinks alcohol as if it was water.

Key Shot 5

This shot is an extreme long shot. A slow crab along the floor past the character is used as he is in the bathroom staring at the mirror using the sink. The use of an extreme long shot means that the audience cant see what the character is doing clearly and helps to conceal some information from the audience. The fact that he is standing by the sink is a daily task that most people do when they wake up. This shows how the character is simply following the daily order of his life and doing nothing else, due to how low he has sunk.

Key Shot 6

This shot allows the audience to see the characters facial expressions which are of sadness. This allows the audience to see what kind of character he is, and get an understanding that his life has gone badly. For the duration of this shot an alarm clock will play with a very high pitch and volume which will be a discomforting sound for the audience. This shows them how the character has no reason to get up and no reason to live following the death of his partner and allows them to understand how deeply he was effected.

Thriller Ideas

Survey Analysis

Using the results of our survey from our target audience we are able to see the kind of things that they would expect to see in a thriller film. Using this information we are able to base our own thriller film opening sequence off of their feedback and incorporate what they would expect to see. To make my blog more visual I will use graphs to easily display the results of the survey.

How old are you?

We decided that the target audience for our TV show would be 16 - 24 year olds. but would also attempt to try and reach for an older audience. This is why the main group we asked were in the age group of 16 - 24 but we also asked a few older people. This also allowed us to get a more general oversight into what people would like to see in a thriller opening sequence.

What gender are you?

We found that the majority of the people we asked were male. This fit into our target audience as we chose our target audience to be male.

On average, how many films do you watch a week?

We asked our audience how many films do they watch a week to get an understanding on if they enjoy films and actually know what they would like to see going into an opening sequence. For example someone who rarely watches films wouldn't know what to expect in the opening sequence so they're results for the survey would not have been as effective as someone who watches a lot of films. Our survey showed that the majority of our audience watched around 1 - 2 films per week which a good amount of films and shows that they understand what they are talking about.

Do you enjoy thriller films?

The reason for asking this question is very similar to the third question, "On average, how many films do you watch a week?" It allows us to see if they target audiences watches thriller films regularly and see if they know what goes into the opening sequence. The majority of the people we asked said, "Yes". This shows that they enjoy them and that they fit our target audience well.

What is your favourite thriller film?

We asked this question to see what kind of thriller films they had seen in the past and what they had enjoyed. This allows us to research into their opening sequences and get an understanding of what we should put into ours.

What time of day would you expect to see in a thriller film?

In our survey we found that the majority people expected to see the film set at night time. Because of this we will set our opening sequence at night time.

Do you expect the protagonist to be male or female?

The majority of people said that they would expect to see a male protagonist in the film so we chose to have a male protagonist.

What genre of music do you expect to hear?

The majority of the people we asked in our survey said that they would like to hear an orchestra score in the soundtrack, but also a large majority of the people we asked said that they would expect an ominous tone of music to be played so will try and incorporate both of them into our piece.

Survey Results

For our survey we were put into groups. My group consisted of me, James Thompson and 
Scott Galloway. In our survey we had to ask 10 people each questions to get an understanding of what our target audience would be expecting in a film of a genre, thriller.

Our Survey:

 

Survey Results:

Conventions of a Thriller

Introduction

In a thriller film there are many different conventions that must be used for it to fit into that genre. These conventions vary from specific things such as the pace of the editing, to more broad aspects like titles.

A lot of Information Concealed

A key convention of a Thriller opening sequence is that a large amount of information is hidden from the audience. This creates a lot of mystery and questions for the audience to make them want to watch on. This may be done in many ways, but a very common way of concealing information is to not show the audience the character's faces, whether this is done through the use of focus, shadows or something concealing their face.

Serious Tone

A lot of Thriller films often have very serious tone. By setting the tone early on in the film, it allows the audience to prepare themselves as to what is going to come up in the film and understand the kinds of themes that arise. For example in the film of memento, it opens with a shot of a dead body covered in blood. This sets a tone for a very violent film.

Equilibrium Broken Early

In a lot of thriller films the normality is broken very early on. For example in the film watchmen the opening sequence shows a man being killed. This is effective in thriller films as it creates a lot of questions for the audience and mystery very early on. It also allows the audience to see the tone of the film at the very beginning.

Tension Built up

A convention of a thriller film is that it builds up a large amount of tension to put the audience on edge while watching the film. This is very effective as it keeps the audience engaged and they are worried for what will happen next in the film. This can be done in many ways such as slow paced editing and score, which makes the shots linger on the screen for longer and slows down the pace of the film greatly, hence making the audience wait longer to find out what will happen next.

Slow Paced Editing and Score

Like said above a very common convention of an opening sequence is to use a very slow pace between cuts and a score with a very slow rhythm and low volume. This drags out the scene and keeps the audience wondering what is going to come up.

Low-Key Lighting

In a lot thriller film opening sequences low-key lighting is used. This is used for several reasons such as setting the tone as being a dark and scary film, and also it helps to obscure a large amount of information as the audience cant see what it happening very clearly.

Loose/Tight Frames

In thriller films these two types of shots are used quite frequently. They are the two extremes of character placement in the shot, from a loose frame having a large amount of room around them and a tight frame being the opposite with no room around the character. These are often used to show how sad or alone a character is, for example a loose frame may show how there is no one else around a character, and then a tight frame may show that the character is upset.

Shallow Focus

The use of shallow focus is very effective in a thriller film. A shallow focus is when only the thing in the foreground is in focus, blurring out everything that is far away. This is very effective as it can obscure a lot of information and what is going on behind a character causing the audience to worry for the characters involved.

Risk

In thriller films the characters are always in some form of risk, most commonly at risk of dying. This leads the audience to fear for the characters and helps to create a large amount of tension as they don't know whether or not the character will survive.

Realism

A common convention of a thriller film is that it doesn't stray too far away from realism. For example the antagonists in the film are believable and real people, whereas in a sci-fi film the antagonists could be aliens. Have a large amount of realism in a thriller film is effective as it allows the audience to relate their life to what is going on, and makes the experiences of the character more effective for the audience as they can imagine themselves in that situation.

Heat (Mann, 1996, US) - Analysing an Opening Sequence of my Genre

Sound

In the opening sequence of the film Heat, very slow paced music is played throughout. The music is in the foreground of all noise in the opening sequence except for at one point when a train passes through and it breaks up all noise that can be heard. The score that is playing is very gentle and soothing for the audience, whereas the train disrupts this calmness with a very high volume, and unpleasant sound. The sudden break in the music is very negative and may represent how something may gay wrong in the future, as the train may represent a problem and how it disrupts there way of life. This can also show the audience that there is going to be some unpleasant scenes in film as the sound of the train wasn't nice to listen too.

Another effective use of sound int he film is the man's footsteps. They are slightly exaggerated  and they are the only person's footsteps who the audience can hear despite the fact that there are a lot of people around. This may show the audience that this man is much more important than all of the other people walking around as only he can be heard despite other people being near him.

Cinematography

In the opening sequence of the film cinematography is used very effectively. For example a large amount of high angle shots are used on the man walking around, such as when he walking down the stairs, and when he is crossing the road a birds eye view is used on him. This shows him as not having very much power and not being very important. This would make the audience believe that this character is just like everyone else at this point and doesn't have very much power.

Another example of cinematography used in the use of loose frame when showing the character. This is used in the same examples as when a high angle shot is used, such as when he is travelling down the stairs or crossing the road. The use of a loose frame in this instance may have been used to show how alone he is, as he just got off of the train and he may be in a completely new town or city all on his own. This makes the audience believe that this character is very isolated because of this.

Editing

In the opening sequence of the film, Heat very slow paced editing is used. For example the shot of the train drawing closer towards the camera lasts for around 32 seconds. The slow pace of the editing in this film helps to relax the audience and allows them to relate to the monotony of the situation as the man appears bored and all he is doing is getting off of the train. This shows the audience that the equilibrium is in tact and life is still "normal" for now.

Mise en Scene

In the opening sequence the character's facial expressions show him to be very stern and miserable. This gives the audience the impression that this man is going to be aggressive later on in the film, as his facial expression is quite intimidating. This allows the audience to see that he isn't a very nice person and it also allows them to prepare for any form of violence later on in the film.

Another effective use of mise en scene is the setting. The scene is set in a dirty city at night time, which comes across as a very unappealing place to live in. This is shown when he is travelling down the escalator and the floor is very dirty with litter on it. This makes the audience think that the setting of the film is going to be in a bad area and such the characters in the film are going to be up to no good. Also the fact that it is set at night time adds to the negativity that surrounds the city as at night it is very dark and is often viewed as being more dangerous. It also makes the city appear to be more scary as the audience can't get a good look at their surroundings. 

Watchmen (Snyder, 2009, US) - Analysing an Opening Sequence of my Genre

Sound

In this clip the hyperbolic sound is used. The use of this technique emphasises the force at which the characters are hitting one another and makes the audience feel sorry the man being beaten up in the extract as it makes it sound extremely painful. The violence in the opening sequence of the film prepares the audience for what will come up next int he film and allows them to see that it will be filled with a lot of violent scenes and death. The soft, asynchronous music also heard in the background juxtaposes the sound of the fighting. This may represent the contrasting themes in the film and also help to confuse the audience. The calm music helps to calm down the audience and reassure them that the character is going to be fine at the end of this, but dies which would shock the audience. This allows them to prepare as not everything in this film is as they would expect.




Another effective use of the micro-element of sound in the opening sequence is the diegetic sound of the TV playing at the very beginning. This creates a sense of normality for the audience as he is relaxing at home just watching television like most people would, and suddenly a man bursts through the door. The door suddenly being smashed down would shock the audience as before that moment everything had been very quiet and "normal", and the the appearance of the antagonist is surprising for the man as he is just going about his life as normal. The loud bang would make the audience jump as it comes out of nowhere and they would no be expecting it.

Cinematography

In the opening sequence of Watchmen cinematography is used to great effect to show the genre. For example, a lot of close ups and extreme close ups are used at points of action to help emphasise the impact of the action, for example when the gun is shot, the cup is thrown at the wall and he is punched in the face. This allows the audience to truly see how powerful the punch and the throw was, and would make the audience understand the strength of these characters and how much danger they are in. 

The eye line match when the protagonist looks at his gun on the table, and then it cuts to a shot of his gun lying on top of a magazine is very effective as it shows the audience that he is in some form of danger. It allows the audience to see that he is preparing to fight and is looking for his gun so he can use it on the man who is standing outside of the door. This would make the audience think that the man is in a lot of trouble as he is having to reach for a gun to defend himself, but it also may make him come across as paranoid and bad as he has a gun so ready on display in his house.

Editing

The pace of the editing in the clip changes over time. In the beginning of the opening sequence it is very slow, such as when he sitting down in his chair watching television, as the character is very relaxed and is not expecting for anything to happen. This makes the audience feel that everything is fine and that nothing bad will happen, however as time goes on in the clip the pace of the editing speeds up as the two characters are fighting and the fast pace of the shots helps to increase the pace of the action. The increase in pace of shots as time goes on may represent how the characters life changed from relatively normal and calm to hectic and crazy up towards his death.

Another effective use of editing in the opening sequence is the use of slow motion at certain moments, which then speeds up shortly afterwards to carry on the flow of the action. The slow motion may have been used help emphasise the pain that the character is going through as it primarily slows down at points where he is getting hit hardest, such as when he is thrown out of the window and punched in the face. By extending the shots it allows the audience to get a true look at the pain in the characters face and see what he is going through even longer making the audience empaphise for him.

Mise en Scene

Throughout the opening sequence low-key lighting is used. A prime example of this is when the antagonist walks through the door and almost all of his body is blacked out in shadows. The use of low-key lighting to this extreme obscures a lot of information as his body and face is covered in shadows meaning that the audience is unable to get a look at him and tell who he is. This creates a sense of mystery for the audience as they do not know who he is and why he is beating this elderly man up for no apparent reason. This would make the audience want to watch on as a large amount of mystery and questions are brought up. This is a very common convention of this genre of film.

Another use of mise en scene in the opening sequence is the use of costumes and props. The antagonist is seen wearing black throughout and the elderly man has a dressing gown, and props of a cigar and a gun. The black clothing worn by the antagonist is very conventional of "evil" characters in films as it holds lots of negative connotations of death and horror. This allows the audience to instantly recognise him as being in the wrong in the situation. The elderly man's costume is a dressing gown which shows that he was unprepared for the encounter and had no intention to fight him. It creates a sense of weakness for the character as he wasn't ready to fight and isn't prepared. The props he uses show a lot about his character. He has a cigar which is bad for your health and a gun which is a deadly weapon. This shows the audience that something isn't quite right about this man and that he isn't exactly a hero himself.

He is holding a cigar to his mouth.

Location Research

Thriller

I chose this image for a location in a thriller as it shows a run down house, with rusting metal and broken windows. The house would be very dangerous to enter as it would be falling apart and i presume it would have rotting walls and be very dark inside. This would effectively set the tone for the film as they all hold very negative connotations and would set a spooky atmosphere for the audience.

This image shows a forest with a lot of very tall and thin trees, creating a low of shade. This would be effective for a thriller opening sequence as it is very dark and the trees are very close together meaning that you cant see very far creating a sense of mystery and spookiness and you may get lost and the audience will not know what is inside of the forest.

Romantic Comedy

This would be an effective setting in a Romantic Comedy film as it shows a park bench with bright colours and a lot of grass. This sets the tone of a very positive film and shows the audience that is going to be very upbeat. The setting of a park bench may be a location in which a couple meets. This location is very common and will allow the audience to relate to the two characters meeting on the bench.

A city is a very common setting for a romantic comedy as it allows the audience to relate to the characters situation as they most likely live in a town or city as well. The city above shows high key lighting and a lot of activity which sets the tone of being very happy.

Action Adventure

This setting would be very effective in an action adventure film as it shows a construction site. Construction sites tend to be very dangerous and have a lot of high places and dangerous areas. This would be a prime location for a fighting scene or a chase scene, as it create tension for the audience due to the main character being in constant danger.

A car park would be a good location for an action adventure film as it may host some sort of race or chasing scene. The tight corners and small roads would lead to a gripping chase scene for the audience and would house many cars which would help to explain how the characters got into the situation. Car parks can also be very quiet and empty at night time so it may also hold some form of deal or conversation between characters.

Science-Fiction

A farm would be effective for a science-fiction film due to the idea of crop circles and aliens visiting farms and big fields. This would allow the scene to be set easily. Farms are often far away from towns and cities and would help to create a spooky tone for the audience as it is in the middle of nowhere.

A military base would make an effective location as the aliens may attack the military base or the military may be called to deal with an alien invasion. Showing the base would show the audience that there is going to be a lot of violence in the film and something really bad must happen if the military are having to be called in.

Martial Arts

A dojo would be a good place to set a martial arts film as martial arts such as karate are learned in such places. This would instantly set the scene for the audience and allow them to understand what kind of film it is going to be. The dojo may show the protagonist training in martial arts and may contain some for of montage editing to show them increasing in skill.