Originally, our group filmed, uploaded and edited a final thriller film opening which we named 'An Eye for an Eye'. However, after gaining feedback about our film and reviewing it as a group, we decided that alot of improvements could be made. Initially, we agreed in the end that we did not understand the concept of the opening and as a result of this misunderstanding, we ended up creating more of a short story, rather than the beginning to a film. In addition to this, we had several problems with gaining the proper lighting to reflect the story line, our 'hooded figure' as the stalker was rather generic and we also had issues with sound and continuity. Overall, the original film was more of a preliminary task and we saw it as experience. After gaining this 'experience', we redrafted a story line for our new film.New Film
Our New film was now decided as a group to be called 'The Reprisal'. We felt that this name reflected the theme of revenge and has more effect to it, and as seen by the survey below, the majority of our target audience seemed to agree. We discussed many ideas for our film, some of these were: A gang - however this meant a large group of people involved and due to scheduling and timetabling, it would be near to impossible to film with everyone present on possibly more than one occasion. Ian, Jemma and myself also discussed issues such as suicide or a troubled teenager, but the issue was tying this into the opening. In the end, we settled on a plot which revolved around a car crash. The main character (Ian Beattie) is a distressed and deeply traumatised teenager due to losing his parents and baby sister in a car crash. After this event, he becomes deeply involved and obsessed with the girl driving the other car (me) responsible for killing his parents. Thisobsession results in Ian becoming a recluse who is almost psychotic and only has intentions of stalking her until he gains his ultimate revenge.
Working in a group with Ian Beattie and Jemma Barclay has been extremely enjoyable and has taught me alot to do with filming. We were all able to share each task needed to do whilst filming and editing, giving us all experience and a knowlege of camera equipment, lighting, editing etc. The previous film 'An Eye for an Eye' took well over a month to film and edit properly giving us a lot of time to feel comfortable and work around eachother. Because of this, our new thriller opening 'The Reprisal' only took 4 hours to completely edit and re-film due to us all being able to co-operate and work together properly whilst enjoying ourselves at the same time.
The name of our film as a group was highly important, it needed to reflect the storyline of revenge but needed an eerie aspect to it also. With the overall theme of the film as revenge, we wanted to settle on something different which yet still pushed the dynamics of the story across. We came to a conclusion of 5 different titles for the film and collected information from various people on which title they preferred. They were:
- Vengeance
- The Reprisal
- Retribution
- The Last Stand
- Punishment
After questioning 15 people between the ages of 15-40 and discovering their favourite titles as a possible audience, we discovered that:
- 4 people preferred Vengeance
- 7 people preferred The Reprisal
- 2 people preferred Retribution
- 0 people preferred The Last Stand
- 2 people preferred Punishment
With the most people of a younger generation in favour of The Reprisal, it was clear that the opening for our film should be aimed at an audience of around 15-early 20s who were interested in this sort of film.
Target Audience
As a group, we came to the conclusion that our target audience should be aimed at the age group of around 15 - early 20s. This is due to the fact that the main character(Ian) in our opening to a thriller film, is a 17 year old boy. Our target audience are most likely to enjoy the film more, due to the fact that they can relate to the main character more easily than someone in their mid 30s. The theme of being alone in the world and full of hate is most likely common nature amongst the people viewing our film in adolescence, ensuring further that they relate to the story line and believe the tension. Because of the age range of our target audience, it only seemed fitting for our group to dub the film as a '15+' rating as you would see in cinemas or when purchasing online or on dvd/video. An '18+' film would allow for more to take place in the aspect of giving the audience a feel of fear, however these films often stray into the genre of horror with images of blood and gore and this was something we needed to stay away from.
Character
Our main character Ian is a 17 year old boy deeply affected by a car crash from the previous year in which he lost both his parents and baby sister. Ian appears messy, restless and agitated in our thriller opening and dressed all in grey which reflects his bleak emotions. As a character he could be easy or difficult to relate to for the audience. They would be able to relate to him as everyone knows what it feels like to care for a family, however many would find it difficult to relate to him as they would not have experienced what he has.
Location
The location for our thriller film opening was an important issue. It needed to have a layout which would work with the type of shots we wanted to achieve, and also had to be able to create a sense of tension. We decided to use Ian's bedroom, which he kindly offered to use. The confined and dark space of the bedroom allows growing tension and suspense with the shadows created. Aswell as this, Jemma Barclay, Ian Beattie and myself filmed the 'dream sequence' on a fairly busy road in Hitchin. This enabled our group to create the background story of the film and the location worked well, showing the cars and brightness which contrast to the darkness of Ian's bedroom.
Shooting Schedule
Because of a first failed attempt at creating a thriller opening which had hours and hours of time and effort put into it, as a group we were very limited with our time. However we managed this well and our shooting schedule began on Saturday March 6th at 12.30 in the afternoon and lasted until 4.30 on the same day. We took around 2 and a half hours to complete all filming inside and out, and around an hour and a half to complete all editing. Overall i believe this schedule worked well as we knew exactly when and where we needed to film this time round and everything went accordingly to plan.
Sound
The sound for our film needed to reflect the mood we were aiming for in our thriller film opening. All sound effects we found and used were on my MacBook we used to upload and edit our film. At the beginning of the film, we used a 'mysterious' noise to open the titlesn with. It is a 5 second long piece and is a fairly loud sound which immediately triggers off tension. After this in the opening shot of Ian lying in bed there is no sound, however in the next shot of Ian's 'dream sequence' we used a sound effect of 'traffic' which matched the movement of the cars we filmed. We had trouble achieving sound due to the camera we used which did not detect outside noise, however we managed to overcome this due to an extensive choice of sound effects from iMovie sound effects. Aswell as the traffic noise in this sequence of Ian's dream flashing back and forth to images of him in a restless sleep, we overlapped the 'traffic' sound effect with the sound effect of a small child laughing. We balanced both these sounds so one would not overpower the other. The effect of using this childs laughter is a small insight into the story of the film (the child that died in the car accident). Childs laughter is often seen in thriller films to create suspense and an eerie feel to the film, so we used this and made it work with our film opening. Following this, we used 'Dark suspense drones' throughout the opening during the credits and images. Drones are often used in thriller films as they are not too overpowering and cliche, but they have enough effect to build up tension. We were aiming for this type of suspense and decided to use this on a medium volume level. At the end of our opening, the close up shot of Ian sitting on the floor was filmed with him showing noises of an upset and distressed feeling, however the camera did not detect this. To overcome this problem, we found the part of the opening which needed sound (Ian) and recorded him doing a 'voiceover' through the MacBook microphone which fitted with his actions. Following this, is the black screen with the title 'The Reprisal' and we wanted to use a noise to bring attention to the title rather than a simple drone. After searching many sound effects, an unlikely 'Hockey puck hit' noise was found which matched the type of noise we wanted. Although Hockey has nothing to do with our thriller film, the noise is hard to notice what it actualyl is, and gives an effect of suspense, hence why we used it.
Speech
We chose not to have any dialogue in our film due to the fact that the opening was only formed of one character and it would seem strange to have him speaking to himself so early on in the film. The decision not to have any dialogue in our film opening was a good choice made overall, as there is no need for it here and the absent use of speech does not detract away from what else is happening in the opening.
Lighting
From our first thriller opening 'An Eye for an Eye' which failed somewhat on many levels, lighting was an issue we realised as a group that we needed to focus on quite heavily this time. In 'An Eye for an Eye', lighting was hardly used and this added to the lack of suspense. This time however, we managed to get fairly creative in order to achieve a darkness which still allowed the viewer to observe what was happening. At first we used the light from a candle and a low setting on a torch pointed at the wall. However when we realised that the outlines of the circular torch were being reflected onto the wall, we had to devise a different way to achieve a good lighting for a thriller. We discovered Ian's lava lamp, an unlikely source, and unscrewed the top so we were left with the naked bulb. This was too bright, so we placed a red t-shirt over the lamp and shone it against the wall, this gave a fairly red light as you would guess but not so much that it looked poor. The effect it gave off was a positive one and we believe that this was a simple and effective way of creating a light that built up tension.
Here is the screenshot of what our thriller opening title looks like. The font is Handwriting-Dakota, size 48. We chose this because it has the handwritten effect and relate back to the main character scribbling over his walls due to his obsession.
To the right is an image of a car driving which is seen in Ian's dream sequence. We altered the original bright colour to give the film a more sinister effect. To do this, we boosted the exposure, lowered the saturation by a large amount and increased the contrast levels. It gave this effect, we feel it is effective for a dream sequence as the colours do not match everyday life.
To the left is an image of a newspaper clipping we found. The information indicates what happened although it strays from our plot somewhat. It is true in saying 'claims one' however what the audience find out later on in the film is that the 'injured two' died soon after. The red lighting here is effective and the dark silhouetted figure is mysterious and eerie.
Below is a screenshot of Ian's face which has been distorted, as you can see the use of light here is very effective as it gives a sinister look to the film, adding to the suspense.
