We aimed to make a horror/slightly psychological thriller in order to easily create a sense of tension that most conventional thriller films have.
The mise-en-scene for our thriller opening was fairly conventional.
The beginning shots were filmed on a bus, this was to show our character's journey through the city to arrive at the isolated location we chose for our opening. We also wanted to reflect the emotions of our character, the bus shots helped us achieve this perfectly as the audience are able to purely focus on our character and therefore we could represent her feelings of grief fairly easily. These shots were inspired by the BBC TV Drama 'Remember Me',
one of the main characters 'Hannah' was shown here on a bus to easily show her emotions and allow the audience to reflect with her.
Early in the project we decided to film the opening in a woodland area, following many thriller conventions from films such as 'The Blair Witch Project' or even taking the remote nature from 'The Shining'. The significance of this particular location was to create a sense of isolation, and potential danger within an urbanised and fairly familiar area. This helped when creating a tense atmosphere as we could turn a recognisably safe area into one of danger, lulling the audience into a false sense of security in order to keep the eerie atmosphere present throughout. The traditional conventions of our mise-en-scene allowed for our thriller to also seem realistic, in using conventional surroundings from the thriller genre, we could create an opening that seemed realistic within the film industry, and gave us a traditional platform to develop upon.
As mentioned before 'The Blair Witch Project' also conforms to these conventions. We studied the surroundings used for this film, quickly realising that the remote, yet usual, location allowed for the false sense of security most thriller films use, to be easily replicated for our opening. 'The Blair Witch Project' also used this remote location to present isolation, in trapping the victims within the woodland, this feature was also another significant part to our film. We felt the isolation of the woodland, found in both 'The Blair Witch Project' and 'The Shining' created a sense of inescapability for the protagonist and again added to the rising tension throughout.
The costume for our opening was carefully planned, thinking of colour symbolism, genre conventions and what each revealed about the characters. Our female protagonist was grief stricken at the loss of her friend, we also felt it would conform to various thriller film conventions if we presented her as youthful or innocent. The costume for this character used muted, grey and pink colours to present these aspects of her personality. The creams, greys, light pinks and green created an innocent almost child-like nature to her and kept the idea of her tired and extreme sadness. The colours also reflected the surroundings she had been placed in; in keeping the neutral, earthy colours such as green and grey, we could blend her character with the scenery whilst simultaneously, using the pink of her jumper, keep the audience reminded of the contrast between her innocence and the harsh and dangerous atmosphere around her.The male antagonist's costume was almost used to juxtapose our protagonist and further enhance the immense danger of his character. We used dark, slightly dirty looking clothing to represent this dangerous side. The dark green coat focuses to associate the character with the dangerous and desolate surroundings, almost showing his physical state of isolation or representing that he must stay hidden from society. Both characters heavily conform to the traditional conventions of the thriller genre, taking the typical female 'victim' and male antagonist from genres as early as film-noir. These conventional gender roles, because they are so commonly seen, we felt would work the most effectively in clearly presenting the nature of each character, and allowing for audiences to immediately gauge which character is which. Anonymity was also extremely important for our characters hence why throughout the film no names are mentioned. This anonymity we felt could be achieved through clothing with no specific individuality, mundane and muted colours were used for each to keep the focus on the story, and to add a sense of mystery to our opening.The costumes took inspiration from various different films.
(Amelia-The Babadook)
We felt that 'Amelia' from the horror film 'The Babadook' was perfect for our costume inspiration for our protagonist. Due to her exhaustion and worry this character developed a tired and saddened appearance, whilst also wearing very muted, slightly traditional women's clothing. This costume incorporated all aspects we felt our protagonist needed, the innocence, the drained and tired aspect and the traditional clothing associated with females, presenting a character we felt fitted the conventions of the thriller genre and adding our own story within as well. The costume for the antagonist was slightly harder to find inspiration at first for. We wanted to create a clear binary opposition for the two and so quickly realised he needed to have muted clothing, and present a strong, yet suspicious character.
(Harry-Requiem For A Dream )
We decided to use the character of 'Harry' from 'Requiem For A Dream', his dark and vacant appearance provided the perfect anonymity and danger we wanted to create for our antagonist.
Our final character was the deceased friend of our protagonist, the anonymity of this character was essential as we didn't want the audience to focus on her too much. We didn't take inspiration of this character from any films as we wanted to create a fairly specific appearance. We agreed this character should wear both dark and light colours, this helped us to create the effect of the protagonist and this character having returned to the surroundings many of times and also placed this character at a middle ground between the protagonist and the antagonist having associated themselves with both sides. The light colours presented her life before she was murdered, linking her to the light colours of the protagonist whereas the dark colours presented her after her death, having been identified with the killer.
We only used two props for our opening in order for it to stay simple and not overcrowd each shot. The props used were, for our protagonist, a bunch of pink carnations and two tea-lights.This was not only to symbolise the death and mourning of our two female characters and further develop the plot, but also to add to the mise-en-scene. The pink of the carnations almost perfectly matched the pink of our protagonist's jumper, again enhancing the innocence of our character and also balancing out the colours of each shot. The candles added a sense of safety with the dim warm light suggesting a comfortable atmosphere, whilst also presenting a sense that anything could happen. The transitory nature of the candles provided an unpredictable atmosphere keeping the tension throughout the clips.
The lighting throughout our film was kept diegetic as we felt it may look forced if we used any outside lighting. The surrounding trees also provided a fairly low-key light creating the perfect neutral atmosphere for our opening. Throughout the opening the lighting remained soft due to the filming time having taken place in early evening for most of the shots, this helped to create an unconventionally calm mise-en-scene. Often in thriller films, such as those filmed in the style of German Expressionism, in such films as 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' (see left), the lighting is harsh creating stark shadows and adding an impending sense of doom, however we felt in challenging this convention we could create a sense of warmness and security for the audience to trick them into feeling safe, only to take this away using other features of our film. The natural lighting also helped to reinforce the natural atmosphere surrounding the film, in keeping the surroundings lit as they would be regularly, the film holds an element of realism and ensures it looks like something that could possibly happen.
The sound for our thriller incorporates many different pieces, both diegetic and non-diegetic and from various different sources. Firstly the diegetic sound, taken as the shots were being filmed, in the beginning the noise of the bus allows for the audience to feel as though they are on the bus with our character, it also adds a sense of realism- in keeping the sound of the bus engine, the shots feel more realistic and without them the shots would feel empty or clearly faked. The second piece of diegetic sound is of the nature surrounding our character as she walks through the woodland, initially the sound of birds was clear however after adding the soundtrack, they became too quiet to hear. This led us to find the sounds of birds of 'Soundbible.com' as non-diegetic sound, in order to clearly represent the 'safe' environment we felt was important to our opening. Another piece of non-diegetic sound we wanted to incorporate was the sound of a police siren, we felt this would add a sense of urgency to our piece and create the sense that our antagonist may be a wanted character. This was easily found on 'Soundbible.com' giving the clips a fast-paced movement to contrast the slow lulling effects placed before. Our opening was also heavily influenced by various documentaries we had previously watched and we felt it would create a realistic element to the film if we took sounds from police reports and news interviews and placed them into our opening. The first police report was taken from 'Real Crime-Babes In The Wood' of a man talking about the dangerous nature of a killer, this seemed appropriate for our thriller as, as mentioned before, we wanted to have our antagonist seemingly on the loose. The use of this sound clip also gave a narrative to our film, adding that our antagonist is a danger to society and therefore reinforcing the story that he has killed before.
REAL CRIME BABES IN THE WOOD PT 1
The second sound clip we used is of a news report taken from Look East, this again added narrative in telling the audience that 'a body of a woman has been discovered', this clip fitted perfectly with our film as it was placed to look as though our protagonist was recalling listening to the news of her friend. For the next piece of non-diegetic sound we wanted to incorporate a thriller film. After thinking of various different sound pieces we could take, we decided to use a line from the film 'Night of The Demon', a classic British horror film, in order to give our film a Gothic edge and use conventional themes from many thriller films. The line taken was 'it's in the trees, it's coming', said by a slightly hysterical man. We felt this line fitted bets with our surroundings as our antagonist was hiding within the woodland and our protagonist surrounded by trees. We also slowed the original line down to 80% speed in order to give it a creepy, low sounding and fairly demonic voice replicating that throughout 'Night of The Demon.
The third piece of non-diegetic sound we felt helped to finish the film was a static noise, this has been used in many thriller/horror films such as 'The Ring' after a death. The end scene of our thriller originally cut to silence for the last few seconds however we felt this took the tension away too abruptly, we decided to use static noise after the screen goes black at the end in order to reinforce the plot that suggests the protagonist has been killed. The use of static creates a sense of finality, that all is lost and nothing continues.
THE RING STATIC NOISE CLIP
Finally was the soundtrack, taken from an artist on YouTube- Torrey Desmond Rogers- called 'suspenseful background music'. We felt this ambient track suited our film the best as, with its building tension and volume levels, it created a soft, subtle suspense throughout our film. We knew that we needed something that wouldn't take the audience's attention away from the story line and this soft yet eerie music was perfect.
The camerawork throughout the opening was fairly simplistic in order not to complicate the film, and clearly focus on the narrative. However there were a few specialist shots we used to create a slightly confusing nature that many thriller films use. Throughout the opening we used a tracking shot, following the protagonist as she walks through the woodland. The tracking shot was used as we felt it would be the easiest way to clearly present her journey through the scenery, and this allowed us to explore the different paths clearly whilst still keeping the focus of the story on our character. Often thriller films use tracking shots in order to make the audience feel as though they are in the same situation as the character and easily build up tension, in this regard we developed common conventions of thriller films. We also explored low angle shots for various different parts of our opening. Firstly, as our character walks up the path, there is a low angle shot.
This shot was used for two reasons. Firstly, we wanted our character to hold a certain position of power, this was because we need our audience to associate themselves with the character before our antagonist was revealed. The position of power needed to be subtle as, as previously mentioned, our character was the victim of the opening, although we felt it was important in order to establish her as a character who did not simply just fall victim but may have held hope for the audience at some point. The second use of a low angle shot was were the two female characters were walking together around the woodland.
This shot was used not only again to present our victims as characters who simply just became victims, but also to create a symmetry in our work. The two characters walk at the same moment and, in having this as a low angle shot, they create a balanced and aesthetically pleasing shot. Another reason for the use of a low angle for this shot is that we wanted to maintain anonymity of our characters, this shot allowed us to subtly avoid showing faces and identifying them both. Another shot that we felt was appropriate for our film was a point of view shot. These shots, at first, were difficult to film as we were unsure as to how to clearly present them as point of view shots and not just regular tracking shots. After looking at the film 'The Blair Witch Project' we realised that the camerawork throughout the film poses as a character,using a hand-cam to film the entire thing, giving the effect of point of view shots and allowing the audience to feel within the film.
(Trailer for The Blair Witch Project)
The point of view shots here were achieved through using a handheld effect, creating the shaking movement that naturally occurs when walking. We decided to use this effect when filming both our protagonists and antagonists POV shots, as it helped to easily establish which shots were point of view and took the steadiness of the camera away for a few shots, giving a confusing and unsteady nature to the opening. Another shot we used was a pull focus, the camera was focused on a rope tied as a noose as it followed our protagonist. The use of the rope tied to a tree is also prominent throughout 'The Blair Witch Project' to represent the antagonists twisted mind, this was another feature of our character we wanted to present. We felt this shot created an impending sense of danger, the focus on the noose gave an eerie atmosphere, almost foreshadowing or even reflected on events that may take place or took place at that location. This shot also helped to establish the innocence of our character, she blindly walks into an area that, obvious now to our audience, is extremely dangerous.
(Shot from The Blair Witch//Our thriller could be foreshadowing)
Often thriller films will use the technique of having the audience knowing the danger of the scene whilst the character is clearly oblivious. This is seen in films such as 'The Woman In Black' where the audience are always one step ahead of the character, particularly shown when the three little girls jump from a window in an inn room- unaware the protagonist then stays in the same room at a later date. Originally we intended to have an extreme close up shot of our character's face whilst she mourned the death of her friend, however after filming we quickly realised the shot looked forced, as though we had shot it purely to have a close up in our film. We did however manage to shoot a close up shot of the flowers and candles as our protagonist was placing them onto the memorial site of her friend. This allowed us to also get three things into one shot, this is commonly used in films as it is aesthetically pleasing and creates a shot that is well balanced.
The narrative structure throughout our film was fairly complicated to create confusion and let us use simple techniques for the other aspect such as camerawork or lighting. We have used flashbacks in order to develop the plot and make it clear what is happening, and have placed a dip to white before and after each shot and changed the colour of each one to black and white, making it clear these are flashbacks. The narrative follows the protagonist as she mourns the death of her friend, murdered at the same location that protagonist mourns at. The fist few scenes show her on the bus, reflecting the moment she heard the news reports of her deceased friend. In this part there are no flashbacks however the sound of each report has been placed over clips of the protagonist looking mournfully out of the bus window. The next clip is of our protagonist walking up to the site of her friends death, two flashbacks occur here. The first of the protagonist and friend walking up the same path at a time before, showing that this was a place that they had both been together before or even regularly.Here we have also re-created the first scene to almost perfectly match the flashback and give continuity to the story line. The next flashback that occurs here is one of the murdered friend running up the path, cutting to the time at when she was being followed by our antagonist.
The font 'beautiful horror' was taken from 'Dafont.com' and we felt reflected the nature of our antagonist and the surroundings perfectly. As inspiration for our font we looked at various different thriller films and decided that the font from the title sequence of 'Seven' would fit our opening the best. For the Title of our thriller (Kett's Heights) we had to copy the original text and place it over the top, as at first the font made it unable to read on top of the woodland scenery. This change not only made the title easier to read but also created a font that represented those rom our intertextual links.
We took inspiration from the film 'The Zodiac', a film following a serial killer writing cryptic letter to the police, using code and various other methods, to reveal his location or other information about himself. Both films use fonts that reflect a slightly scratchy and sharp form of handwriting, this created an immediate characteristic for both films antagonists. The scratchy nature of the handwriting presents a slightly psychotic mind, giving not only a significant characteristic for our antagonist but also developing the story of our opening. The codes used by the zodiac killer were made from varying symbols-'Each section consisted of eight lines of seventeen symbols, which included a variety of items, from Greek symbols to Morse code to navy semaphore, and even a few astrological symbols, notably Taurus'
(Letter from The Zodiac killer)This quote shows how not only that the zodiac killer a psychotic character but also an extremely clever one. This overly clever antagonist is presented in many thriller films, such as in 'Seven' and was a feature we wanted to include in our antagonist.
The use of this handwriting in 'Se7en' also clearly established the horror/psychological sub-genre of the film immediately, due to our lack of time we felt this would be necessary. The uneven and 'jumpy' nature of the font throughout the title sequence was another feature we wanted to recreate. The jumpy nature gave an underlying sense that something was wrong, if the title sequence isn't neat or in order, it sets the tone for the rest of the film.We wanted our titles to also jump on the screen,and so created each title and copied them three times at different points to create this effect.
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