Planning: Final Idea - Mrs. Quinlan

Narrative/Plot:

The final idea will be changed from the narrative of this main male character running away from his troubles, who are shown to the audience as grown men with no face or identity, to the narrative of a contrapuntal clown that commits manslaughter due to his own past just to get over it, like a much crazy Joker and with more instruments to help in his attacks, finding a young girl on the streets and then converting her into his sidekick to aid in his motives and actions so that he isn't by himself. 

Narrative structure:

In terms of narrative, Todorov’s structure which consists of a clear start, middle and end is what we are most likely to go for due to the basic and simplicity of it and the fact that we only have two minutes and in those two minutes we don’t want to give away too much or give too little. The structure makes it easy for us to also make an opening without too much confusion and make unnecessary complications.

Characters:

There will initially be only two characters just to keep the dialogue at a minimum level. Firstly the antagonist, which is a clown with two sides to him maybe because of that his name can be Yin Yang but that is another topic. Then another character, victim turned antagonist due to her conversion by this clown to do his dirty work. After seeing things like Mikey banned for allowing such a young child to commit really savage work like murder with blunt weapons we will make sure the child is not too young may be use someone in their teens but remain young so that they seem young enough to not have any idea whether what they are doing is wrong or right.

Mise En Scene:

This is something we haven’t yet discussed and will dwell on later during our planning, and leave this blank till we come to a conclusion on Mise En Scene because of the possibility we may change our minds after a while and go for another idea on Mise En Scene.

Location:

First scene will be a dark unknown room to reveal to the audience the first character as a happy and sad clown, then the next scene will be a dark and distorted park to show his transformation of this victim from happy and joyful to dark and gloom, then the last scene where the New Equilibrium begins will be a house as the two clowns get ready to walk down a lonely ghostly street which will be the fourth location.

Lighting:

By primarily putting the spotlight on him when the clown is sat down on the chair in the room at the start just to show the audience he is clearly the main character in this opening, then with the effect on the flooring from the moonlight the lighting in the park will be something special and specific, however the lighting for the remainder of the film will be low key.

Costume:

Realistically a clown outfit for both characters is what we discussed and settled on due to the fact that it adds that effect that they are devoted and we have actually put in effort to make it look authentic. We have the intention of making the clown look scary so the makeup or mask will have to be a psychological bonus if we want to create that element from the costume.

Iconography:

The clown mask will be something of an iconography due to what it symbolizes and also it is a way of hiding the identity of this antagonist from the audience. The clown suit is also something as to say that this is what the antagonist wears when committing all this mischief.

Body Language and Facial Expressions:

This will depend on the mood of the antagonist just to add a little twist to scenes recorded. We also want to show the audience a mixture of body languages and facial expressions to indicate the personality and actions of the clown are unpredictable.

Film Influence:

The influences of this film come from Halloween and the fact that the personality and depictions of clowns can vary.

Audience response:
The audience response of this will hopefully be that of one who is scared of clowns as opposed to someone who isn’t affected by this type of material. Our aim is to have a psychological effect on the audience and allow for them to feel as if our opening has gotten to them or atleast scared them a little.

What makes this conventional?:

What makes this conventional is down to the fact that the motive of the antagonist are distorted and become a bit clear when he receives help from someone else. As the child imitates him and becomes like him, the audience will be able to question what may be going on in this opening 2 minutes which is what will make them have the urge to watch the rest of the film.

Themes present:

The themes that may be present in this will be clowns due to the fact both characters are clowns, imitations as the young victim will become the mature clown and copy what he has done or what he wants to do and friendship because with this new sidekick he has found someone to share this passion with and is no more lonely.

Conclusion:

We want them to initially feel really scared of the antagonist as they do not know anything about his personality because of the drastic change. This narrative along with the added features and planning ideas will be able to make this happen and allow for the opening to be as good as we planned and hopefully even better.