Planning: Developing ideas in groups - Miss Begum

Initial planning

Idea 1-Emeka

For my initial idea I have conjured up a more than basic idea and draft towards a final idea using all my research from former blogs and from the data I had collected in my questionnaires. Further research may help me in further improving my idea rather than changing the full thing and also help my group to decide on a final idea with some aspects and influence of my initial idea.

Narrative

For the narrative of my opening I went for a character trying to run away from his mistakes and regrets which are portrayed as big men in suits with no face to the audience but to him are still just his mistakes and regrets. Which I found a good idea as most thrillers tend to have the character running from an actual thing whereas I would have made it his own problems based on the things he done portrayed through characters with no identity. The idea was based on an episode in Sci-Fi Drama, Doctor Who of which the characters were aliens in black suits called The Silence.

Title

The title of my film was hard to decide and I had many ideas including taking the name of the characters I named in Doctor Who and calling it the 'Silence' as his thoughts are portrayed differently to the audience which could leave the audience confused yet intrigued as to what the movie will be about. Another name I went for was 'Who’s Who' as if to say both the audience and the character are confused and we have no idea who is who, whether his troubles are caused by him or they are caused by these men in suits is something the audience will want to pay attention to. Another name I may use for my opening thriller is ‘?’ as if to say we as a production company are speechless and don’t know what to say or what to make as the thriller title which helps to aid in confusing and adding a psychological effect to the thriller.

Sub-Genre

Considering the many different sub-genres available for my thriller opening I came to the conclusion that I could make it whatever but to suit the purpose the sub-genres I have chosen from the possible many are first, Psychological as many scenes will give the audience a spice of authenticity in order to gain a psychological response and receive better feedback. The other sub-genre was Drama as it has the sense that is has an intention to be more serious than relaxed and comedic, with the focus of having characters dealing with realistic ordeals and emotional struggles.

Character

For characters, I have gone for the victim of which he is to himself and has to find a way to do everything himself, he has no-one and is his own hero, due to the fact the characters face may not be seen often it will be better to make the character a bit of a subtle character in terms of noise and not action Another character is the men in the suits as his thoughts and regrets but the audience don’t know and won’t understand if they are real or just his imagination. Another character I include in my opening is a psychiatrist in which their part may be to tell him that he is alright but that character too is just in his head and isn’t apparent to the audience but to us a producers and him as it is his worries.

Theory Application

With theory application I would use Todorov’s theory of Equilibrium, Disequilibrium and then New Equilibrium but may switch the last around to leave the audience on a cliff hanger instead of ending it there and then, this would be better as it would leave the audience questioning the motion and what just happened further making them more interested in my opening. Todorov’s theory is by far the most simplest of the four of them as for films like this where there aren’t that many characters it allows someone to make something without too much hassle or problems of what to add to a small scene. Using elements from Aristotle who centered his theories round themes and emotions. I may use his structure which consisted of the film going from an ‘Exposition’ in order to know the character. Then next in his theory was the Rising Action which is when the protagonist is able to finally understand his/her goal allowing them to start working towards it. It reaches the Climax which becomes point of the greatest overall tension; the phase in which everything goes mostly wrong. Then the climax ends and there comes the Falling Action which is the turning point of the story and is where the main character makes the decision that defines the outcome of the story, then lastly comes the Denouement which is the resolution and all mysteries are solved. 

Conclusion

Conclusively putting all my research and ideas together I can come to a final idea using thoughts from my initial idea and my group idea.

Idea 2-Umut

Narrative:

A teenager is being interrogated by an officer and is being told to wear a wire so the charges are dropped. Then the next scene we see a group of masked individuals robbing a store and fleeing from the scene via bikes. The boy wearing the wire drops and the device is visible to his group. He is chased out and caught, also murdered in a disturbing manner with a message sent to the officers in charge using the boy’s blood.

Title:

No Face No Case

Sub-Genre:

Crime, Drama

Characters:

5 Teenagers around the ages of 17-23

All big builds to look intimidating

Masks on face

Theory Application:

“Barthes theory” could be applied to my narrative because most

MES:

Lighting and colour:

Interrogation room could have high key lighting with no filters to show the seriousness and security. However the heist could be carried out in the nigh, therefore low key lighting and maybe a grey colour filter to portray danger and death.

Settings and iconography:

An interrogation room is a typical setting for a thriller film, especially for an opening scene. The store could be a warehouse or factory, which may still be really convenient to a thriller film.

Body language and facial expression:

Body language should portray strength and power so the actors would have to keep their muscles stiff. Facial expression wouldn’t be a problem as the heist is going to carried out with masks, however the other characters such as the police officer, teenager being interrogate and owner and workers of the store may be difficult to get into character.

Advantages of this idea:

·        Bikes are easy to access

·        Teenagers could be found easily as were in a school

Disadvantages of this idea:

·        Murder may be difficult to look realistic

·        Finding a device

·        Finding a store to participate

Idea 3-Abass

Narrative: a man is stalking a young teenage girl that goes to school. He does this by looking at her Facebook looking where she is at times of the day and going outside her school looking where she hangs out after school. One day he sees the girl alone in a park and attacks her until she is unstably damaged. Police and ambulance come and the man runs away and loses the police. The girls is damaged and is near death. The true motives of the man is unknown.

Title: who’s who- this is the title because you don’t know who the actual attack is.

Sub-genre: drama- as the friends and family of the victim are devastated

Psychological-because seeing the way the girl gets attacked affects the audience in a psychological way

Characters: antagonist-the man, victim-Jessica (the girl)

Themes: violence- when the man attacks the girl.

Stalking-when the man finds out everything about the girl.

Narrative structure:

Todorov’s theory: Equilibrium-when everything is fine and the girl is going to school. Disequilibrium-when the guy attacks the girl. New equilibrium- when the attack is over.

Advantages: the Narrative of the story has a good effect on the audience.

The story of the opening scene is good.

Disadvantages: the story is too conventional.

We might not be able to find an empty park for this too take place.

Lighting: low key lighting because it creates more fear to the audience and it affects them psychologically. If I were to use high key lighting it wouldn’t be as effective as the audience would think the guy doesn’t pose a threat.

Cinematography: close-up on girl in order to show facial expression. And establishing shot to show the environment.

Research: Questionnaire Results - Miss Begum

From the questionnaires i conducted i made graphs on my results and these are my data findings from the people i asked. I will use the feedback from the data collected to have a basic thought of my final idea.

This helps with audience age and target audience as then I will know who will be watching my thriller and get a better understand on what that age group likes more in films and more specifically thrillers. The majority of people that filled it out are the conventional audience for a thriller.

Helps with target audience as I can get a different opinion from both genders and analyse them to generate an idea using both opinions, e.g. averagely women may feel as if too much violence and graphic scenes are can psychologically damage the viewer, whereas the men may feel as if action is what is needed in a thriller film to give it that extra edge and not really be affected by anything psychologically.

This helps as I would know what my target audience do during their day and if they have enough time to watch thrillers which will also give me an insight into if they don’t have time to do so then they are not ideally the best recipients for effective feedback.

Helps as I would prefer a better opinion from people who have actually watched a thriller film compared to those who have not. However, their feedback may not be useful as it won’t really have a noticeable effect on my thriller opening, it’s just down to who will be able to notice what makes my thriller good from their experience of other thrillers.

Here I asked about who I considered conventional characters according to the thriller genre in terms of their representation. The majority of people said that they knew of Morgan Freeman in thriller roles. This feedback has been beneficial to me because I may now want my protagonist character to be an older black man who is going to potentially solve the puzzle that arises from my opening.  

With this I will have a better idea on what sub-genre to add to my thriller opening and further give me knowledge of which thrillers with action as a sub-genre to look at and get a better idea of what to include in my thriller. Using this I now understand what sub-genres may be popular to include and instead of following down that path I may choose to use Sci-Fi as a sub-genre.

From the research here most of the people that answered have seen thriller films and only a few have not seen thriller. This can help in my research as open questions will give a better idea of content.

From the research conducted the theme of controversy and revenge is more seen and known of in thrillers as opposed to psychological and temptation may be due to the fact that it is hard to depict what  temptation and psychological themes consist of, as thrillers with a revenge theme may have more action.

The age certificate that people would apply to thriller films based on my research is PG due to the fact that some scenes may be unbearable for a young audience to handle on their own and may require an adult to help them deal with this.

From the research here the favourite character in a film is the anti-hero averagely based on the results gained from my questionnaire. People answering aged 16-21 years preferred anti-hero over hero and antagonist and the modern anti-hero may be a cause of this as the likes of Batman have a very large fan base.

The type of lighting preferred here is dark lighting as we can see here, younger audience preferred the use of high and bright lights whereas the older audiences preferred more darker low lighting to apply in their thrillers as opposed to medium and high.

This would help me in knowing and getting a better idea of where to locate my thriller and what other settings will have an impact on the scene and the angle of the camera to have an effect the thriller.

With the information here that majority of the people that conducted my research would apply a soldier attire to their protagonist I can now dive into the idea of applying military gear to my protagonist in my opening due to statistics gathered. Other option is casual as that is a common convention in thrillers.

With the information taken from this data i will be able to collate a general idea on how to conduct my research to use this information to my advantage. This can also help me in terms that other people's idea and opinion blended in with mine can help to create a possible masterpiece and therefore create the path for a final idea of my thriller opening.

Research: Censorship - Miss Begum

As discussed in my other posts on age certificate the BBFC control anything that is allowed or suitable to be produced and viewed in the United Kingdom. They are the general commanders or head inspectors of the British film industry in terms of handing out age certificates and deciding whether a film should be banned, cut or censored. Their known role is to protect the viewing public from any offensive material or anything that could cause harm to society, such as the visible promotion of drugs. BBFC are important in terms of providing safety and protection to a massive audience and protecting those from viewing something so bad it may have the power to psychologically distort and mess them up.

The type of material that gets censored is things that show reference to extreme violence, religious offending, extreme brutality, demoting of women, graphic scenes of sexual assault unless portrayed in a way to show the consequences after, political controversies, extreme torture, promotion of drugs and alcohol, practical and moral messages such as carrying a gun is a good thing, and using a child as such a brutal antagonist like in the movie Mikey can be something censored by the BBFC due to the age of the child and the nature of his actions like killing an elder with a blunt object is something that the audience would not like to see. Also a movie like Scum was banned and edited several times as it contained scenes of gang rape and suicide, and also had graphic scenes of savage brutality in which the victim does not have the power to fight back so they’re just literally beat the hell out of, which is the sort of material that needs to be banned as it can temporarily or permanently damage a viewer psychologically.

Another banned movie is The Bunny Game, made in 2010 considered as torture porn, with the narrative a cocaine addicted prostitute who in turn is abducted by a mad male truck driver and then tortured, other reasons why this was banned was down to it having repeated dialogue, lack of plot, and no evident characterization.

The difference between films being cut and banned is clear, when a film is banned it cannot be released or distributed to the audience as it has been entirely stripped off publishing rights due to its nature and material, however when a film is cut it means that the producer has a chance to remove any scenes that the BBFC do not like or would not allow them to release if it remains, allowing for the film to have less scenes that could harm the viewer psychologically. An example of a film being given the chance to cut some scenes is the controversial ‘A Serbian Film’. On 25 August, the BBFC handed the film's distributor with a list of things that needed to be removed. As it says on their site, ‘49 individual cuts were required, across 11 scenes’ in total.  They claim that around 'three minutes 48 seconds' of the film would need to be removed and although this may seem like a contently large number of cuts at first, many of the cuts made in the film were small parts. 

An example of a film that was banned entirely is ‘Women In Cellblock 9’, this remains banned in the United Kingdom due to its large amounts of sexual violence, and one of the lead actresses in many of the sex scenes was 16 at the time the film was made. The film upon release was rejected by the BBFC when it was submitted and still has not been successfully appealed to be shown to viewers. This could be down to the fact that the actress in a lead role was 16 at the time and they used her in many unusual scenes for a girl of her in any period of time.

The debate for censorship still rattles on and is a debatable topic; the two different sides are Forna (for censorship) and Kemode (against censorship). Forna is for censorship and believe that films with unsuitable material should be censored due to the psychological effect it could have on a viewer and topics such as sexism would be considered very oppressing and controversial if a film was released demoting women as a whole or they released film about 9/11 which could cause society to have second thoughts on who to blame and may have an impact on modern lives, mixed with my opinion I am TeamForna and I believe that films should be censored as I would not like to enter a cinema with the worry that there is a mad man dressed up as Jason with a chainsaw or massive machete in his bag ready to slaughter anyone, nobody wants that worry. Reports in the news arose over a man, dressed as a character from the box office hit The Dark Knight Rises, shooting at the audience during a film in the cinema, it is generally common of shootings like this is in modern day now as there are no real laws imposed on weapons. Everyone wants a weapon now after watching all these uncensored movies. Kemode on the other hand is against censorship which may be down to the fact that people have an interest in the things they show and instead this material should be shown as audiences have a free choice to go and watch these things, they are not forced. Linking in with my opinion I understand this side of the debate as take me for example I can watch a movie like Kidulthood and not want to pick up a gun and use it as a means of defence or watch Human Centipede and not want to capture people off the street and attach their mouths to their face, you can say that films can be censored because it may harm the audience but at the same time they have that choice to go and watch these things no one forced them, it may be certain individuals that are affected by this, there are people in mental and psychiatric asylums for a reason yet there are others like me that can watch graphic movies as such and not want to make it happen in reality, as I’ve said, it is all down to personal choice and freedom.

Conclusion

From researching censorship I have a basic and mature idea of what to include in my opening and what may be suitable for an audience. Since I won’t consider myself as a troubled person and someone who takes interest into these weird and graphic ideas and motifs, my opening will be fairly simple something that can enter the BBFC and come out rated 15. From my research I have a basic idea of what to include in my opening and because of my research I can always go back and look at what to improve.

Research: Questionnaire - Miss Begum

What is the importance of Primary Research?

The importance of Primary Research is that we get our own perspective using our ideas and structure to create a pathway for different possible ideas for an opening. With feedback from the audience i have questioned I'll be able to learn and understand their ideas and what I can do to my own ideas to create something based on my creativity and their opinions. The purpose of feedback is to create a suitable opening generated from your ideas and ideas of those that took part in the questionnaire, you also use feedback as a way to improve and know what to add or include in your movie.

There are advantages and disadvantages to Primary Research. Several advantages of Primary Research are that you gain clearer and direct feedback from audience, you also receive loads of relevant feedback from the audience that answered the questionnaire. They allow you to handle data in a more organized way, and gives you the chance to make more key decisions based on the data collected.

The disadvantages of Primary Research are that it may take a lot longer than Secondary Research and can slow down generation of ideas due to this as you have to take a lot of time collecting data and organizing them as such. Also the person taking part may give false information which could affect the data in a minor way not too impacting but still lead to less accurate data and more false information.

I gave my questionnaire to 20 people from the age range of 11 and older or more accurately the year groups year 7-11 and a few teachers in the school being mindful of not asking for their age so that the answers could be a bit more spread out and not one sided. I didn't however spread it out equally amongst genders I just gave it to whoever I came across in terms of teachers and reliable students.

Conclusion

Based on the data I have collected from my Primary Research I will now use this to help me generate ideas towards my narrative structure and what my opening may consist of. The feedback will also help me if I get stuck on ideas as I have a basic idea of what the audience wants to see and what the audience doesn’t like or want to see. This can be used to good effect as my opening could be deprived from the different opinions I received instead of it all just coming my plans and ideas. 

Research: Scream Analysis - Miss Begum

In the opening of Scream there are many moments where it portrays common conventions of an opening which I will be analyzing, cut into two sections, from the phone call to her locking the door showing her fear and discomfort. As a traditional thriller ‘Scream’ has a slow build-up of which there may be an act or piece of dialogue which may consist of a character saying a common antagonist phrase like ‘Hey Arnold’, the cheesy side of thrillers involving a classic line and the tension in the scene builds up with the use of several different micro-elements and Mise En Scene.

I will analyse the use of editing in this first section, the best use was the use of straight cuts. Straight cuts were used many times and was effective in the scene to create a fluent response from the audience as they witness the slow torture and horrible distress that this girl is being put through as she is forced to look on as her boyfriend is moments from his death. In the first half of the scene one can also see the damsel/protagonist on the phone followed by a straight cut to her moving to another part of the room here as she continually converses to the antagonist on the phone. This is conventional as it creates the momentum that it leading to the rising action as of described in Aristotle’s theory and is just building to the climax. Aswell as using straight cuts, they used close up and medium close up to send a message to the audience to understand more on the characters role and appearance, further leaning on the characters damsel in distress or victim role, this is conventional to a thriller opening as many thriller openings identify the opening characters struggle or journey in a short period of time for the audience to understand the situation even though the movie hasn’t finished yet.. The zoom was used several times to follow the character with a steady hand in order to capture her emotion as she tries to escape her current predicament. During her scene in the kitchen you see her walk around the table once without a single cut but having the camera following her close-by as if to show the audience that danger is lurking and following her which is conventional to that of a thriller opening to keep the camera set on the character. In the first section I think the director used editing very wisely here. A panning shot of the protagonist/victims house halfway through the first section is used to great effect to show the audience where this scene is taking place and to help us understand what kind of scene this may be, this is conventional as it is similar to that of other known thriller films in that it likes to establish the setting of the current scene.

In the opening sequence they use off-screen sound to make it clear to the audience that she is currently engaged in a phone call with the antagonist, so we can take from that part that the antagonist knows the protagonist but she doesn’t know the antagonist which makes the use of sound an even more effective use of the micro-elements to add sound and tension to the scene in order to gain a psychological response from the audience which is common among many other thriller films, e.g. Se7en. The use of Mise En Scene was effective in the first part of the opening sequence as they show her body language and facial expressions very clearly, through the use of close ups and medium close ups, this is important as it tells the audience that she is currently very relaxed, comfortable and in safety as nothing has happened yet, the scene is still calm an effect commonly used in thrillers to keep the scene at a constantly average level in order not to give away too much.

In the second part of the opening sequence the use of iconography shows us the popcorn cooking on the stove and she isn’t looking after it, this can be significant in terms of her current situation, it went from calm and normal to over-boiling because of the fact she isn’t looking after it. For her in the scene the use of settings and iconography shows her problems over-boiled like the popcorn and she couldn’t handle it. This is very good as the audience can understand what she is feeling, as a result of the drastic cutting of the scene from object to object. Also the use of body language is used to an effect as you can see her quicker body language represent her panic and emotion. She is distraught and worried for her safety, as the scene develops you see her start to breakdown and with the use of zoom we can see her current emotions allowing the audience to infer from this what is happening in the scene and how it affects the character.

The cinematography used in this scene was zoom, and was used to show us different aspects of the protagonist in different angles, but always an inferior figure in that scene. This is an effective use of editing as we can see as an audience that her situation just went from manageable to hopelessness, her boyfriend could die for their actions and she is forced to watch. Her facial expressions in this scene can give the audience the understanding that she is broken and stressed over what is going on.

Research: Typography - Mrs. Quinlan

Introduction
Typography is the text presented to the audience in this context in the opening credits of a film. Different films apply different effects and elements to the text of their opening credits which could help the audience understand more the film which I consider a good and productive idea.

In the opening credits from the thriller film The Number 23, they use various codes and cyphers to give into the prospect that the film has something to do with codes and mysteries and the idea that it has been thought through and written over several times. The blurry theme added towards the letters and numbers can suggest a few ideas towards the story-line, often referred to as manual typography.

In the opening credits of the action sci-fi film Transformers, they use massive writing and computerized text to give the indication that it is action packed with futuristic effects and. This helps the audience understand the complexity given to this film since it is a sub-genre and not just a lone genre so there may be two forms of typography added to the opening, the massive size to show that it is an action movie and there will be a lot of massive scenes and computerized font to show that there are bits and pieces that point towards the Sci-Fi side of the film and computers and gadgets used in the movie.

In the opening credits of the thriller movie Django: Unchained, they use classic typography to depict the classical theme behind the movie and opening. The red suggests that there will be emotional scenes and violence and a still image of the desert gives the audience the sense that maybe it has something to do with setting. Then as the opening moves on the camera is just placed and focused on the main character of the film to introduce us to this one main character and understand at first hand his trouble and his back story as the movie progresses.

Conclusion

The analysis of choices that I may consider when thinking about typography is the style I choose and how I may blend it into my opening credits, also the size in that it is not too small or not too big but averagely a natural size to fit the purpose of the story shown in the opening scene/credits, then the letter casing I may use is sentence case or leave all of the letters in lowercase to make sure I keep with the theme of my story-line or plot. With colour I may choose to keep it simple but add a bit of colouring effect to the scenes I will record to add that extra spice of excitement and leave the audience guessing. The order in which my roles will appear is Production Company, Studio Name, Producer, Music By, but then introduce the characters to fit the face so the audience know who is who but not give away their story role too much. (Character name next to face)

Research: Opening Credits - Mrs. Quinlan

What are opening credits?

Opening credits is written information presented to the audience about who produced the film, who stars in the film and various other production roles. The purpose of opening credits is to provide the audience with enough information so that they know more about the production who is in the film. They are effective in the form that with thrillers when accompanied by sounds it can create tension and fear and anticipation, and can be very effective when the images have no relation.

The chronological order of importance for many films and thrillers is first the studio name (e.g. Pixar), Production Company (e.g. Disney), Producer/s (e.g. Steven Spielberg), Director/s (e.g. James Cameron), Main Character/s (e.g. Tom Hardy), Film Title (e.g. Star Wars), Edited by then Music by and Writer, as in the maker of the script (e.g. Diablo Cody).

With opening credits they make the audience feel a sense of confusion through the use of little narrative and panning shots of a scene, also they use opening credits to distract us due to their use of lighting effects. They give the audience enough starter information for them to create an idea of what the film may be about and the themes behind it which is also a good thing as it links with the other aspects of media. They also create a sense of tension to the story-line as it depends on the progress of the opening credits and the elements of various themes applied to opening credits. Take the opening of the movie Se7en their opening varies from that of other thrillers opening credits this is possibly due to the nature of the film and the possible plot in the story whereas most other thrillers are similar to each-other or just don't choose to differentiate.

Conclusion

From the research I have conducted I will use data from my questionnaires I will take out further on in my planning and ideas from other openings I have seen to create an idea based on mixtures of various films and ideas. I will look at opening credits of different films to see what difference I can add to mine to make sure it stands out and amazes the audience. Basic ideas of my opening credit may be something where I show the Studio Name, Production Company, Director and Producer and I don’t reveal too much on the actors to give that element of mystery and lost identity for the audience to guess who is who and understand the story at their own accord.