Female Protagonist

For the role of the female protagonist we decided that we wanted a girl to fit the stereo typical 'innocent and pure' character that is often used in films. We came to the conclusion that we thought Charli Moody would fit this role very well, she has medium length light blonde hair, and is quite petite. Through the makeup we use on Charli we could reenforce a pure and innocent persona, with red lips and pale skin and soft eye make up. we thought we would have her wearing a white dress to emphasize the purity further. Her clean pure clothing and make up will contrast with the room which will be dark and dirty to create an idea about the rest of the film.

Storyboarding

Our group came together in lesson and created a story board, this helped us with our shot list. it gave us a rough idea off what the story line would be so we could think about the kind of shots we could use to create the right effect. when we brainstormed all of our ideas we realized that it would not be simple to come up with a story line and we would have to think about it hard, we also thought about how we could incorporate props, location and actors into our idea. I think our group is making good progress overall but we need to ensure that our time is used effectively in order to meet our deadlines.

Location

For the location of our opening we originally wanted to set it outside by a canal, we then thought about this more and listening to the feed back from teachers we realized that our story-line is already quite cliche, and by setting it outside we are adding to this. We came up with the idea of setting it in a bedroom, we all had roughly the same idea of what the bedroom would look like, so i went home and took pictures of my spare room, what i thought would be a good place to set it.

Props

For our thriller opening we want our room to look different from what would usually be associated with a thriller film. After we thought about the location, we then thought about what props we could use in the room to make it look different, we looked in the art cupboard and got some ideas to push us forward in our planning stages.

Location

For our opening we have been thinking about where to film it. We wanted a location that isn't cliche but also that is associated with a thriller. we came up with the idea of locating it by a canal, we haven't seen or heard of a thriller film that is located by a canal, because hannah lives near one she offered to go and take pictures of it so we could see if it was suitable for our opening.



I think this would be a good location, i think that it would be more effective if we shot is either in the morning when it is still slightly dark or in the evening.

Brainstorm

We did a brainstorm in lesson to come up with ideas for our thriller opening, we thought the most important thing to think about was the basic story line, from that we could figure out the events that would take place. We thought that a flash back would be a good idea, this is because form past experience of watching films danni, hannah and i all enjoyed this sort of interesting openings of films and from our research we found out that our target audience prefer films that involve a bit of thinking. Our idea was to zoom the camera into our characters eye, giving the effect that it was going into her brain we then were going to create a montage  of pictures of her past, we also thought about having something in every pictures that connects with each other, so at the end of the film the audience can relate them together. We also thought about deaths, because we want our female character to die, we were thinking of different ways this could happen, originally we wanted to have it as a stabbing but soon realized that this had been done many time before
and we wanted to do something different.

Mise-en-scene

1) Lighting and colour -  Lighting helps the audience assume what type of genre the film is through the way the lighting is displayed. for example there is low key lighting (which is usually used in thrillers) and high key lighting. In my group we are going to be using different levels of low key lighting as this creates a mysterious atmosphere. Colour is also a convention for mise en scene as it associates emotions with different colours. For example:

• White typically represents purity and innocence
• Green typically represents envy 
• Black represents evil or danger through the darkness 
• Red represents lust or love, anger or danger, blood or violence
• Blue represents coldness, sadness or depression
• Yellow-represents sunshine or happiness

In our thriller film opening we will use colours such as red, black and white to symbolize love, violence, blood and death.


2) Costumes and make-up/hair - The use of costume and make up make actors develop more as a character which creates a forced judgement  on how the audience perceive them. The costume may include things like style of dress, garments, accessories and hairstyle. Make-up can make characters either seem more appealing/glamorous or normal (without makeup). Make up in the earlier years of cinema was used to highlight facial features as black and white films could not show every detail. In thriller films make up is used to create a fearful effect, for example by smudging their make up it will make women look more in need or in danger. Ripped costumes give the impression that something bad has happened, suits can make a character look more important and black clothing can make someone look more sinister.

3) Setting and props - Location is key when it comes to mise-en-scene as it sets the tone of the film. This can be an outside location or an inside location. With a thriller film the typical conventions of setting would be a dark ally or woods. However these conventions have been used to much making them become cliched. Props  can help determine the narrative, identity of character and genre. Semiology can come into this as well such as by using to a gun to symbolize violence. 

4) Facial expressions and body language -  By using this the camera is able to capture the emotion of the characters. This includes hand gestures, postures, and facial expressions which is shown clearly by the physical, mental, or emotional actions. With the non verbal communication the audience is able to assume characteristics about the character on how they are feeling by not being directly told. For example, if a character is scared we can tell by their worried facial expression.


5) Position of characters and objectives in a frame -  The way characters are positioned within a frame can tell the audience a lot about the character. This includes levels of social status by which how the characters are centered and angled. In thriller films, a murderer usually the dominates the scene and the victim  which can be displayed by staging the levels of the characters.