Planning- Finalising Idea Ms B

 What makes a conventional thriller?

The lighting used within each scene has a different and important impact on the audience, for example, in one of my thriller's scenes we see low key lighting used in the corridor scene, this had the impact of building tension and suspense throughout the audience. Moreover the lighting used will make the audience feel as though there is no hope for the family when they come face-to-face with the shadow character. Nevertheless facial expressions have an exceptional impact on the audience by following the facial expressions of a character the audience can tell how they are feeling without the movement of the characters body. However if we erase the dialogue the facial expressions still have a big impact on the audience whereas, if we erase the facial expressions then the dialogue would seem pointless to the audience.Suspense/tension is built to confuse the audience and to get a point across also Use of costumes to represent the age, class, gender or the personality of a character in order to build relations with the audience. lastly  a conventional soundtrack must have some effect on the audience e.g. shock, nervous, frightened etc.

narrative

The chosen idea was Jemar's; idea because we thought that his idea was simple and conventional.He called it 'The Awakening' and it is about as a young girl called Amy who lives with her mum Natalie and her father Tom. Within this we see them enjoying different party seasons such as Halloween Christmas Easter etc.

These clips will be accompanied by slow- paced music as the audience start to see Amy becoming disturbed by her viewing of dark figures moving around in her house. She informs her parents but they do not believe her and say that she is dreaming.

There is then a scene showing the news saying that there is a storm that is about to hit, due to this her parents lock all the doors and windows etc.

The next day the storm causes a black out and the parents call in an electrician who arrives to fix the power. Unfortunately for the family and the electrician the doors will not open which means someone has locked them. They start to hear noises around the house and see what looks like shadows moving around the house.

All the sounds and images build up the tension and suspense in the audience when the family is looking down a corridor they see a shadow walking slowly around the corner, just as it's about to turn around the corner the opening then ends and goes onto a black screen where he hear screaming and the title screen comes up saying "The Awakening".

Characters:

• Amy- young girl 9 years old
• Mother 35 years old
• Father 37 years old
• Electrician- male in his 20's
• Shadows- mysterious character(s)

Mise-en-scene:

A lot of natural lighting will be used during this film however low- key lighting will also be used in the scary scenes. We will use a range of camera angles and shots such as close-ups, mid shots etc. In this opening we will use editing techniques such as a montage, fade to black and straight cuts etc.

What makes a conventional thriller?:

• A good soundtrack- for it to be a good soundtrack it must have some effect/ impact on the audience e.g. shock, surprise, confuse etc.
• Tension/ suspense is built to confuse the audience and/ or get a point across.
• There is a use of different lighting techniques and camera shots to keep the audience entertained e.g. fast pace editing used for an action scene; slow paced editing used in order to emphasize a dramatic scene.
• Different scenes are used to keep the audience interested and entertained.
• Use of costumes to portray the age, class, gender or the personality of a character in order to build relations with the audience or build tension/ suspense.

Film influences:

• Paranormal activity- this is why we based it inside a house as we feel as though a home is the safest place for a family so invading that sense of safety will have a chilling impact on the audience.
• Orphan- This is because the main focus in the film orphan is the little girl who then is seen to be someone shes not whereas in our thriller this little girl is the main focus but her innocence is played with and tortured.

This idea is conventional to a thriller simply because it allows the audience to have expectations of the outcome, it creates tension and suspense among the audience leaving them wanting more from the film. We have explored many different thriller examples and we have found out that a lot of people love to see someone at risk within a normally safe environment as it builds up more tension and creates suspense.Our narrative explores many different themes such as mystery and paranoia etc, our thriller's purpose is to be a psychological thriller, which plays with the audiences thoughts and feelings towards their own homes and how safe they really are.