Initial Thoughts - Our Thriller Opening

We chose our groups that we would be working in to create our own thriller opening. We decided to work in the same group that we did for our prelim task because we knew that we could work well together. I have been best friends with Sophie for years and we know we can work productively together and be honest about what we think of each others ideas. We also live very close to each other so we are able to meet up regularly. Jack is a valuable group member because unlike me and Sophie, he did media for GCSE and is a bit more experienced, he is easy to get along with and fun to work with.

Once we chose our groups we watched a few of the thriller openings that were made by the previous year so we could get some ideas and see what was achievable. We began to discuss our ideas and put them together to create a synopsis by the end of the lesson.

Our initial idea was to have a flashback incorporated into the scene. We developed this idea and decided to have a girl sitting by herself in a room looking blankly. We would then create a flashback of her seeing a crime being committed and her running away not knowing what to do. We thought more about this idea and decided to reject it as it would be very hard to achieve the flashback effectively and successfully without it looking strange or confusing.

We thought back to one of the films we saw from the previous AS group and liked the idea of information being passed on. Therefore we decided to do something similar by basing it in the city. We came up with the idea of an image or photograph being passed on which could ruin someones career. We liked the idea of blackmail or a ransom being involved also.

We developed this by creating a story of a man and a woman talking to each other in a way that made it appear that they were having an affair. There would then be an onlooker in the scene with a camera who would take photos. We liked the idea of making it look like the shot was from the camera's point of view. If these photos got out, it would jeopardise the man's career. We then had the idea that the woman taking the photos would be a friend of the man's wife and a work colleague of the man. She would then be seen planting the pictures in places where the man could see them, there would be notes attached to the pictures threatening the man in some way. We decided that it would be good not to show the woman's face during the opening until the end. Instead, we would show close ups of her hands and she could be wearing a ring so that the audience could identify who she was. We wanted to involve the city in our opening somehow but didn't know what to do.

We looked back on our notes and thought that an affair wouldn't really be thrilling and couldn't work out how we could put suspense into our opening to make it exciting. We spoke to our teacher about this and she agreed that she wasn't sure about the affair idea and suggested that we should re-think this and maybe have two men instead. She also suggested that we use email instead of planting the pictures. We re-thought our ideas again and came up with a new scenario...

- Two men discussing something, one hands over some documents of some kind in a secretive manner.

- A woman is seen inside a car overlooking the scene with a camera. We only see her hands (and her ring) she takes photos of the men (shots from the cameras point of view in black and white)

- The woman is seen on a computer typing an e-mail. (shots showing her from behind, shots showing her fingers typing and her ring) we do not see the message she is typing yet.

- One of the men is seen opening the e-mail and opens the picture (of him and the other man) attached to the e-mail and reads the message which tells him to meet the woman in a certain place at a certain time.

- He then calls the other man and says "They know".

- Both the man and the woman are shown on their way to the place. We still do not see the woman's entire face. Maybe extreme close ups of her eye or mouth and shots of her hands.

- They meet at the place (cafe?) and the woman slides the picture across the table (we see her hand with the ring)

- The man says "What do you want?" and looks at her. The woman's face is seen for the first time and she is looking down at the picture. She then looks up at him and says "You know" (evil smile)

Synopsis

Notes

Notes