Synopsis-Meeting the conventions of a thriller

Synopsis 

We will meet the conventions of a normal thriller by adding suspense in our opening sequence. A  dramatic twist is involved in the ending of our scene that would leave the audience in suspense and by doing this they straight away viewers get involved and lost in the film and there feelings would feel to watch the rest of the movie this relates to a good opening sequence because most thrillers that reach a all time high introduce their thriller in the same way this technique is used by most directors as a form of interaction with the audience so hence we would be meeting the conventions of a thriller. furthermore thrillers are normally based in exotic areas so we decided on a place that is popular for tourists 'Notting Hill Gate' this is ideal because we are aiming at a london audience instead of global scale this is because many viewers in london would preferably like to watch a film set in their hometown because it would be a accomplished achievement for the country,  therefore the way we portray our characters and the story line we create are related london lifestyle so our location is ideal to hit our target audience. Examples of london films

-Kidulthood:

-Adulthood:

-London-Brighton:

Furthermore the use of cliff hangers and red herring in our film just adds the sense of tension and suspense  these would take place at the end of the movie cause you would not no who died and what happened this is a much better way putting it in at the end because it interests the audience this differs from putting these techniques in the beginning or middle because you kill the sense of mystery that would put off most viewers that watch the film . i think our opening sequence fits all conventions of a thriller however thrillers normally have good looking lady figures but we challenge that in not having a lady figure and still hope to produce all the excitement that a thriller causes  in our opening scene.

Our thriller also suits the convention of an opening sequence because it has a lot of enigmas and This creates suspense and a sense of tension and for the viewers to be intrigued this suits our film hence most thriller films start there movies with much mystery and enigma's. 

Final version of Script

Final version- Script for our film

Scene 1

Int. Protagonist's room. Day

Protagonist is in his room watching T.V . Phone is on the table .

Cuts to a point of view shot of Antagonist sending text.

Protagonist looks at phone where he recieves a message . Shock . Begins to panic. Quick short cuts used to express his fear.

Score is increasing in sync with the protagonists heart beat . In fear he reaches into his draw and takes out something unknown to the viewer, he exits.

Scene 2

ext. outside the house of the protagonist. dusk

Protagonist busts out of door. attempting to get out of the area . Followed closely by a blacked out figure. Score changes to a strong beat and fast paced.

Scene 3

Montage scene

A cut to the protagonist having a flashback- he is trying to remember what might have caused this incident.

Memories- The protagonist sees a boy coming out of an estate, he pushes him over, takes a mysterious something- unknown to the viewer- out of the boys pocket and runs off, clip of him putting into his draw in his room. This is shown in a series of really short and to the point clips.

Scene 4

The boy comes back to reality,

Ext.Normal streets and alley ways.

protagonist making haste trying his best to loose the follower. turning down alleys and jumping gates. Nothing works he is still followed.

(deep breathing by both characters.)

Scene 5

Ext. The boy turns a corner, yet already at the corner is the antagonist awaiting his approach.

Protagonist feeling anxious and scared halts at the corner faced by the antagonist where they end in a clash of bodies unknown to the viewer of what has exactly happened. Their faces reveal the same expression of either utter relief or pain.

The scene ends fading out and hits straight into the opening credits accompanied by an upbeat score.

Characters

Characters

We have three characters in our opening sequence.

Roache- Protagonist suspicious black boy that is dressed in clothes that are also dark, this suits his character because the audience would stereotype him as a typical 17 year old thug. Roache fitted the criteria for this role because there are many stereotypes out there that assume that most black boys are involved in crime, drugs etc..

Roache is also tall with a built physique which suits his role perfectly as this mysterious teenager. he causes a sense of intrigue to the viewers cause they will never know what his character is like keeps them on the edge.

Costume: blacked out .. hoods black coat black trousers, trainers.

Performance should be aggressive, stalkers' , mysterious and unknown.

An unknown third character- I will cast as youth an unknown character in the antagonists flashback, this character has to look young for he is helpless to the robbery. The audience would straight away think he is a victim due to his height, therefore he would suit this role well

costume: look innocent look; jumper, jeans, shoes

His performance would be innocent but dodgy for the things he does.

Matthew- He will play the antagonist , the main character this character is also very suspicious but looks very innocent, ive used an average size boy for this role because it would fit the dramatic twist.

costume: Average teenager dress tee shirt jeans etc..

his performance should be based on a character this can be trusted but has a suspicion to him

We have chosen to base our film on the teenage to younger adult audience therefore we chose our charecters to be of the same age range as ourselves, therefore it was easier for us to gather actors and make our film more appealing to those of our age range considering, clothing, appearance and performance.

so in theory i believe all our characters suit their roles perfectly and hope to succeed in pulling the look we want ' out of the bag' .

The use of characters our age also appeals to our target audience because the younger the characters are the more it would relate to the lives of our teenage audience so they would be interested in watching a film that could relate to them also giving them a thrilled twist

Shooting Schedule

Shooting Schedule

As part of our project as a group we must work together in our own time to shoot the film, this means us coming up with a plan on when we will shoot certain scenes and at what time of day.

We have chosen to meet on saturday 23rd January in Notting Hill which is the location of our opening sequence here we will work on filming. We will work consistently in order to get the most done possible. If we do not complete all of our shoots we will have to consider another time when we will meet up again at the same location to complete the filming stage of our project.

Shots 2, 6-12, 20a- Will all be shot in the house of the protagonist, these shots are not our main priority we will need to shoot the outdoor clips first before it gets dark.

Shots 17-20- These are the shots outside of the estate, in the protagonists flashback. They aim to seem like they were shot on another day in the past. These shots are outdoor and should take less time than the main chase part/ bulk of the film.

Shots 1, 3-5, 14-16, 21-33- This is the main part of the film the chase, our main priority is to film this part first. We will shot these clips and then if we run out of time we will have to arange a time to meet to shoot the smaller scenes. These shots are outdoor on the streets therefore we need good lighting in order to get an overall effective film. We will work hard to get all of these clips shot within a short period of time before it get gets dark.

Location of our film

Location of our thriller opening sequence...


By looking at our story board you can see that our film has both interior and exterior clips. The main storyline will be based in Notting Hill Gate, we have chosen this area as it is an inner city area, where there is both crime and setting that will make the shots that we wish to capture thrilling and contemporary. The area has many estates and back streets (alleys) that are ideal to film the chase. Furthermore as we are working in a group it is convenient that one of us lives in that area and therefore allowing us to shot the first few shots of the protagonist in the bedroom at their house. We will use back streets and parks to shoot the shots where the protagonist is trying to escape the antagonist, and when he has his flash backs we will use a local estate in Notting Hill to show the scene where he pushs the boy over to take something from his pocket. The location we have chosen fits in well with mise- en- scene; the charecters are young and thugish as we are aiming at the younger adult audience and life of a young teen today, their appearance- the way they look, performance- the way they act and props- such as a gun, all tie in with the location we have chosen. Around Notting Hill gate their are some areas that have a bad reputation for teen crime and danger also the area is busy with many relevant areas that we can shoot our opening sequence.We chose not to aim for a global audience, this is more universal shooting with extreme effects and a range of editing techniques, we dont have this available to us, therefore we only aim for our film to meet the likes of those in London who will relate to the format of the film.


When choosing location our group had to consider health and safety- The range of stunts we could incoporate into our storyline was limited as we could not have massive jumps over buildings and other dangerous ideas like this, this is dangerous for our group and as we do not have the most high quality equipment will not give a good overall finish/effect. We have kept our storyline to mainly running around the around jumping over small gates and aiming to hide from the other charecter. The area is safe and a busy area so does not put our group at risk when filming.



In my next blog I have shown various different photos which display our location and the reasons why we chose it...

Review on draft and final script

Review on our first draft script and how we have changed it to create our final script...


The reason why we changed the first version of our script is that we didnt feel it had much tension in it, we were trying to grasp the idea of a chase like many other action thrillers we had looked into, however our first script seemed brief and their was not much twists in the plot that would leave the audience anticipating or wanting to know what would happen next. Scene five which we added on in our final version brings the whole opening sequence together, it is when the two charecters meet; we have written how we will create the same reaction from both charecters but both for a different reason, one is in utter pain the other in joy over what they have done. We hope this will leave the audience puzzled and wanting to watch on. We then want to cut straight to the opening credits which are fast upbeat accompanied by a score.

We also changed our scene three, we did not think our flash back idea was as good as it could have been; we added a third charecter, who the protagonist pushes over in a series of extremely short flash back clips. These flash backs are all part of the mystery we are trying to portray, the flash backs are all so irrelevent however aim to come together at the end of the opening sequence to confuse the viewer. They will never know who is hurt and who is the killer until after the opening sequence, this is our whole idea of a thriller and was our best way of creating it in a short time period we have before the film begins. The changes we have made we hope make our storyline more like a contemporary thriller and we have gone on to show how we wish the script would be put into actions in our storyboard.

First version of our story board

First Version of our Story Board
This is the first version of our story board, each clip had a drawing of what we roughly would like the clip to look like along with a description and what the diolouge/sound will be. Instead of drawing up a whole new story board with changes that we decided to make after we had drawn it up I have indicated in a paragraph at the bottom what these changes are.

























































































































































When we went back and looked over our story board we decided to change the last 3-4 clips we will add more clips in, to emphasis the tension when the two males meet. There will be a range of short sharp close ups building up to the very moments their bodys clash. Also from shot 17-20 of the protagonists flasn backs; we will use a range of different editing techniques to make the short 1sec clips almost as if they flash on and off the screen like the increasing heart beat of the protagonist. They will fade in and out quickly along with a background heart beat. Shots 21-27 we will really create the scene of a chase, we will put a upbeat tempo score in the background and use a range of different shots such as close up on their legs running and their arms moving to show the pace of their actions is getting faster and builing up much of the suspense as to what will happen next.

Reseach into exsisting synopsis

Research into exsisting synopsis...

Casino Royale
`James Bond goes on his first ever mission as a 00. Le Chiffre is a banker to the world's terrorists. He is participating in a poker game at Montenegro, where he must win back his money, in order to stay safe among the terrorist market. The boss of MI6, known simply as M sends Bond, along with Vesper Lynd to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre from winning. Bond, using help from Felix Leiter, Mathis and having Vesper pose as his wife, enters the most important poker game in his already dangerous career. But if Bond defeats Le Chiffre, will he and Vesper Lynd remain safe?`

Terminator Salvation
`It's the early stages of the war between man and machines. And the savior John Conner is doing everything he can to make sure man survives. He thinks he's found a way to ensure that, and he also learns that the machines have targeted the man who's suppose to father him, Kyle Reese, so he tries to find him. One of Conner's soldiers meets a man named Marcus Wright who has no knowledge of Judgment Day. When they reach the base they discover Wright is part machine and suspect that he was sent by Skynet but Wright claims that's not true.`

Wanted
`A young man finds out his long lost father is an assassin. When his father is murdered, the son is recruited into his father's old organization and trained by a man named Sloan to follow in his dad's footsteps.
The anxious, clumsy and abused office clerk Wesley Allan Gibson has a hell and boring routine life: his obese boss humiliates him all the time and his girlfriend betrays him with his colleague and best friend during working period. When he meets the sexy Fox, Wesley is informed that his father was a professional killer that belonged to an ancient organization called Fraternity and killed by the skilled and powerful Cross, a hit-man that has betrayed the Fraternity. Wesley learns that his anxiety actually is a manifestation of his latent abilities and he joins the society under the command of Sloan. Trained by Fox, he changes his personality and attitude, being prepared to face the dangerous Cross and find a hidden secret.

Mission Impossible: 1996 action thriller directed by Brian De Palma and stars Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt. The plot follows Hunt's (Tom Cruise) mission to uncover the mole within the CIA who has framed him for the murders of his entire IMF team. Work on the script had begun early with filmmaker Sydney Pollack on board, before De Palma, Steven Zaillian, David Koepp, and Robert Towne were brought in.`

By looking at these four exsisting action thriller synopsis' we can see that they are all based around the idea of defeating- assasins, murderers, terrorists. They all seem to have a main protagonist who trys to escape danger in the aim from survival, they usually consist of a main antagonist or a group/organization on the hunt to kill or retrieve something- an object or power.

We liked the idea of a action thriller as we believe it gave us many options of storylines, with only 2-3 minutes for the opening sequence, the idea of a main protagonist and antagonist meant we could be creative. We wanted our film to be along the same line as the main features of many exsisting action thrillers. Such as the escape for survival and the antagonist who trys to get revenge to gain something that is rightfully his. Although we do not have the full equipment to make our opening sequence holywood style and perfect, we will use the charecters and location we will choose in the best way possible to make our opening sequence into an action thriller. We will also look into ideas of how to make our action thriller different from the rest; for example a plot twist at the end.

Synopsis

 A teenage boy left home alone finds himself in a sticky situation. Its the afternoon and we find the protagonist living his life as normal. He receives an anonymous text that sends him into a state of panic and confusion. Suddenly the protagonist bursts out of his door in a valiant effort to escape the threat to his life. Within a matter of minutes the day has turned from normal to struggle to live.

Which leads to fear and confusion he finds himself in a eventful chase that makes him wonder what has brought this act on. Angry at the protagonist . The  protagonist is pursued by a mysterious figure dressed in black, for an eventual and close shave sequence which leads to a stage were this two characters come face to face. Who is this hooded figure . Why is he pursing the protagonist and what does he intend to do to the protagonist. Watch and find out.

Bond's interest in Vesper deepens as they brave danger together and even torture at the hands of Le Chiffre. In Montenegro, Bond allies himself with Mathis, MI6's local field agent, and Felix Leiter, who is representing the interests of the CIA. The marathon game proceeds with dirty tricks and violence, raising the stakes beyond blood money and reaching a terrifying climax.

This James bond synopsis can be seen as similar to our current one due to de various objective to destroy or stop another character. This is because our synopsis holds elements of search and destroy just like the Casino Royal's synopsis which describes 007 objective to prevent the success of another character.