edited script for thriller opening sequence

Edited Script for Media:

Characters: 3 bad guys, spy, spies’ wife and daughter.

Main bad guy = Saeed

Spy = Simon

Saeed:  Tell me about your involvement with the Russians.

Simon: What the fuck are you talking about?

Saeed:  This is no time for games. Tell me about zulu 101 or your family will die. 

Simon reacts by spitting at the terrorist

Saeed: Hits the spy and phones his colleague, says in foreign language “Get them ready”

Saeed: My family and all my friends are dead because of your people and now a member of your family will die because you have not obeyed my orders.  (Holds up camera phone to Simon) Choose which one will die now. Your wife or your child?

Simon: (crying) please…don’t do this.

Saeed: (interrupts his crying) do what I say!

Simon: (Silent)

Saeed: (foreign language “Kill the wife”)

Simon: (looks at the camera and sees wife getting shot, starts screaming and crying) Noooo!

Saeed: (Puts the gun up to his daughters head) Tell me or your daughter will be next!

Simon: (Stares at the camera and sobs)

Screen fades into black and title appears

THE END

Why we changed the Script

We changed the script because we felt that using a piece of paper in our opening sequence would be unrealistic to our audience as it wouldn't relate to any past events in todays society.  Therefore, we chose to relate our opening sequence to the war for independance in Chechnya where Russia essentially bombed and killed thousands of Chechnyan people. 

Our Final decision was therefore, to have Chechnyan terrorists who were questioning a British Spy (their hostage) on the British Government involvement with the Russians about this war.  We found that England was also unrealistic as our location because if terrorists went to another country, they wouldn't linger:  they would make their attack and then leave the country as soon as possible.  Because of this, we chose to have a British Spy who was working and living in Russia (with his family) for the Government after the Cold War. 

From Wikipedia: (summary of event we are relating our opening sequence to)

Grozny was once again the core of fighting after the outbreak of the Second Chechen War, which further caused thousands of casualties. During the early phase of the Russian siege on Grozny on October 25, 1999, Russian forces launched five SS-21 ballistic missiles at the busy central bazaar and a maternity ward, killing more than 140 people and injuring hundreds. During the massive shelling of the city that followed, the majority of the Russian artillery were directed toward the upper floors of the buildings; although this caused massive destruction of infrastructure, civilian casualties were much less than in the first battles. The huge scale of the devastation prompted numerous comparisons with Hiroshima and other cities leveled during World War II.
The final seizure of the city was set in early February 2000, when the Russian military beckoned the besieged militants to a promised safe passage. Seeing no build-up of forces outside, the militants agreed. One day before the organised evacuation, the Russian Army mined the path between the city and the village of Alkhan-Kala and concentrated most firepower on that point. As a result, both the city mayor and military commander were murdered; a number of other prominent separatist leaders were also killed or wounded, including Shamil Basayev and several hundred rank-and-file militants.  Soon after, the Russians slowly entered the empty city and on February 6 raised the Russian flag in the centre. Many buildings and even whole areas of the city were systematically dynamited. A month later, it was declared safe to let the residents return to their homes, although demolishing carried on for some time. In 2003 the United Nations called Grozny the most destroyed city on earth.

Mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene is the most important part which we had to think in depth about as if we don’t have a realistic set, props, make-up and clothing our thriller wouldn’t look professional. The mise-en-scene sets the scene for the audience, allowing them to connote the messages we want to portray to the audience subconsciously.

Simon, (spy) will be wearing a casual suit; jeans with a shirt, and a long blazer as he will be thinking that he will be going to work that morning.  He will be wearing posh shiny shoes, his hair will be short and black; it will be clean and have a small amount of gel in, to keep it off his face and he will be clean shaven looking very smart. But when he is on camera his hair will be messy and his face will have small bruises on it and some blood, his shirt will be slightly ripped conveying that there had been a struggle also. His clothes will be slightly wet from sweat.     

Saeed, (terrorist) will be dressed the smartest as he is the main terrorist and has the most dialogue.  He will be wearing a full suit, (black suit, trousers, white shirt, black blazer and black shoes.) he will have a beard and maybe be wearing a small gold chain and a few gold rings.  The other terrorist will be dressed slightly more casual wearing black baggy jeans (or dark blue) with a black t-shirt with a big black coat. The two of them will be wearing balaclava’s disguising their identity. 

The wife will be wearing a t-shirt cardigan and jeans, her clothes will also be ripped and will have sweat on them looking slightly wet. The child will wear a pink t-shirt with a print on with either skinny jeans or shorts and tights.

There will not be any artificial lighting as we want the set to be dark. So we will use natural light and maybe a spot light directed at Simons face. This will be harsh on his face and will allow the audience to see clearly his fear and sweat on it.

For make up, we will be using fake blood, which will be applied onto Simons face and shirt: it will also be applied onto the wife and child. This will be used to allow the audience to connote that there has been violence before they were captured. We will use stage make up to give the effect and look of bruising, which will also reflect the struggle. We will use a small amount of black eye liner on Saeed to exaggerate his eyes making him look more sinister and evil.

We will need two fake rifles, which the terrorists will have around their body.  This will allow the audience to connote that they have power over their hostages. Saeed will have a hand gun, which he will have in his hand at all times again being a symbol of power. We will need three chairs, which Simon, his wife and child will be tied to. They will just need to be ordinary wooden chairs with no wheels; we decided this so there is no way they would be able to escape. We will need plastic ties also so we can attach the hostages’ hands together; this will make the hostage situation seem more real and believable. We will also attach their ankles to the chair legs ensuring they won’t be able to move once they are in the chair. We will need a video camera on a tripod situated in front of Simon, which will also be recording but with the camera display up. There will have to be a mobile phone that Saeed will have that he will use a few times when contacting the other terrorists.

We decided to set our thriller in the green room as we will be able to set the background to anything we want. As we will only be shooting in one room we decided it would be easier to just set the green room the way we wanted. We will be able to place Simon in the centre of the room or maybe slightly in the corner. We can make the floor dirty and make it look as if it was in a desolate house in a room secluded from reality.

When deciding what the props will be we watched parts of a few films which people have been tied up by either by burglars, police or just messed up people. From ‘Taken’ we got the idea of sweaty clothes and being tied onto solid objects. From ‘Strangers’ we got the idea of hiding their identity but instead of using masks we have decided to use balaclavas. From ‘Saw’ we decided to use the blood aspect making the hostage situation seem more real. From ‘Hostage’ we decided to use the idea of the hostages being tied onto chairs in an empty room. This was good research on making the mise-en-scene for our thriller as realistic as possible.         

      

opening sequence analysis

MONSTERS INC



The opening sequence of Monsters Inc introduces the company and credits of the production team that created the film.  The jazz music backing these titles is cheery and creates a happy atmosphere, which sets the genre of the film (family and comedy), making it accessible of children.  Furthermore, the bright colours used adds to this atmosphere, which appeals to a family audience and is entertaining. The sound can also appeal to an adult audience because they can relate to it and appreciate it more than just something fun to listen to.

The opening sequence also displays animations of monsters, a key feature of the film as well as the doors in  which the monsters travel through to enter the human world.  Consequently, this emphasises that the doors and the monsters are an important part of the films plot, which is supported once the film has begun.

Walt Disney is a Media conglomerate, which is a parent company of Pixar animation Studios that produced the film Monsters Inc.  Pixar's opening sequences for their feature films all have a similarity of being colourful, animated and fun to listen to as they are all the same genre and therefore appeal to a similar target audience.  An example of this is The Incredibles title sequence:

SCRIPT FOR THRILLER OPENING SEQUENCE

Characters: 3 bad guys, spy, spies’ wife and daughter.

Main bad guy = Saeed

Spy = Simon

Saeed:  Read it.

Simon: what is this?

Saeed:  this is no time for games. Read it or your family will die. 

Simon reacts by spitting at the terrorist

Saeed: Hits the spy and phones his colleague, says in foreign language “Get them ready”

Saeed: My family and all my friends are dead because of your people and now a member of your family will die because you have not obeyed my orders.  (Holds up camera phone to Simon) Choose which one will die now. Your wife or your child?

Simon: (crying) please…don’t do this.

Saeed: (interrupts his crying) do what I say!

Simon: (Silent)

Saeed: (foreign language “Kill the wife”)

Simon: (looks at the camera and sees wife getting shot, starts screaming and crying) Noooo!

Saeed: (Puts the paper in front of spy) Read it or your daughter will be next!

Simon: (Stares at the paper and sobs)

Screen fades into black and title appears

THE END

second group meeting

Thriller Idea

Crime Thriller - Another idea from first group meeting

Crime Thriller for Blog

Zizek - First Group Meeting

Casino Royale’ opening sequence

Interview on Target Audience

To get an idea of the sort of things that our target audience would like in a Thriller film, we conducted a couple of interviews at our school, which conveniently were the correct age group.  This was an attempt to make our film as popular as possible.  


Interview 1

1. What is your favourite film genre? Why?
Psychological thriller; I like being kept on the edge of my seat and having to think about the film I am watching. 
2. What is your favourite film? Why?
Shutter Island; because the script was interesting with great actors within the film. I enjoyed that suspense and the confusion of whether Leonardo Dicaprio's character was really insane or not. 
3. Given the choice would you rather watch a thriller or a chick flick? Why? 
Definitely a thriller; I prefer the fast pace of thrillers rather than a comedy type film that ends up with nothing for you to go away thinking about. 
4. How often do you watch thrillers? 
I always choose thrillers in any situation so I would say I watch a thriller at least twice a week, (as I am in boarding school.)

Interview 2

1. What is your favourite film genre? Why?
Horror; I like being scared when watching a film making your heart beat quicken and making you wince as the suspense builds. 
2. What is your favourite film? Why?
Saw 2; there is a lot of suspense with lots of quick movements from the camera man which keeps me on edge. I love this film with the realistic gore scenes and the brilliant set. 
3. Given the choice would you rather watch a thriller or a chick flick? Why? 
Thriller, they always have better story line. 
4. How often do you watch thrillers? 
I would say at least three times a month, I way prefer new thrillers rather then old school ones. 

Horror and Thriller were the two most popular film genres chosen and therefore, we have decided to incorporate these two genres, using the suspense and fast camera movements similar to the horror genre. Also we would like to make the audience to be left thinking about the film, having to work out parts for themselves, which may encourage people to re-watch the film boosting popularity.

opening sequence of thriller idea

The movie begins with a young girl about 8 in her bedroom playing with her toys and singing. The room would be white and neat, suggesting innocence, which would give off a false impression of the girl to the audience. The girl is sitting in her room having a dinner party with her dolls when the camera starts to zoom out slowly. As the camera zooms out you soon see blood on the white, clean floor and the girl’s parents lying there dead. At this point, tense, jumpy music has been brought in once you see the parents while the young girl is still having her dinner party ignoring them and still singing. This would change the atmosphere completely and the view of the girl: the opening title of the movie ‘…’ would then appear with a sound of the young girl laughing in the background. However, I could also just have the young girl singing throughout the whole of the sequence without any other sound which might make seeing the parents even more shocking for the audience. After this the image would fade into darkness and the opening sequence would end.

Preferably it would be nice to have the girl with dark brown/black hair. However, that might be too much of an obvious choice to the audience so I could have her looking completely different. I would include mid shots and close ups of the girl sitting at the table and also some close ups of the scary looking dolls. When the camera zooms out to show the parents, I would also have it from a birds-eye point of view, looking down on them lying on the floor.