Script

Script

A screenplay or script is a written work by screenwriters for a film, video game, or television program. These screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated.

What is in a film script?

• Dialogue: when to say it, who's going to say it, how to say it
• Movement: where to move to, what to do, how to do it
• Setting: set the scene, where does the scene take place, what is the atmosphere like
• It is in chronological order
• Narrations
• When to exit/enter a scene

We do not have a set script to our opening scene as it hasn't got any sound in the clips. However we felt like we need to add some voices over the top to add some dimensions. We recorded voice overs that we thought could be effective over the top of our film, this included screaming, cries for help, trees swaying ect. We used a sound recorder to do this however some of the clips had picked up other noises that ruined the sounds therefor we used a camera record other sounds.

We do not have a set script our opening scene because we only have one line of speech which is the police officer who says:

1  "John Roberts, we are arresting you on suspicion of murder and rape. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence." 

The beginning of the film is started as a flashback. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story's primary sequence of events to fill in crucial back story. The creator of the flashback technique in cinema was D.W Griffith. Flashbacks were first employed during the sound era in Rouben Mamoulians 1931 film City Streets, but were rare until about 1939 when, in William Wylers Wuthering Heights as in Emily Bronte's original novel, the housekeeper Ellen narrates the main story to overnight visitor Mr. Lockwood, who has witnessed Heathcliff's frantic pursuit of what is apparently a ghost.

The Storyline

The Storyline

Our film is about 6 girls, all the ages of 16 and 17, who are best friends and are always together. One night they go camping in some abandoned waste land which is surrounded by greenery. They are all drinking and most of them are smoking. One girl gets a bag of pills out of her bag and offers them round. They all take some apart from Lauren, who is very nervous and paranoid of what might happen to her so she refuses the drugs. This is very typical of Lauren so the other girls tease her which causes her to get upset and angry so she storms off on her own through the greenery.

She bumps into a middle-aged bald man who instantly makes her feel safe and secure while she is in a vulnerable state. He asks her name, her age, why she has ended up here and other things about her in general but when she asks him about his life he does not give his name away and is very secretive about other aspects of his life. He asks her if she wants to come back to his house to stay for the night because her parents don't know that she was camping out and thought she was staying at one of her friends house. As she is very scared of what her parents would say if they knew about her camping out and is in a vulnerable state, she agrees. They walk out the greenery the opposite way to the wasteland and start walking. It takes them about 20 minutes to walk to his house. He is very nice to Lauren, reminding her everything will be okay and that she is safe now, which makes her feel comfortable and safe. However Lauren notices that when they aren't having a conversation the man is constantly looking at her with a strange half smile on his face. She finds this a bit intimidating but just ignores it because she thinks he is trustworthy and is just very friendly. They approach a countryside lane, with only about 3 houses which are all spread apart from each other. 

The man tells Lauren to sit down and make herself at home in the living room. She reluctantly perches on the end of the sofa as the sofa is covered in something sticky and has dubbed out cigarettes on it. He offers her a cup of tea which she is very thankful for, as it was freezing cold outside. He takes his jacket off and wraps it round her gently and sits down next to her. She tells him that she is tired and asks if there is a spare bed available for her to sleep in. He takes her upstairs and shows her a room she can sleep in. She gets into bed fully clothed and lies down, expecting the man to leave. However he comes over and sits on the bed on the other side, but doesn't get in the quilt. He gradually moves closer and closer to her. She is aware of this so she sits up and tries to move nearer to the edge of the bed as possible. Suddenly he grabs her round by her shoulders and pulls her towards him.

"What are you afraid of Lauren?" He whispers. She tries to get out the bed but he grabs her tighter. She tries to scream but he puts his hand tightly over her mouth. She struggles to pull his hand off so he takes it off and grabs her wrist tightly. She begins to scream but as she is in so much pain she starts to cry. She asks him to get off but he wont. He climbs on top of her but doesn't hold down her arms and has his own arms on the headboard. She earlier saw there was a glass bottle on the bed side cabinet. She smashes it off the cabinet and cuts his arm. He starts to shout but he doesn't get off her just holds his wound with his opposite hand. He puts the hand round her neck, covering it in blood. He holds her neck tightly but not enough to strangle her. He then rapes her. She is now in a very vulnerable state and can't really move. She tries to reach for a piece of broken glass but the man notices and punches her, knocking her unconscious. He finds some thin rope and ties her hands together He thinks that she will be unconscious for a while so he goes downstairs. She wakes up about 15 minutes later and her hands are tied. She manages to reach for some glass and cuts the rope. It takes her a while because its hard for her to do it with her hands tied. She jumps out the window onto his conservatory then onto the ground. But as she fell she twisted her ankle causing her to scream. The man hears her and runs outside. She sees him and she leaves the back gate running as fast as she can but is now limping. She trips over and cuts her head on some gravel that's on the floor. The man catches up with her and is about to kill her when police sirens start blaring. He goes to run off round the corner but runs straight into a police officer. He gets arrested and she gets taken to the police station also, but in a different car. The police were called because Lauren's friend went looking for her and found her phone in within the trees as she accidently dropped it when she was with the man.


Storyboard

Storyboard

Feedback - Miss Spencer

Film Pitch feedback - great work on your pitch. Can you now expand this into scripts/long form film idea (a full written up film idea, not just a brief summary)
Level 3

Representation feedback - A brief look at representation - can you expand this to other groups, e.g. men, ethnic groups, ablebodied/disabled etc. How have these representations developed over the years. excellent look at how the genre has developed over the years.
level 2/3 border.

Audience research feedback - reasonable secondary research - however you now need to nbreak it doen into audience groups. Which groups like your genre (e.g. age, gender, socio economic group etc) We will be doing more on this in the class soon so you can then improve this piece.
level 2


Genre research feedback - you have done some detailed research here Katy - lots of clarity about what makes a typical thriller. 
Level 3

Film Pitch & Mindmap

Film Pitch & Ideas

Ideas for our film opening scene:

Structure Ideas;

• A cyclic structure. The ending is at the beginning of the film, then starts from the beginning and shows the events leading up to the final scene.  As the end scene is at the beginning it makes the audience wonder what is going to happen next and question why it’s happened, this also creates tension for the audience.

Horror film ideas;

• In a park in the night. The swings are moving on their own. Trees swaying in the strong wind.
• In a haunted house. Use night vision effects to create the illusion that the film is being recorded by a person and you see their version of events as you follow the person around.

Thriller ideas;

•  A police chase – use sound effects and lighting without seeing any police.
•  See the beginning of a kidnapping.
•   A plane crash – survivor.
•  A crime film – burglary, kidnapping.   

Rom com ideas;

• See a proposal at the start then rewinds to a year before and shows the events leading up to the proposal and in the end it all goes wrong and he doesn't ask her to marry him.

Favorite idea;

• I like the idea of filming in an abandoned park in the night. It would be a dark, cold, windy night where the breeze was howling and the trees are swaying vigorously. This will create a spooky atmosphere for the opening scene and also create tension. After a few seconds the howling becomes louder and the swaying becomes more vigorous then all of a sudden it all stops. When the camera turns around the swing is moving on its own and not due to the wind. The camera focuses on the swing set for several seconds before panning round the park to see the rest of the playing equipment moving on its own.
• Another idea for a horror film would be filming in an abandoned house with a few of my friends. We could all be having a night in when we hear weird noises in the house. One of the friends will be filming the entire thing on a camera as we want to be like a paranormal activity film were the camera is held by a person and the setting would be on night vision. This makes a peculiar feel as it’s not recorded by set cameras around the house. This would be more of a jumpy film than bloodcurdling.

This was our original idea for our film however when analyzing the film we came across several problems. This included not having an outdoor area that was safe to film and also we couldn't find 7 people to act in it that were available at the same time. Therefor we had to compromise and change the idea of the film. We are still using the same story line but changing the opening of the film to a more suitable and practical opening to film so that the opening would be what happened at the end (cyclic). Some of he problems that would of occurred was a area of woodland in the winter would of been cold, wet and muddy and could possibly ruin the filming equipment. Also as it gets dark early the lighting would be off and would be hard to edit as its extremely hard to pick up footage in the dark.

The idea that we came up with was to film it at a high school that we was familiar with. So we filmed it at our old high school called Wilnecote High School. We decided to have the villain and the victim walking into a police station (the school) after the crime had been committed as it was a easy place to film and only needed a middle aged male and a teenage girl. We asked one of the male teachers from the school to be in our film and he agreed, for the teenage female we asked one of our friends who is 16 years old. As well we had a police officer who was shown briefly, who was one of the teachers who's worked with the police prior to the filming therefor it came naturally to her which helped make the film more realistic. As we were no longer students at the high school we had to go to one of the deputy head teachers and ask permission to film. He allowed us to film as long as non of the students were filmed. 

Representation In Thrillers

Representation In Thrillers

Representation is portraying something in a specific way. It is so present something or stand for something. The word suggests that something was already there and might of been represented by the media. 

In films characters are represented as you find out information like social class, sexuality, culture ect without them having to directly tell the audience. This could be through characters conversations or objects around the scene that could represent it, for example if a character was religious they could have a cross symbol in their bedroom to show that they are a religious.

Stereotypes in thriller films;

What is stereotyping? The portrayal of people or paces through a few obvious characteristics.

Mr & Mrs Smith

Females are usually the victims who are vulnerable and young. Sometimes the female can be the antagonist this is usually in thrillers where the women is some sort of agent or assassin therefor she has to be cold-hearted and unattached to the victim.

The Purge

Males are usually portrayed as a strong hero, who saves the day by figuring out the enigma however in some thrillers they are the antagonist (villain) like in The Purge.

Development of thrillers;

Alfred Hitchcock's first movie was The Lodger (1926) which was based on Jack the Ripper. It was a typical psychopathic thriller as it followed the typical story line however it was a silent movie. Hitchcock's first sound movie was Blackmail (1929).

He continued to make films through the 1940's until the 50's where colour was added to his films, he produced films such as Strangers On A Train (1951) and Niagara (1953) which starred Marilyn Monroe. Niagara is a film about a women's plot to kill her husband.

In 1960 he released Psycho. In the film was the iconic scene where a women is brutally stabbed in the shower. This type of scene has been re-enacted in many other thrillers making it an icon in the thriller genre.

In the 70's and 80's Brian De Palma made several thrillers that had themes of guilt, paranoia, voyeurism and obsession. One of his psycho-thriller films was Sisters (1973) which was about dual-personalities.

At the end of the 80's the film by Phillip Noyce Dead Calm (1989) inspired many thrillers that were made in the 90's. It showed themes of being trapped and obsessions.

Throughout the 90's the theme of obsession and a agent hunting down a serial killer became extremely popular. A lot of the thrillers took inspiration from the horror genre.

Throughout the history of the thriller genre it seemed to be all about the psychological thrillers however in present day they seem to be more similar to horrors as there is more brutal behavior and violence. Some examples of recent thrillers are; Eden Lake (2008), P2 (2007), Cellular (2006), Unknown (2011), Hostage (2005).

 

Task 3.3: Target Audience Research

Task 3.3: Target Audience Research

IMDB Research

Nov 2014; 

• The most popular thriller and mystery-thriller movie is ‘Gone Girl (2014)’. The film’s star rating is 8.9.
• The most popular thriller-comedy movie is ‘The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman (2013)’. The film’s star rating is 6.4.
• The most popular thriller TV series is ‘American Horror Story (2011)’ which is also the most popular TV series out of all the genres. The series star rating is 8.4.
• A common thriller film is ‘Inception (2010)’ which IMDB star rating is 8.8.

 For 2013 the top thriller was Prisoners which is a crime/drama/thriller which got a star rating of 8.1 by IMDB.

   Jack Reacher is the top thriller film of 2012 taking a 7 star rating on IMDB.

From my research I have found out that although a thriller may not be the most popular genre, it does release high-selling movies that people enjoy thoroughly.

Mass Audience

Mass- Everybody sees it but people experience it in different ways. Media is often experienced alone.

Herbert Blumber in 1950 said; "Mass audiences are dangerous in the wrong hands eg Hitler. All mass media audiences came from all walks of life, they're anonymous groups, loosely organised"

The Mass Market:

Their isn't one audience there is specific little groups. 

Demography- the study of human population.

Demographics filter people by;

• race
• class/income
• gender
• age
• sexual orientation
• job
• religion
• disability

Also filter by age;

• under 16
• 13-15
• 16-19
• 19-30
• 30-45
• over 60

Lifestyle;

• values
• likes
• interests
• dislikes
• beliefs
• hobbies

1. Maintstreamers- 40% of the population.

2. Aspires- Want status, live off cash and credit.

3. Succeeders- People who already have status and control.

4. Reformers- Define themselves by self-fulfillment. 

Family Life Cycles:

Singles- young single people living alone

Newly Married Couples- young with no children

Full Nest 1- young married couples with youngest child under 6

Full Nest 2- young married couples with youngest child 6 or over

Full Nest 3- older married couples with dependent children

Empty Nest 1- Older married couples still in workforce, no children living with them

Empty Nest 2- Older married couples retired, no children living at home. 

I think that mainly teenagers would like to watch our film as it is a popular category for thrillers. Also from personal experience I know teenagers like the thrill of adrenaline pumping films. Also i think that singles, married couples ad full nest 3 would like them.