Thriller Name Possibilities

Our original movie title was The Meeting, but we felt that this title had rather business like connotations and not the scary obsessive connotations we wanted for our thriller opening. So this mind map shows our thoughts about what could contribute to our thriller opening names, such as the fact that the stalker has killed a large amount of girls and will go on to kill more. Eventually, we came to the name Fixation. We chose this because it had the connotations of obsession that we wanted and is short and snappy.

Props List

This props list shows the props we will be using and what they represent in our plot.

Mobile Phone:

 The mobile phone will be used to show the connection between who the girl thinks the stalker is (which will be a picture of a teenage boy) and who the stalker actually is.

Facebook Profile of the Girl:The profile would be used near the start to show the audience who exactly the stalker is targeting.

Facebook Profile for the Stalker:The use of a profile for the stalker is similar to the use of the phone in that it shows the alias the stalker has taken up in order to deceive the girl.

Towel:The use of the towel would be when she drops it as she enters her bedroom, suggesting an immediate vulnerability and weakness, amplifying the powerful nature of the stalker.

Tights:The tights would simply be used to show the audience that the girl is getting ready to go out and that she wants to wear nice clothes.

Mascara:While the girl is applying her mascara, the camera will be zoomed in on her eyes which adds a strong sense of voyeurism to the scene.

Blusher:Blusher would be used to show that the girl is preparing to go out and wants to try and look her best.

Dress with a Zip:The main purpose of the dress is the zip itself. The closing of the zip suggests the sealing of her fate, hinting that everything has already been decided.

High Heels:

Further adding to the sense of her fate being sealed, high heels would prevent the ability to make a quick escape, adding to vulnerability and weakness.

Red Nail Polish:The red nail polish will be used together with the photo of the girl with her friend in which it will spill over onto the photo to signify the threat that the stalker poses.

Photo of the Girl and a Friend:The photo of the girl and her friend will be used in conjunction with the red nail polish in that it will be spilled over onto it.

Photo of the Girl:The girl will be cut out of the previous image of her with her friend to show that she is the focus of the stalker. This is the photo that will be used in his book.

Red Marker:

This red marker will be used to circle the girl's picture (above) and finally cross it out to suggest that she has been murdered or 'crossed off his list'. It would coordinate would the scene involving the nail polish spilling over onto the photo, once again amplifying the major threat that the stalker poses. Also, as both the nail polish and marker are red, it even further adds to the threat as people would generally associate red with blood and death.

Large Boots:The stalker wearing large and heavy boots suggests his far superior strength over the girl and that he is a powerful, frightening man.

The book is a very important prop in the entire task, perhaps the most important. The stalker shows great care when handling this book, which shows that perhaps he's proud of it or obsessed with it. There are photos of many girls throughout the book and that shows just how mentally unstable the stalker is, from both the amount of girls in the book and the quality of the book. The whole idea of the book is similar to that of the opening to 'Se7en'.

This prop list was made by Kieran, annotations were added from all members of the group.

Character Summaries

Hannah Warren (the girl):
She is 17 years old, is attending a city college and lives in the suburbs with her mother. She enjoys going out with her friends and generally likes socializing. She is fun, loving and has a very close relationship with her mother. She is also very sensitive and really likes the 'perfect guy' the stalker seems to be.

'The Stalker':
He is very obsessive about everything that he does and has a mental illness. This is reflected in the neatness of his 'book' and the time he spends recording his exploits. He lives in a small house that is very isolated, so that he can hide away from other people, and take his victims to be finished off, but it is not too far away from the city (his favourite hunting ground). He feels very different from other people and doesn't like to talk face to face with anyone, that is why he started using the Internet and fake identities to do so.

By Beth and Kristy

Thriller Opening Story Board

By making the very first scene a clock face accompanied by a ticking noise, we are following the effective thriller convention with the concept of time running out, but we are also not giving much away, which makes the audience ask all sorts of questions about the location, keeping them involved. The scene in which we see 'the girl' in wide shot sitting on the sofa is to create the feeling that the girl is small in the plot (because there are so many other girls he has and will kill) and to show that she is completely alone in the house. (there will also be a clock on the screen of the phone so that the audience is constantly brought back to the idea that time is running out.) We then go on to belittle the audience with the low angle shot up the stairs, showing that they are also vulnerable.

In this part of the opening we keep the audience asking questions. To start with we have seen the girls face but now we go back to only showing the bottom half of the body, so the audience does no know how the girl reacts to certain things. Also we get the first scene from the stalkers side, and this raise a whole load of questions about his identity. By having running water we follow another Thriller convention and we create not only a sense of being watched but also a situation where 'the girl' is vulnerable.

By continuing the low camera angle while filming 'the girl' we create a feeling of being spied on and watched. We then exaggerate this by connecting the way the stalker looks up 'the girl's' address on google maps with what the girl is doing at that point by using a birds eye shot that mimics the angle on the last shot. This is then further enforced by the close up on 'the girls' eye as she applies mascara.

By having the medium wide shot of 'the girl' applying make up, we are able to include the door in the background which again reminds the audience that the stalker is 'watching' her. The purpose of the book is to communicate the fact that the stalker is obsessive about what he does and the neatness of the book reflects this and makes the stalker even more threatening because he seems less human. The stalkers book is is very much like the one found in the opening scene of Seven, in the same way we wanted to communicate a worrying obsessive aspect of our stalker. (note, the stalker will place down the book very gently as if it is a precious artefact.)

The red nail vanish, obviously, represents the kind of threat that the 'stalker' poses. This is shown by the way we first see the nail varnish spill over the exact same picture that the stalker has just stuck into his obsessively neat book, and then the red of the nail vanish is mimicked by the next scene in which the stalker circles her picture with a red pen. Once again the audience is belittled by the camera angle up the stairs.

By placing the shot of the stalkers feet walking down the stairs directly after the shot of 'the girls' feet walking down the stairs, we exaggerate how much bigger the stalker is than the girl, again making her seem more vulnerable. By having 'the girl' do the first half of walking out of the door and 'the stalker' doing the second half we enforce the idea that they are going in a similar direction (meeting). When we film this, it will be getting progressively darker through out the opening, so by this time both 'the girl' and 'the stalker' will be walking out into the dark, and for 'the girl' and unknown danger. By ending the opening just as sharply and decisively as we started it we will leave the audience wanting more, which is exactly what is needed in a good opening. (Note, all transitions are straight simple cuts. We thought about it and decided that the way we quickly cut between the stalker and the girl, creates the exiting tense atmosphere that we wanted to achieve, so adding transitions would make it fussy.)

Drawn by Kristy and annotated by Beth

Photographs of Thriller scene locations

The computer desk where the stalker will be filmed

The living room where the girl will be on the sofa looking at the picture of the boy on her phone

The grandfather clock that will be filmed. This scene will then lead into the lounge where the girl is

The stairs that we will see the girl walk up to her bedroom to get ready

The girl's vanity table where she will get ready to go out

The shower that the girl will be in when getting ready

The chest of draws that the girl will get her tights from to put on

Thriller Opening Locations

When coming up with the initial thriller idea, I kept in mind where scenes could be filmed and I could relate certain scenes to certain places around my house. My house has a computer area suitable for the stalker, a desk for the girl to get ready at and has a Grandfather clock placed in the perfect position for smooth filming from the clock to following the girl in the lounge. As I could picture how the scenes would look in my house and how they could be achieved while making up the initial idea, it seems sensible to work with the location I have built the story around in my mind rather than trying to link it to a different location and trying to make certain scenes work that probably won’t.
Using my house for the location is also convenient for the group.

Music possiblities for our Thriller opening

While Beth and I were drawing up our story board, Kieran created a list of possible music tracks that could be used in our thriller opening. We went through the tracks as a group to pick out tracks that we thought would work best. We wanted something that would mimic the solemn and tense atmosphere that would compliment the tone of our opening. For this we chose the track 'In Remembrance' which we all thought was perfect and had an eerie quality without being over the top. We also wanted a slightly higher tempo track that would up the excitement near to the end of our piece. For this we chose a track called 'dark nightmare' which had a really effective tone of urgency. However, we are well aware hat we might change our minds when we have filmed and edited our opening, so just in case we also chose 5 other tracks that we felt weren't quite as good as the first ones we chose but might be usable if the final product is slightly different to how we imagined it.