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