Evaluation 1

Locations

My main location was my house which was unconventional as the main location for a thriller almost always appears to be a city or a very rural location. My location also little-none signifiers to a thriller genre however the idea for my psychological thriller is how everything seems normal on the outside but its inside where the action is.

Props and costumes

In terms of props; I kept these to a minimum so that filming was easier and good acting was no required as much. In terms of conventional props in thrillers, guns are often used within the action sub-genre and I was going to potentially include one but the change in my plot meant I did not require any props I did not already have. The only item that was of importance in my opening was a fork which was used as a means to inflict pain.

Male antagonist - Wore a casual/smart shirt with a suits blazer and trousers. This implies that he is of middle-class and the fact he is shown to us early on makes us believe he is a good character; thus making the unfolding events even more unexpected and creating an enigma for the audience.

Female Protagonist - Wore a pink blouse with flowers. The pink is seen as a female colour which would therefore connote weakness and vulnerability and the flowers are also another representation of femininity.

One prop that I did use was a wine glass; we smashed it. This meant when filming we had to take safety into account so the no injuries were inflicted on anyone.

Another apparent prop I used was fork. This was used in a violent manner and had to be held sensibly so that nobody got injured or stabbed with it.

Camerawork/editing  

I used some fast paced scenes to begin with to try and build up the narrative early on due to the tight timeframe I had for the opening sequence but I then tried to slow the pace down a little bit as I did not want it to have a trailer like feel and movies within the action genre tend to have fast beginnings where as thrillers conventionally are quite slow. However the level of speed I used followed thriller conventions of building tension and suspense which would also be an important factor in maintaining audience engagement.  Another important decision I had to make was how I was going to include the titles in the sequence; this is where my influence from 'Limitless' came in - I want to have a black screen with titles appearing so sound in the form of a voiceover could be focused on without any distractions from the visuals appearing on the screen. These titles included; production companies, actors, editor, producer and directer which appeared last as this is very conventional but yet again due to a limited time, I had the restrict the prevalence each title was given. 

The effect used on the titles when they appear/disappear was used as it is effective but not too over the top so therefore more attention could be applied to the sound in this first section of the sequence. The actual title appeared at the end of the sequence as the couple minutes leading up to it were creating a climax for the catchy title to come in after; giving audiences goosebumps. I also feel the silence and lack of music used in this section could resemble the loneliness felt by the female protagonist.  In one part I used an extreme close up - this was to convey emotion and show the characters reaction to something; this is often used in thrillers and therefore I stuck to the conventions.

Title font and style
I decided to keep the font simple so that the audience could understand it and so it didn't draw attention away from the diegetic sound of my voiceover. Furthermore, I kept the text white to convey how my characters lead a boring normal life; or so it would seem. The antagonist in my story has a compulsion where everything has to be just right and how he likes it..... possibly meaning a very plain setting because he does not like clutter; the white colour represents the nondescript nature of the character.

Genre and opening
The genre of my opening is a psychological thriller and I decided on this genre as my survey results showed that this was the most popular sub-genre of thrillers amungst my target audience. The first signifier that it could be something psychological is the fact it starts with a voiceover; suggesting the audience is in somebodies head but I purposely did not include many genre signifiers because there simply are not many accessible in the psychological sub-genre - I did use emotion to try and convey the psychological aspects. Another reason for this opening was most thriller films make you think to what the sub-genre is and mine did this, thus sticking to the conventions of a thriller; moreover the tension built in the opening would suggest a thriller to the audience.

Character Introductions
The first character the audience is introduced to is the protagonist, She is introduced with a voiceover and soon after introduced during a flash back scene which also includes the antagonist of the narrative. The antagonist 'John' is introduced having an argument with the protagonist. From the dialogue shown during the credits we know something is wrong with our female character so from this we conclude John the antagonist is a character we are not meant to like. I followed the conventions of thrillers here by telling the story from the vulnerable characters perspective.