Harvey's Initial Ideas

My initial ideas include the creation of a comedy thriller hybrid film. My inspirations for these ideas were gathered from the Austin Powers franchise, a popular comedy series of films revolving around a spy and which included both aspects of thriller and satire humor. The film can mainly be based on action and creating tension for the audience with small jokes put in as well. I feel as if this idea is unique and unlikely to be attempted by any other group, which may lead to potentially higher marks. However, the idea will be difficult to execute, unless we work to the best of our ability.

Some humorous ideas I have are, for example, having a stereotypical evil antagonist turning to face the protagonist while stroking the air, then it being implied that a cat is not within the films budget. Subtle jokes can release some of the tension the audience has built up through the likely tense opening scenes. We can still include tense music and create a suspenseful atmosphere that will dominate the first few scenes and only make replace with humor as the film becomes darker. The target audience for this is likely to be the people in media classes like our own and other teenagers who enjoy both comedy and thriller.

Group Meeting 2: 10th November

Initial Ideas and Target Audience

After starting the meeting we began to divulge our initial ideas. Matt come up with the idea of a film called 'Roulette', where a young man is framed for the murder of a Russian mafias King Ping's wife. He struggles to prove his innocence whilst being cased down by cops, bounty hunters and assassins. 

We next heard from George, who's idea was called 'The Interrogation Room'. This is based around a prisoner being interrogated in Guantanamo Bay, where the prisoner is subjugated to torture. Will we know if he is innocent or guilty.

Ellis came up with the idea of 'Murder at the Theater', where a young woman finds a deformed body in the middle of an abandoned theater. Trapped with a murderer after her, will she manage to escape and alert the authorities? Or will she die?

Finally, Harvey admitted he had struggled to come up with an original idea but planned some jokes for a hybrid thriller, comedic thriller, which was our previous idea. 

As a group we discussed our target audience. After a bit of debating, we agreed that our preferred target audience were teenagers and young adults (15+).  

Cameo Roles

A cameo role is a character who has a significant part in the film but has been given a small role within the film itself. An example of this is Alfred Hitchcock, the director of the film, being a character who hasn't much importance in the scene.

Limitless (2011)

Narration by the protagonist explains the basis of the plot and what is happening to build suspense in the audience as well as jumping straight into the films plot.

Every piece of the opening credits is introduced with a boom or a knocking sound.

Whilst the booming sound is happening we can also hear people talking this makes the audience ask the question ‘what is going on?’ which in turn creates tension.

Cut to metal door trying to be knocked down to show that a possible antagonist is trying to reach the protagonist.

Whilst this is going we hear people saying “get this door open” whilst the door is still banging.

The security cameras in the apartment block are all broken or have lost signal. This adds to the tension to the audience and creates an atmosphere within the setting that suggests something is very wrong.

The shot showing the dead bodies lying on the floor shows the audience that something sinister has taken place, creating tension and a sense of dread among those watching.

Shot of apartment zooms out and then a CGI shot of an elevator like camera view going straight up. This creates tension by having the audience wonder what is happening inside the building. 

Group Meeting 1: 18th October

What Will We Do? 

We had the meeting other our Facebook group chat. Ellis had suggested we do a hybrid Thriller Comedy. This intrigued the group and Harvey agreed saying that we could pull it off if we worked hard enough and that if it is unique enough we could get A grades. Ellis responded saying we could make it based around crime if we could find similar films to research.

 

We find that using Facebook Messenger is extremely helpful, and makes communication outside of school much easier.

Music & Sounds

Jaws

Stephen Spielberg, the director of Jaws, uses a simple use of two continuous notes. The music has been adjusted to speed up to create an excited, anxious, scared feeling. All these feelings create tension within the audience. This makes the audience feel on edge even though we know what is likely to happen. When we hear the music we instantly associate it with Jaws. The music was the main feature of the film due to the association of the two basic continuous notes with a series of films.

Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock, the director of Psycho, uses a sharp tone to create a feeling which either makes the audience jump with excitement and fear or to create a feeling which shoots straight through your body. Before the sharp tone, there is silence until the antagonist strikes and then the sharp music attacks. This can help the audience infer that there is danger or violence. It makes the hair on your back stand up and when the film first come out in 1960, people literally were terrified of this film because it played with you psychologically. 

Inception (2010)

The music during the showing of the production companies is powerful and builds tension as the music becomes stronger as we get closer to the beginning of the film (the scene with the water). When we see the crashing of the waves, the music mutes to so all we hear is the water crashing which helps us understand where we are. The director has chosen to use many close ups on the protagonist because doing this tells the audience that he is the main character. The sound of the children playing becomes muffled and echoed to give the effect that there is water in our ears. The children playing shows a hint of innocence due to a child being a stereotype of innocence. When we see the man with the gun, the director uses a low angle shot to look up to him showing that he is more powerful than the protagonist at this moment in time.

We then get a wide shot of the landscape and a house to show us that the people who has found him are antagonists. We then get a shot of the main antagonists back which emphasises that he is ‘top dog’ and makes the audience see how dominating he is compared to everyone else in the scene. We have a close up on a gun and a spinner which shows that they have an importance in the film and this to be the start of a quest. There is then a wide angle shot of the room showing the audience where we are and potentially how rich the antagonist is.

After a small introduction to the antagonist and protagonist, we suddenly cut to another period of time showing another conversation and confusing the audience due to being jumbled around. The protagonist we see earlier is in this scene so this may tell the audience that we have gone into his memories of another meeting in that particular household.