At the very beginning when we were put into groups, all three of us agreed we were going to create an opening sequence of a horror/thriller/mystery. We decided this immediately because after looking at the work form previous years that was the most successful. Additionally, this seemed to be the genre we could be most imaginative with. We kept a number of conventions typically from the genre in order to please our target audience: a villain who kills for a reason clear to him, insane to others. As well as this, obviously suspense and the build up of a story line is a convention of any film, not just of the psychological thriller, however due to the fact our film is planned to make you think the build up of the mind games is a vital convention.
Analysing our opening sequence in more detail every aspect of it included the expectations of a psychological thriller. We used a soundtrack of twinkle little star and distorted it so just hearing it made every muscle in your body tense; not your typical soundtrack to a thriller but it still had the same effect if not a better one. By not showing the face of our Toymaker we kept to the conventions of a psychological thriller because at the start of the film you can't give everything away and this is a key element that adds to the suspense.
We also had a lot of close up shots of buttons and sewing utensils to illustrate clearly what was happening. This is similar to the film Coraline (2009) which is an animated film that has an entire opening sequence practically the same as ours.
The detail in each shot is exactly what we were aiming for. The difference is Coraline is a children's fantasy and we switched the convention to suit a psychological thriller. The fact we did not animate makes it a lot more realistic and shocking to the eye.
Every prop we used we thought about the impact it would have on our sequence. We pinned up countless images, negatives, drawn pictures etc to make the set look busy reflecting the Toymaker's twisted and confused mind. We also used an old table top and scratched it up as well as tea staining it. When arriving on location the day of filming we literally scattered buttons all over the table along with thread, measuring tape and we even got a sewing machine on the table. This set up the perfect Toymaker's work station and so set the scene for our audience to cringe and squirm uncomfortably the whole way through the first few minutes. That is the effect we wanted and that is how we attracted the audience because our target audience enjoy watching films that can control your emotions in this way.
Furthermore, the different shots and camera angles we used attracted our audience because they were well thought out and fit the position in the frame so that it portrayed what we wanted it to. For example, one particular panning shot of the work station showed a glass of wine illustrating a possible drinking problem, a picture of a little girl who is the subject of the entire doll making process, a tape measure that is being fiddled through the Toymaker's fingers drawing attention to the touch of the psycho. We had all of this information in just one shot and this would appeal to our audience as it would give them a lot to think about.
Over recent years a lot of abduction films have been made such as Along came a spider (2001)
and Taken (2009) so the idea behind someone being abducted is in the eye of the media a lot more. Even without the production of films, cases such as Madeline McCann in the media raises the social awareness of the sadness that it does happen. Having considered that other films have been made we needed to make our original. So instead of having the typical police chase finding the killer we have the Toymaker playing direct mind games with the parents of the girl he has snatched. Additionally, the fact that dolls are used as a theme and a prop for a thriller is an original idea.
To summarise, our film has successfully addressed our target audience as it has a perfect balance of typical code and conventions of psychological thrillers, as well as incorporating our own original ideas to embrace the audience and appeal to them.
No comments:
Post a Comment