Opening Scenaration - Miss Miller

Our group made the controversial decision midway through editing to split all our filming into two different category’s. Narrative one and narrative two. Narrative one was the first filming we done in Repton Park where our victim is stalked and taken by our antagonist however narrative two is the second part of filming we thought necessary to do, where the victim is in a shed tied up and eventually killed. Splitting the two up made editing much more easily as we where able to apply the relevant editing techniques to convey certain effects to particular narrative parts. For example Different music is needed in the two different narratives as the second narrative focus's mostly on our antagonists madness, while the first focus's on our victims vulnerability.

When creating my thriller opening, our group tried our best to incorporate as many of the generic thriller conventions into it as possible in order to convey the shared effects of fear, tension and suspense. Our narrative begins with a low angle shot of Repton tower; this shot acts as an establishing shot to bring in our setting. There is then a fade to bring in our shot with our female victim walking home with her boyfriend down a symmetrical road, late at night. The boyfriend then kisses her goodbye and walks of camera. After the boy leaves she is left walking home alone in our isolated, yet relatable setting, where she is stalked by our antagonist. The shot is ended by black slowly covering the shot as the victim walks of camera; this is used to create an effect that our stalker is the figure that has just obstructed our cameras view. We then have a mid-shot of the girl walking across a path while looking at her phone, completely oblivious to anything that is happening. We then incorporated a POV shot of our victim texting her mum "be home soon love u" in reply to her mums text "where are you hun". Following this our female victim begins to walk through a vacant car park where after she curves her walking route our antagonist is visible in the distance and after a suspense sound accent available on garage band called ‘Suspense Accents 04’ he moves back into cover.  The next shot is fuelled by garage bands Suspense Accent 04 to build tension and is the shot where our antagonist then makes his presence aware as he walks slowly toward our female protagonist from a over the shoulder shot of our victim. After a slow, three second long reaction shot of Cara (our victim) it is clear she has been taken.

This leads to the second part of our narrative our group like to call, 'The shed'. It begins with a handheld shot of our antagonist walking down to a shed and as he reaches the door he is in complete darkness and it is nighttime. A door shutting sound effect is then used and the screen is completely black as a female voice is heard struggling. Lights suddenly turn on, blinding our victim and the audience and the victim begins to examine to room making more and more panicked sounds as another body, blood or weapon is seen. This in then followed by a POV shot from the antagonist as he approaches our victim, while wielding his weapon (knife). We chose this particular use of iconography, as is it conventional to the thriller genre. After doing some slow, obscure ritual acts, to increase tension and suspense within this part of the narrative, our shot then switches to a contrasting POV shot from our victim as the antagonist comes face to face with them and as the music fades out he lets out a sinister laugh. We then have a low angled shot of our antagonist walking away from the victim. This is used to convey his superiority over the situation as well as the victim. The music used in the background is used in the previous shots. The next shot is somewhat controversial; it brings attention to the fact that our antagonist is recording the event through the use of a CCTV effect that can be seen bellow and brings attention to his twisted mentality. The camera is above the victim looking down and this is the shot where our antagonist eventually murders our female victim as she struggles, tied up and venerable. After which the killer turns to the camera and turns it off which is illustrated in our work through the TV static effect that we inserted into the clip. Our film is then over, and so concludes our narrative.

Throughout narrative we where constantly looking for a variety of thriller conventions to use to convey the desired effects of fear, tension, suspense and desperation (particularly within our second narrative part). For example the static effect in compilation with our music that we used throughout our secondary narrative part was used to create the effects of obscurity, unpredictability and suspense, as its jumping pace and tone provoked an uneasy feel among our peers who viewed it. This was precisely the type of thriller convention we where hoping to replicate and I would argue it couldn’t of gone any better as it set the tone of our thriller narrative and conveyed the relevant effects of fear, tension and suspense.

Out of focus shots where also a key feature within our narrative. We looked to utilize them as much as possible usually on the antagonist as the mysterious and eerie feel it conveyed helped to further the fear our audience felt towards our antagonist. As it again conformed to the thriller convention of hidden identity as the antagonist was blurred at times, relative to the killers insecurity, madness and how blurred his mind is.