Friday 9 December 2011

psychological thriller - initial plot ideas

Basic ideas for our Physiological thriller opening

The initial idea we thought up was a girl suffering from delusions, and hallucinations however she is unaware that she is mentally ill and claims someone or something is out to get her but she cannot talk to anyone apart from her only trusted friend.

The basic plot of the film is as follows:

2 main characters: the leading main female character, and her friend.  

A few extras will be needed to represent the hallucinations the main actor is experience.

The opening scene consists of the main female actor talking to her female friend at a café.               She then describes to her friend at how she has been feeling strange recently, but does not establish her feelings that someone or something is out to get her. The main actor looks into the distance, and thinks she can see something, the look upon her face looks disturbed however she is abruptly interrupted as her friends asks ‘Is everything alright’ there main character looks at her female friend before hesitantly answering ‘yeahhh’  the main character looks back at what she thought she saw to realise it was gone. The scene then cuts to them walking home, they split up and the main character walks into her own house alone. A time lapse of the clock is used and the main character is sitting on her sofa smoking a cigarette alone, she is interrupted as her attention is drawn upstairs at a loud banging noise, she heads upstairs but as she does the lights flicker on the stair way, the main character does not seem to find anything upstairs and looks out the window, there is a flash followed by a figure pressed up against the window, the main actor is startled and falls backwards a second flash occurs and the figure is gone. Her attention then turns to the door banging and the phone ringing, she walks out of the front of her house looking left and right she notices a mysterious person in the distance who looks at her and moves quickly towards her, she then turns and runs back in the house where further strange things begin to happen, more banging as if someone is trying to get in, she opens the curtains and the figure is there again but vanishes as she looks away. Time laps of the clock again, followed by the character walking back to the café to have another conversation with her friend.

Although this seems block information it is only a basic idea, story boards and a structured camera shot list are to follow in the near future.



The plot of our film opening took inspiration from a variety of films the first of which was the strangers, as the majority of the film takes place in the house when strange things begin to happen, this relates to our opening as over half will be filmed from within a house, in which the female character will experience distorted reality as a result of an on-going mental illness which she is unaware she has, A strong point of our opening is that it is never established that the main actor suffers from mental illnesses leaving the audience asking questions as to what is going on, and why bad things are happening to the character.


Monday 5 December 2011

opening sequence - psychological thriller research

Themes
For mine and Harrys opening sequence activity we have decided to base the film on the genre of psychological thriller.

 The main themes we will be trying to identify during our opening sequence include:

Reality – this idea that the character will identify the realism of their life – Characters often determine what is real and what isn’t within the narrative.

Perception – the idea of the characters own opinions, point of views, and generally how they see the world around them. Usually characters may misperceive events which will affect their perception on the world throughout.

Mind –The idea of the characters location of consciousness (including personality, memory, intelligence, emotion etc..)  Usually the idea of narrative conflict is used to further alter the characters perception.

 Existence/purpose -the object for which something exists; an aim or a goal humans strive towards to understand their reason for existence. Usually the character will throughout from conflicted narrative, strive towards a purpose for their life.

Identity - The definition of one’s self.  Usually in the psychological thriller genre the character will have doubts or are confused about themselves in some way,  And try to rediscover there persona.

Death – The end of life’s journey.  Usually a character will be in fear or are fascinated in death.