Thriller Production: Props

Thriller Production Props

Teenage/Young Adult Antagonists in Thriller Texts

    As the narrative of our thriller production consists of both a teenage victim and antagonist, I decided to do some research into teenage/young adult antagonists in thriller texts.


Kazuo Kiriyama

    In the film 'Battle Royale', Kazuo Kiriyama is an exchange student who joined the Battle Royale programme (a game designed to have students kill each other) for his own entertainment instead of being taken forcefully. As the game begins he rapidly becomes the most dangerous and feared player.

Lola Stone

    In the film 'The Loved Ones', Lola Stone is a high school student who kidnapped her classmate Brent Mitchell, who happened to be her latest victim with the help of her father, also her lover. It began when Lola asked Brent to prom but he rejected her because he already had a date with his girlfriend Holly. Lola and her father then proceed to torture Brent, as well as threatening to kill his mum and Holly.

Seth and Jonah

    In the film 'Seconds Apart', Seth and Jonah are twins with a dangerous ability: telepathy; their powers of which being much stronger when they work together, where they can tap into people's worst fears and cause them to hallucinate. Between them they devise a sinister film project in which they manipulate their victims into killing themselves in all sorts of ghastly ways and film it, then review the footage asking one another if he "feels it" yet. What "it" may be is never really said, but it appears that the brothers are using their telekinetic abilities to experiment with the minds of people around them in order to understand or "feel" something that they can't grasp.

Gogo Yubari

          In the film 'Kill Bill: Vol. 1', Gogo Yubari is a young associate of O-Ren Ishii and a severely disturbed 17-year-old Japanese schoolgirl who takes a sadistic delight in killing. She was O-Ren's top assassin and personal bodyguard. Although The Bride gives her the opportunity to walk away, Gogo takes her on with a large meteor hammer with sharp blades hidden within it, almost overcoming the Bride by strangling her savagely with the chain. Out of all the enemies that the Bride comes up against, Gogo is the only one that almost kills The Bride in 'Kill Bill: Vol. 1'.

Doubt

   

     Yoshiki Tonogai's manga series 'Doubt' revolves around a fictional mobile phone game called "Rabbit Doubt".The players must find the wolf, or killer, amongst their group of rabbits as they are picked off one-by-one. Six players of this game find themselves trapped in a building with one of the group already dead; to avoid the same fate, the remaining five must play a real-life game of "Rabbit Doubt" and find the wolf (liar) hiding among them.

Adam Jackson

    In 'Conflicted' - episode 20 of the 4th series of 'Criminal Minds'- Adam's mother, Rosemary, died when he was five, causing Adam's stepfather, Mark Harrison, who had been abusive towards Rosemary, to begin channelling his aggression towards Adam. Mark would beat Adam, force him to wear girl's clothes, and possibly molested him. To cope with the abuse, Adam developed an alternate female personality that referred to itself as Amanda, and took the abuse for Adam. Years later, Adam -as his alternate personality 'Amanda'-begins killing and raping males who he sees as substitutes for his step-dad. 

Lighting Effects & Camera Movement

Lighting

    For the majority of our shots -especially in the primary location of Weybourne beach- we decided to use ambient lighting to add a sense of realism to the production, as well as to make the dark costume of the antagonist Ian Moone stand out to the audience more.

    Whereas in the interior shots from our secondary location - the shed that we filmed in- we decided to use chiaroscuro lighting from a compact torch that our victim has in our narrative. We used this to highlight the crucial moment of our victim Sam - along with the audience- seeing the antagonists face for the first time, along with accentuating the shot as a pinnacle moment within our narrative.

We wanted to use this shot for when we first see our antagonist as it is similar to that in 'The Third Man' when we first see the character of Harry Lime, and resultantly realise that he isn't actually dead; as we were earlier led to believe. 

This lighting used in 'The Third Man' helps to suggests links from Harry Lime to the concept of a phantom, much like the lighting used in 'Nosferatu the Vampyre' (1929).  This link helps to reinforce the eerie feel of our narrative and character of Ian Moone, who manages to follow our victim Sam without being noticed, and when she turns around cautiously; he has suddenly vanished. 

Camera

    As to accentuate the isolation of our victim and the Weybourne beach location, we decided to use an aerial shot which not only successfully did this, but also extracted the audience from within the action and provided a change in camera movement; keeping the audience interested. As this was a very interesting and distinct feature of our production, me and Madeleine decided to create a commentary of the use of the aerial shot to explain how and why we did this:

Thriller Production: Opening Credits/Title Sequences (Fonts)

 
    As the opening credits are one of the first things we see, it is important to use a font that is fitting of our production as it may be used to set the tone of the whole text, and also influence the audience's initial response to our production.

    In 'Hansel & Gretel: Witch hunters' the opening credits are very fitting of the text and set up the audiences expectation for the production. 

    The way in which we present our credits is very important as this could also have an effect on the audience's perception of our production. By animating the text so that it fades up and out again - like in the titles of 'insidious'- makes it look like smoke, creating an eerie feeling; as well as suggesting the supernatural elements and the theme of astral projection explored within the production. In this example, the use of the opening credits is clearly very fitting of the overall text, and intrigues the audience from the very beginning. 

    In the opening credits of 'Se7en', the text flickers and twitches, which could be seen as reflective of the unstable, psychotic mindset of the murderer within the narrative - a psychotic individual being a generic thriller character type. Once again, this shows that the use of text within the opening credits is very important in setting the atmosphere for a production - further reinforcing the importance of finding a suitable and effective font choice for our production as not only will it be one of the first things that the audience sees, but it may also influence their initial attitudes towards the film. 

Independent Research: Thriller Texts - '28 Days Later'

'28 Days Later' - 2002

Director: Danny Boyle 

Screenplay: Alex Garland

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Megan Burns, Christopher Eccleston 

    About the film:  Animal rights activists free a group of infected chimpanzees to horrifying results. Waking from a coma in a deserted London hospital 28 days later, Jim takes to the deserted city streets in a state of mystified confusion. Joining forces with another group of survivors following a terrifying encounter in a seemingly abandoned church, Jim soon learns the truth behind the deserted streets and the menacing creatures that lurk in the shadows. It's soon revealed that the chimpanzees had been harboring a deadly virus that sends its victims into a furious, murderous rage, and in the days following the initial exposure, the entire population was nearly wiped out due to the resulting homicidal rampage. Is there still a glimmer of hope for humanity - or has the deadly "rage" virus found its way to foreign shores and infected the entire planet? 

    The film opens with images of violence that appear to be taken in different parts of the world. By opening the film with this, it appears to be foreshadowing the later events of infection spreading and people turning against one another - much like in the clips seen here. We later see that the shots are located in a laboratory that is using chimps in their research, due to the chimp we see laying on a medical table with it's chest cut open and organs visible. It is then that we see a group of animal rights activists break in to the laboratory - clad in dark clothing, with the setting being heavily shadowed. This helps to not only make the location seem eerie, but also helps to suggest that something bad is about to happen. Later we see one of the activists being attacked by one of the infected chimps whilst trying to set it free. This shot is filmed on a hand-held camera which helps to enforce the fear and urgency of the character before her death. 

    

    Later, we see the main character Jim - whose just woken up from a coma- exposed, laid in a hospital bed. The fact that Jim is exposed when we first see him could be reflective of the fact that he is quite vulnerable as he isn't aware of what has happened and why; as well as being reflective of the fact that he is completely on his own. He is left in an isolated hospital, which has been overturned and damaged - signifying that something terrible has happened whilst he was in a coma, and had caused everyone to flee. The use of extreme long shots of the main tourist attractions in London whilst Jim is wandering the streets helps to show the audience that there is absolutely no movement at all in one of the busiest cities, reinforcing his isolation and abandonment. The tilt shot used when he is walking through the isolated streets shows the confusion and disorientation the character is feeling at this new and unnerving turn of events. 

    The Church location Jim wanders to after leaving the hospital was used in a very interesting way. As soon as he enters we can see that the building is very dark and heavily shadowed - once again indication that something is not quite right- and is very still and quiet, uncomfortably so. This could be very significant as it could suggest that no religion or faith will help anyone and that there is no escape; as we later find out it hasn't as Jim's first encounter with the virus comes in the form of the priest from the church. 

    After meeting another survivor - Selena- they come across a block of flats in an urban location, covered in graffiti and barricaded with a massive pile of stolen supermarket trolleys; which helps to reinforce the connotations of urban areas, which is a generic thriller location. Similarly, another generic thriller location is the large staircase within the tower block that the two are chased up, building the tension and suspense within the audience. They then travel in a car -the interior of which being another generic thriller location- with the two new survivors from the tower block; a young girl named Hannah and her father Frank. Similar to that in 'Essex Boys', their journey takes them down a large, dark tunnel of which you cannot see the other side, possibly foreshadowing the fact that their journey may not end well; which is later seen with Frank being infected, a group of soldiers who try to rape Selena and Hannah with the intention to try and restart humanity, and who also attempt to kill Jim.  

Thriller Production: Storyboards

Thriller Production: Sound

    As music has a massive influence on the feel of a production and the way the audience react to it, it was very important to find the right sound for our thriller production.

    For example, in films such as '28 Days Later' and 'Requiem For A Dream', music is used to signify pinnacle moments in the narrative; reinforcing its importance both to the story and lives of the characters involved. Much of the music that is used in this way usually layers up the instrumentation and crescendos to build tension and suspense within the audience, creating a very foreboding atmosphere.

    As we want our production to be very suspenseful and eerie; we decided that having a full piece of music to accompany the action may not fit our production as it wouldn't create the right atmosphere to go with what is being shown on the screen, as well as also possibly being very distracting.

   Despite this, we still wanted to have some sound in the background - to accompany the diegetic sound - to try and build tension within the audience. This is why we decided to have a drone that constantly crescendos and builds up instrumentation in the background of our production, hopefully creating an eerie and unnerving atmosphere.

    We also decided to add a different sound for when we see our antagonist's face for the first time, hopefully creating a similar feeling of tension in the audience; as well as clearly indicating to the audience that this character is our antagonist.

    By using sound clips from freesound , it eliminated the issue of trying to find non-copyrighted/royalty free music; and also helped us to find sound that fit our mise en scene better than many of the tracks we had originally tried.