Research and Planning 11: Audience Feedback

Videos of our Audience Feedback

We decided it would be best to get people in our class and of the age group (17-25) to read over our synopsis and feedback to us on what they thought. Here are some videos to illustrate this:

This is Oscar explain what he likes about our sequence and what he thought worked well. He liked the idea that it was set in the 1980s and he liked the link to the Cray twins. 

Although Matt and Alex found this interview a bit awkward and funny at times they explained how they like the idea of a fast paced chase scene and how we could improve on the information supplied for the killing of Spark and Bruce's gang leader.

Ryan explained how he thought our idea of a chase scene was 'original' (although we do not completely agree) and how he liked the history behind the characters. He liked the fact we left a lot for the audience to guess at as this creates enigma. 

Jacob liked the loyalty of the characters and the fact that it was based in England compared to an American gangster film. He liked the fact that our opening sequence starts with conflict as this would grab the audiences attention straight away. 

We believe that due to the positive feedback we received our thriller opening will be effective because of the build up of character and enigma throughout the sequence.

Research and Planning 10: Composition

Composition is incredibly important in thriller films. They allow the audience to focus on more than one thing in the frame at any one time. It is key that our composition is balanced, otherwise having one character taking up too much of a frame can draw the audience away from the other sections of the frame. This can cause issues when trying to build enigma and tension, especially in films where the main focus of the frame is behind a character. An example of this is shown below.

This is a scene from the film Drive (2011) where the woman in the background is the main focus of this scene. As you can see, despite Oscar Isaac taking up half of the frame and Carey Mulligan being out of focus, she is still the main focus of the scene. During this shot, you can see her body language change and her facial expression, all while Oscar Isaac's character dominates the frame. The audience will be able to pick up on the subtle shifts in her facial expression and body language, even if the other character is taking up most of the frame.

This is what we will be doing with our characters in our sequence. An example where a balanced composition can be used is during the final sections of the chase between JD and Spark. Towards the end of the chase, we have an over the shoulder shot of Spark looking back, revealing JD in hot pursuit. This composition will be much like the example of Drive. Spark's shoulder will be taking up the bottom right/bottom middle section of the frame, whilst JD will be positioned in the middle/towards the top left of the frame. Despite the focus of the camera switching to JD, the audience will able to see Spark's shoulder and will even be able to make out his frightened facial expression as JD closes in on him.

It should be noted that although we intend the main focus to be on our characters and their chase through the woodlands, we aim to show the scenery of our setting using still shots and medium long/long shots. By doing this, we will be able to perfectly frame our characters' chase and allow the audience to notice their surroundings so that they can use this knowledge to raise questions about the characters' location.

Research and Planning 9: Lighting

When it comes to lighting in our thriller opening sequence, he have opted to go against using it throughout most of the sequence. The reasoning for this is that the woodlands in which we will be filming our opening sequence is very bright. At the current time of year, there aren't too many leaves that would shroud the woodlands in darkness. We felt that because we're attempting to create an enigmatic, eerie and sinister setting, the use of lighting wouldn't help to create that effect. Some examples below show the brightness of the woodlands.

However, in certain shots such as the close up of Spark's face as he looks between the tree in search of JD, we may decide to use low key lighting if it's dark enough. The branches and the remaining leaves overhead may make it dark enough for us to use low key lighting, though it is doubtful. As well as this, because JD is wearing a mask to hide his identity, we didn't feel like it would be beneficial for our sequence if we attempted to use lighting to make JD appear more mysterious as he is already unknown to the audience purely because of the mask.

It should also be noted that the natural lighting in the woodlands provides a clear enough picture for the audience to clearly see the emotions of our characters through their facial expressions, body language, and in JD's case, his eyes. The natural lighting is enough to build enigma and allow the audience to question what type of people our characters are.

Research and Planning 8: Facial Expression and Body Language

Facial expression 

During our sequence both characters experience different types of emotions from being in pain due to violence to being anxious about being shot. We hope that the audience can experience what our characters our to some level. Using techniques like extreme close ups and POV shots will help our audience's understanding in their level of emotion. Although these characters are both antagonist this does not mean that our audience can not feel the same level of emotion or feel empathic in the understanding of their thoughts.

During the process of our planning for the sequence we carefully decided on different camera angles which would be best suited to capture to realism of our character's emotions. The eyes are one of the best ways to read someones emotions and we have included several shot reserve shot close ups so that the audience can understand in contrast how each characters feels. The common emotion which will be conveyed through the facial expressions of our character's will be anxiety and anger. These two emotions are common between these types of antagonists as they are commonly feeling anxious about the crimes they have committed and the anger they share about being unsuccessful.

Here is the film snatch where the main antagonist is seen to be looking angry. This is shown through the frown of the mouth and the wide eyes.

Here is another shot of this character looking even more angry. This is shown through the raise of the eyebrows and the open mouth with the teeth showing. 

We hope to create similar shots thorough the close ups of emotions through our main character JD as he is seen to be an angry character. We will use the gritted teeth and the raised eyebrows in our sequence to portray this level of anger.

Body language

Our Sequence features two angry men who are both angry for different reasons. The body language helps the audience to understand what our characters are feeling to a certain extent. We all share similar emotions and it is commonly known that an open posture is considered to be more confident than a closed posture. For example if someone is seen to be spreading their arms and legs wide apart then this is commonly associated with more confident behaviour whereas a closed posture (arms folded with head looking down and perhaps avoiding eye contact) suggests a lack of confidence and even feeling exposed or threatened. 

This is a video from YouTube which helped us understand what certain types of posture and body language helped to convey. 

Our main character - JD - will be seen to have an open posture with his arms and legs spread wide apart whereas our other character - Spark - will be seen to have a more closed, unconfined posture. This will help our audience understand who is the alpha male in this sequence. The violent behaviour of our characters will help support the idea that they are gangsters as this is typical of these types of characters. Another point to consider is the hands being used to express emotion, for example: Spark in our sequence will be seen in a POV angle to be looking at his hands which will be shaking, and in comparison with JD his hands will be clenched tight to support his angry mannerism. 

This picture helps to illustrate our idea of being angry as this man is seen to have his fists clenched as well as having his eyes wide open with his eye brows raised.

The picture of this man helps us to explain about being anxious as he is touching his face (something which is typically seen in closed body language - this is self comforting) which shows his anxiety through the use of closed body language.

It should be noted that all of our actors will be fully briefed on what position their body should be in and what their facial expression should be for each shot in order to fulfill the realism of the sequence. We want the audience to feel immersed by the sequence and not disconnected by the unrealistic performance of our actors. The sequence must be believable, otherwise it looks unprofessional (and the audience will be able to see this).

Research and Planning 7: Hair, Make-up and Colour

Hair

We believe that our characters will need slick smart-looking hair as a lot of similar films like 'Lock Stock and Two smoking barrels' and 'Snatch' feature gangsters with these smart-style hair cuts. This contrast with the smart style hair works well with their clothing attire which will most likely be black, smart clothing, will compliment each other as people who are associated with smart clothing are less likely to commit crime. The way these characters will be dressed will contrast this and will work with character building along side their hair styles.

Having smart hair is normally associated with wealthier people and wealth is something which most gangsters seek so it could be argued that they are trying to create a fake identity by dressing as such so it makes them seem wealthier and therefore more powerful. Through research into similar types of films this is a typical characteristic of 'gangsters', so this is why we believe this will work.

Here is a picture from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels where all these characters are dress relatively smart with smart looking hair styles. 

Make-up and colour 

Typical gangsters are seen to have scars - perhaps due to previous gang fights or even stab wounds because of the violent behaviour they take part in. Our chase scene features one of our main characters - Bruce - getting punched in the face at the start of the sequence. We believe that using black and green make up is the best way to create a bruise for our injured character. Due to research on Google one of the top results was this:

Firs layer: applying black make-up (eyeshadow)

Second layer: applying a light amount of purple to show blood has risen to the surface. 

Using these two colours will help to create a more realistic start to our opening sequence as these two colours, black and purple, are typically seen used as special effects for a bruise. 

This picture helps to illustrate our idea about using black and purple in this sequence as part of our make-up and also colour.

The setting of the woods holds a variety of colours, which all will appear to be natural - greens and browns mostly. This will help make the more important colours in our sequence stand out in contrast to them. The colour red will be a big contrast to these natural colour that our setting provides. Our main characters Spark will have a scar on his face to symbolise how he is associated with danger and violence. Researching into 'fake scars' on google gave us many results and most of which gave videos  tutorials on how to make fake scars - a lot more simple than we thought! Only a limited amount of make-up needed which helps with our expenses too. 

We found this picture which we thought was really realistic for a homemade scar.  We are hoping to achieve a similar effect with our character Spark. 

Here is the site which gave us the tutorials on how to make fake scars and also people gave reviews on how successful they were in creating these scars. 

Research and Planning 6: Props and Costume

Costume

A lot of thought has gone in to what sort of costumes our characters will be wearing in our opening. One of our characters, JD, will be wearing a mask to hide his face. Not only will this keep his identity hidden, generating a sense of mystery, but will also inflict fear upon the audience as he carries quite an eerie yet frightening presence. This too will create enigma for the audience.

(Erol will be purchasing this mask)

Our main protagonist, Spark, is part of a gang. Our film is set in the 1980's so we will be dressing the actor who plays spark in mobster clothing from that time period (e.g. black suit, black tie, perhaps a trench coat etc.). To make it seem more natural, we will be carefully adding mud, rips and tears to his costume to make it seem as though he has been running through the woods for a while.

Our other character, Bruce will only be featured briefly at the beginning but he will still be in costume and will wear similar clothes to Spark due to the fact that they are part of the same gang.

Representation of Social Groups

In terms of representing social groups through our characters, the costumes of our protagonists and antagonist are all similar. They wear black suits, ties etc. The fact that they all wear the same costume shows that they follow the ideology that gangsters must look intimidating and powerful in order to get their way. As well as this, their costumes help to represent class and order within their social group. Suits and ties are usually associated with businessmen, and it is commonly thought that if you deal in business, you're a wealthy individual who can afford luxuries. It also establishes order within the social group. Instead of the characteristics of their costumes making them look as though they're uncivilized swines, they are formal, which represents a civilized and organised ideology. It should be noted that their clothing shows signs of masculinity as men are well known for wearing suits.

    Props

In our sequence we will not require that many props, as it is mostly about the actual chase. We will need to get a gun for the section of the scene where JD shoots at Spark and also for the match on action shot. We may decide to use knives for the melee fight between JD and Spark but it is unlikely due to the fact that their fight is fast paced and there won't be much time to pull out knives to fight.

(Erol will be purchasing the gun highlighted above)

As I do drama I should be able to borrow props and costumes from the department with their permission. If I am unable to gather any of the props for whatever reason, Erol has agreed to purchase the props that we need.





Research and Planning 5: Storyboard and Continuity

(It should be noted that in the video, a lot of time we say angle when we mean shot. This includes things such as mid angle and side angle (We actually mean mid shot and side shot))

Paper plan of our shots (1-26)

shots 34-40

The final scene was planned in more detail as we believe this final scene is important as here it will be where our audience decide to carry on watching. 

Number of shot	Action in shot	Camera angle / shot	Shot duration (seconds)
1	Bruce falls to ground	Mid shot, low angle	2
2	JD turns to Spark	Over the shoulder shot	2
3	Extreme close up of Bruce’s face	Extreme close up	1
4	Extreme close up of Sparks face	Extreme close up	1
5	Extreme close up of JD’s eyes	Extreme close up	1
6	JD starts chasing after Spark	Over the shoulder shot of JD	3
7	Spark running through the woods	Shown through a POV shot	2
8	JD running after Spark	Show from a worm’s eye view	2
9	Bruce shown to be unconscious laying on the floor	Shown from a high angle	2
10	JD running after spark	Shown through a POV shot	3
11	Both characters shown to be running in frame	High angle, long shot – two shot	3
12	JD appears to be limping (match on action of his legs will show the determination of this character as it will show despite his injury he is still willing to carry on and fight. This will allow the audience to build up in their what sort of character he is. Continuity editing will help in this process)	Shown through a mid-shot and a close up	2
13	Spark appearing to be out of breath, stops behind a tree	Low angle, long shot	5
14	Spark leans on tree with his hands on his knees ( Spark will experience a blur in vision and as this is a POV shot which will help the audience understand what this character is going through and what he is experiencing. This will help aid their image of this character and how he is more vulnerable compared to JD.)	POV shot	3
15	JD shouts some German dialogue	Mid shot	3
16	Spark dodges bullet and make a run for it	Close up	2
17	JD drags his leg as he limps through the mud	Long shot	4
18	Spark falls over	Worms eye view	3
19	JD catches up with Spark	Over the shoulder shot	2
20	Spark brings JD to the floor	POV shot	2
21	JD falling to the ground (A match on action of this shot will allow the audience to understand the further determination but also the struggle this character faces during the opening sequence. The match on action is to illustrate the pain this character is going through.)	Mid shot	1
22	Spark kicks JD in stomach	Low angle	2
23	JD screams in pain	Extreme close up	1
24	Spark carries on running	High angle, Mid shot	3
25	JD fires a shot at Spark	Eye level	2
26	Spark dodges the bullet	POV shot from JD	2
27	JD is shown to be out of breath and in pain	High angle	5
28	JD attempts to get up (A match on action will be used in this shot to help illustrate the struggle this character faces through his injuries. It also shows how he is determined to get back up - which links with character building.)	Close up of JD	3
29	Spark runs but looks behind him to check where JD is	Extreme long shot	2
30	Spark looking over his shoulder	POV shot	2
31	JD picks up the pace	High angle – show increased pace in comparison with spark	3
32	Spark also picks up the pace	Mid shot	2
33	JD running fast	Tracking shot	2
34	JD looking angry	Worms eye view	2
35	Match on action of JD holding his stomach in pain	Close up	2
36	Spark continues to run	Camera is still, close up shot with JD in background	3
37	Run into an open part of the woods - more isolated	Over the shoulder shot behind JD	2
38	Spark looking scared	Extreme close up of Spark	2
39	JD fires a shot at Spark	POV shot of JD	1
40	Spark falls to ground immediately	High angle	1
41	Spark’s vision blurs as JD removes his mask. JD fires another shot after removing his mask. (During the final stages the audience will be able to experience what Spark is experiencing as his vision blurs in a POV shot. After this JD will remove his mask and shoot again. But because of editing it will be hard to tell the fate of Spark as it will cut to black.)	POV shot, Close up	10

Research and Planning 4: Target Audience

The thriller genre relies heavily on two things: ENIGMA and ACTION. When looking at a specific target audience (in our case 17-25), you have to look into what they enjoy the most. Thriller films are most successful when they incorporate all three of these factors, however, not all people enjoy enigma; not all people enjoy suspense; not all people enjoy action. Because of this, some thriller films rely completely on one of these factors to make it successful. Depending on the type of person you are, you will enjoy different things.

Enigma Thrillers

When it comes to thriller films that rely heavily on the mystery of the situation, Mise en Scene and Camerawork play a big role in making it successful. To be more precise... the costumes, setting and lighting of Mise en Scene and the use of angles for Camerawork.

Costume

The use of costumes in thrillers are incredibly important as give the audience a sense of what the character/s are like (e.g. their personality, their background etc.). Costumes work together with the story in the sense that it keeps the audience guessing about the nature of the character; what are their intentions in the film; who do they represent (protagonist, antagonist etc.).

Setting

Settings are a key use of Mise en Scene when creating a thriller that relies heavily on enigma. It works incredibly well with non-chronological plots as it keeps the audience guessing about why characters are in certain settings.  For example, The Bourne Ultimatum drops the audience right into a chase scene. They have no prior knowledge and are unaware of why Bourne is in the location that he is. In order to work out what is going on, the audience have to pick out details in the setting that give them clues about where and why characters are in certain locations. This shrouds scenes like the example given in mystery, keeping the audience interested and wanting to find out how a character ended up where they are.

Lighting

Lighting can be used to aid in creating mystery for characters. With characters, a good use of lighting would be low key lighting. Low key lighting allows filmmakers to mess around with the lighting in certain areas by illuminating one area and shrouding another. A good example of creating mystery using this type of lighting would be a henchman talking to his boss. Whilst low key lighting is used to illuminate the henchman, it shrouds his boss. By doing this, the audience are able to start thinking about what type of individual each of the characters' are (e.g. the henchman has been revealed by the lighting so it is likely that he is not an important character and possesses little power, whilst the boss is completely covered in darkness. Does the darkness represent connotations of pure evil? Is he the main antagonist of the film?). Low key lighting is an excellent technique to use when enigma is the heart and soul of your thriller film as it keeps the audience guessing.

Angles

Angles are very useful for character building. By using tilts to hide features of certain characters (e.g. their face), using low and high angles to show what type of character they are (e.g. intimidating, sly etc.), you can create a lot of mystery behind characters whilst giving the audience clues as to what characters are like, aiding them in piecing together how a character came to look and behave like they do.

Action Thrillers

When it comes to thrillers that rely heavily on the action of the film, Editing plays a big role in making it successful. To be more precise... the use of transitions for pacing in scenes and Continuity Editing.

Transitions

The use of transitions in thrillers that rely on action and suspense is the most important thing to use. Without transitions, the pacing of action can be incredibly slow and it disconnects the audience from the action of a scene due to random cuts between each shot. The most common transition used in scenes where there is a lot of action is a cut. The use of cuts to link shots together can heavily impact how the action plays out in a scene. If you introduce is a scene as being slow, cuts won't be used as often. As soon as the action kicks off, cuts are used more and more regularly. The reason for this is that the action is supposed to be fast-paced and exciting for the audience to watch, so in order to reflect this on film, quick succession cuts are used to match the pacing shown by the characters. The use of these transitions helps to keep the audience engaged with the events on screen.

Continuity Editing (Match on Action and Shot/Reverse Shot)

Two main uses of continuity editing in action thrillers are Match on Action and Shot/Reverse Shot. Match on Action is used to keep the flow of action the same throughout. An example of match on action would be if you had a medium shot of someone reaching for a gun, then the following shot is a close up of them grabbing the gun in their pocket and beginning to pull it out, and then the shot after that reverts back to a medium shot of him finishing the pull of the gun and raising it up. The use of this match on action keeps the flow of action continuous. Instead of stopping at a certain position in one shot, then continuing from a different position in the next shot, match on action uses quick succession cuts to show the flow of action. It helps to keep the audience connected with the events on screen. Without match on action, certain scenes would be disrupted due to the lack of flow, disconnecting the audience.

Shot/Reverse Shot is a clever way to dramatize action. By switching back and fourth between the views of characters, you are able to constantly notice changes in their facial expressions and body language. If you were to have a shot of one character aiming a gun at someone, it wouldn't be exciting simply because there isn't enough tension shown between characters. Using Shot/Reverse Shot allows you to build up tension between characters through their facial expressions and body language. The tension helps to engage and excite the audience as it immerses them in the drama between characters.

Our Thriller Opening and Target Audience

In terms of the appeal of our opening sequence for our target audience, we've decided to incorporate both enigma and action so that it appeals to those that enjoy enigma and those that enjoy action. The combination of the two will prove a challenge to balance out so that both types of people enjoy the opening, but we have some ideas that can help with this. Firstly, our setting will be in woodlands. It's out of the ordinary to start a film in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but trees, but it helps with providing an enigmatic opening. Masks will be used to cover the face of one of the characters and mask his identity. Once again, this produces enigma and plants more questions in the audiences' minds.

We'll be using the trees in our setting to film all types of angles and shot distances in order to display the entirety of the setting and the characters' movements and actions. This provides us a wide selection of places to film shots from, helping us with creating an immersive, fast paced action opening whilst giving us a lot of opportunity to incorporate enigma into it so that our target audience are having to think quickly about why the characters' are in a woodland and why they're chasing each other. This keeps them both guessing and engaged with the events on screen, and this is why we believe that our thriller opening will appeal to our target audience.

Age Certification

Age Certification is a tricky one to decide on. It depends on the content of the film and what you're trying to show the audience. Do you want there to be painful and brutal backstories so that the audience can connect with characters? Do you want the film to simply keep the audience engaged and excited at all times? What kind of mysteries does our target audience enjoy? Murder mysteries? Disappearance mysteries?

Because we want our thriller opening to reflect the lives of gangsters, especially in a time where crime rates are through the roof, we've decided to make our film an 18. The reasoning behind this is that we want to show the harsh brutality, violence and deceit that gangsters experienced. In order to show this in our thriller opening, we will need to use things such as  the iconography of weaponry (e.g. knives, guns) and make-up for serious bruising and bloodied faces. If we are to reflect the reality that gangsters live, an 18 rating is the best way to do so.

Narrative Structure

The story of our film will be in complete chronological order.

The plot will be in chronological order a part from the opening of our film. The opening is the end scene of the entire film. The reasoning for this is to create huge enigma for the audience. By doing this, the rest of the film can be used as one huge 'connect the dot' so that the audience can figure out how events in the film may lead into the final scene.

Restricted/Unrestricted Narration

For our thriller opening, unrestricted narration will be used in order to engage the audience. The reason for this is so the audience can gain a perspective of all the characters in the scene at any one time. This helps with raising questions in their mind about what's going on and what is going to happen next.