Storyboard for my Thriller Opening Sequence

Moodboard for my Thriller Opening Sequence

A few pictures to explore a number of themes within our thriller opening sequence: ‘chavs’/undesirable youth culture, theft, and racism from a young age.

Costumes needed for my Thriller Opening Sequence

In terms of costume needed for our thriller opening sequence, we want very casual and common clothes - which will thus be both easy for our actors and ourselves to get a hold of. Due to the theme of the piece, we need the costumes to be comprised up of dark colours - predominantly blues and blacks. Cheap materials (such as waterproof, flimsy fabrics) will probably also aid the look, feel and authenticity of our costumes. In terms of accessories, a few chains or necklaces, golden rings, and golden hooped earrings would be good. The overall look we're going for is "tacky".

Location needed for my Thriller Opening Sequence

For our opening sequence, we only need one location: a shed in a very secluded place as to give the illusion of isolation. The inside of the shed would have to be big enough to fit the cameras, crew, actors, props and equipment without being large enough to be referred to as a ‘barn’ or ‘stable’.

Hopefully we will be able to find a shed of such a description that isn't overly cluttered or filled with props that won't fit the mise-en-scene of our sequence. Ideally, we'd like a few busted up and 'second-hand' wooden tables, chairs, and shelves. The rest of the props, such as nails, a baseball bat, chainsaw, etc. we can arrange accordingly. 

Both of these sheds found by Millie (shown above) look ideal for the type of building we are searching for. Something that is slightly run down, as if it has the impression of being abandoned or neglected, perhaps by a farmer or the like, is the general ‘look’ that we want. Preferably the shed door would be fully functioning though, as at the beginning of the sequence we want our ‘protagonists’ to be breaking a padlock on the door and then entering. However, if we find a location which is simply perfect, our sequence can be adapted slightly.

Set Design needed for my Thriller Opening Sequence

Millie sketched a quick outline for what we’d like our set to look like - a clustered shed filled with old sports equipment, rope, gardening tools, nets, and a plethora of other accessories - centred around a single table with an old chest of drawers at the back of the room.

Characters within my Thriller Opening Sequence

In terms of the characters within our thriller opening sequence, we originally wanted a group of four boys. However, upon thinking about it, we think that three boys and two girls would give off a better impression - after all, girls who stereotypically would not get involved in whatever crimes this rag-tag group are about to commit, almost heightens the realism and extremity of the idea.

Given that the group are stealing an assortment of items (which they'd likely later use as weapons) before they hunt down an unknown Muslim boy (playing upon stereotypes and indicating that he is somehow involved with the terrorist acts of recent times - a highly unjust claim based upon needless hysteria), we want our group of five to be both light of skin and hair (and thus playing upon stereotypes once more, as it is not overly common to find a Muslim of that description).

Consequently, when casting for our thriller, we will be looking for capable actors who fit the necessary requirements. In terms of age, we think the group should be between 16 and 18, to firstly show the influence of the media on teenagers of today, and secondly, as it means our casting pool is in abundance given that we attend a sixth form college. After all, there have been cases in the past, and will unfortunately almost certainly be cases in the future, of hate-crimes caused by people young enough to still be enrolled at school.

Props needed for my Thriller Opening Sequence

Mise-en-Scene inspiration for the props:

Research as to where we can get the props:

• Knives - prop knives are easily obtainable from online shopping websites (such as Amazon). They cost, on average, about £3, although we'd need a few of them.
• Rucksacks - backpacks and the like average at about £10 - £20, but most of our group already have black rucksacks at hand so we can use them for free.
• Netting - thick netting would cost about £10 from an online website.
• Padlock - a padlock costs under £5.
• Polaroid - we'd only need one polaroid photograph, which would be easily arrangeable without costing any money.
• Maps - a couple of maps would be easily obtainable from asking the Geography Department.
• Petrol Canister - our teacher is able to provide us with a red jerry-can.
• Baseball Bat - a baseball bat would cost about £20 but some of our group happen to have some that we can use.
• Hockey Stick - a hockey stick is about £15, although the school have some old ones that we can use.
• Nails - nails would cost about £5 for a large number of them, although the school can supply us with them.
• Barbed Wire - barbed wire is under £10, although once again obtainable for free through the school.
• Chainsaw - this would likely be our most expensive purchase given that it averages at about £80 in price. However, if needs be, we'd be able to take it away from our sequence... With that said, the maintenance staff at school have said that with permission and supervision we'd perhaps be able to make use of theirs for free.

New Idea for my Thriller Opening Sequence

Opening shot of a barn’s padlock being smashed open. A group of teenaged boys run inside the shed where they being to loot a number of weapons - such as gasoline, knives and a net. One boy begins taping a dagger to the end of a stick as the others start shoving the netting and other items into their bags. One boy takes out a map (that’s covered in red markings, indicating a chosen route) and places it down on a table, scanning it with his fingers. He calls the other boys around it, and they all watch as he stabs a knife down at a specific location where there is a picture of another teenage boy. The boys nod to each other and begin to run out the barn, the camera left lingering on the stabbed map and photograph.

Pitching to the Production Team

Between initially coming up with our witch idea and pitching to the Production Team (Matt and Luke) we were advised by our teacher, Katie, to tweak our concept slightly so that it focused on the hunters and not the hunted; this way it would make the opening sequence far more of a thriller than a horror. Consequently, we altered the idea slightly so that it was now the hunters setting up to catch the witch: We would see them building the pyre, sharpening spears, loading quivers with arrows, and then the sequence would end upon them setting out into the forest for the witch.

We pitched such an idea to Matt and Luke, and they told us that medieval costumes would simply be too complicated to arrange and that we were going to give ourselves too much stress and work. Consequently, they told us to re-do the idea but in a modern setting, changing the witch-hunt to a ‘monster-hunt’, or, perhaps more in line with current affairs, a ‘terrorist-hunt’. Regardless, they told us that the idea for the preparation of a hunt (using make-shift weapons, i.e: a dagger taped to the end of a stick) was a good idea for a thriller opening sequence, although we’d need to make sure of: Who were hunting, why they were hunting, and what they were hunting.

Feedback for my Thriller Opening Sequence and Further Development

Following our test shoot, we decided to pitch our idea to one of the other media teachers, Mike, and get his feedback about the potential sequence. Whilst he acknowledged that the idea had been developed, he said that the subject matter may be somewhat controversial; the idea would work, he said, but the fact that we were using a nun, priest and religious background made it somewhat impractical as no church would let us film due to the rather poor light that it would shine upon them. He said that in order to keep the church setting we would have to take the nun and priest out of the story line and replace them with ordinary people instead. However, wanting to keep both the nun and church setting in our opening sequence, we decided the idea needed to be changed. Consequently, we took away the idea of the priest altogether, and instead agreed to make the nun the aggressor by having her be the one to commit a crime. Once again, however, we forgot to acknowledge that this too would shine a poor light on the religious community, and as such we would, once more, not be allowed to film within a church.

As such, the idea adapted - opening with a nun figure walking down a humble country road with a small shopping trolley whilst, in the background and slightly out of focus, a man in a distinguishable jacket slowly gets out of his car. The nun would take little notice of him and progress on through the village and into a bed and breakfast, where we would see her make her way upstairs and into a private room. Once within, she'd start to unpack her trolley (which is loaded with drugs and money). There would be a knock at the door, and after hiding everything quickly and accordingly, she would open it to see the man (in the same jacket as seen before) standing there, where we see as her face drops - clearly indicating he is some kind of disconcerting figure.

However, after re-evaluating the idea and talking to Mike once again, we all agreed that not much happens in this new concept, and nor would the sequence be overly entertaining to film (which would be a waste of our time). As such, once again, we decided we needed to come up with a new idea once more... And so starting from scratch, we decided not to use any of our back up ideas as none of us were truly passionate about them. Instead, we decided to think of an entirely new and fresh idea.

Consequently, what we came up with was an idea based upon the Salem Witch Trials:

A young girl is standing by a pyre, surrounded by a number of men (a couple of which who are tying her up). They stand within a small clearing deep within the heart of a dark forest. Behind the pyre in the background, to either side, are men holding flaming torches and around the gathering, a couple of mounted horsemen. One man stands before the girl, declaring her a witch and condemning her to death when suddenly the high pitched wail of a woman sounds from somewhere in the distance. The collective turn their attention to the direction of the scream and await in silence. The scream sounds again, and some of the men begin to shout to one another and move out to find its source. All of a sudden, the distinctive calling of, “She’s gone!” can be heard, and we see as the ropes that were being bound to the young girl fall to the ground. Within seconds she is already pacing away from the clearing, and the gathering chase after her - commencing the hunt. We then see her running through the trees, breathless and desperate - the intimidating sight of horses and a mob with pitchforks and other armaments in hot pursuit. The sequence comes to a close with the girl tripping on the forest’s undergrowth and collapsing to the floor, with her followers close behind.

Researching more into the idea and possible inspiration for the mise-en-scene, I stumbled across this trailer which I think shows a lot of aspects that we'd want to include in our sequence (namely regarding location and costume). In terms of the movie trailer's actual plot, if we were to took any inspiration from it we'd have to be sure that we kept the iconography strictly thriller related, being extremely careful as to not make our idea 'too horror'.

Test Shoot for my Thriller Opening Sequence

To help us get a clear picture of what our opening sequence would look like, we did a test shoot using our phone cameras and the editing software of iMovie. As we wanted a church-like setting, we decided to use the Common Room as without the furniture and from certain angles, it looked quite similar to the inside of a church.

At the start of the sequence, we see a priest praying - being very particular in showing him from low angles as to give the audience the idea that this religious figure was both powerful and intimidating. The dark lighting in the room also helped us to set the mood for the piece as it gave off the impression of a gloomy and terrifying setting, which is something that goes against the stereotypical expectation of a church (or other religious setting).

In order to give the impression that the nun character is in a confessional, we filmed a shot from the other side of the window (to symbolise the small grate that sits between the confessor and the person confessing). For most shots, the same dark lighting was fitting and went well with the iconography of our piece but when we tried an extreme close up of the nun opening her eyes, it was quite difficult to see due to the shadows upon her face; we would have moved the position of her hands as we noticed this issue whilst filming, but that would have gone against the continuity of the other shots, so we had to keep her in the same position.

Ideally, in the final opening sequence we want to have the priest character spilling red wine onto a white cloth (symbolic of purity being ‘spoiled’) but as we did not have the resources necessary for the test shoot, we had to settle for pouring coke onto a plain, wooden table - simply as a placeholder.

After filming the test shoot, we edited it and added diegetic and non-diegetic sound which was of singing monks and heavy pleonastic breathing, and by having these it helped to create atmosphere and suspense. In my opinion, the test shoot was okay, but if we had been more prepared it would have definitely have gone down better. Regardless, I think it gave us a good idea of what our sequence would look like, and will certainly serve to help point us in the right direction in terms of developing our idea further.

Further Development of my Thriller Opening Sequence

The first step to creating our thriller sequences was to be put into groups of four, and to decide on which of our ideas we wanted to pursuit. As such, we wrote down the basic outline of our ideas on a large piece of A3 paper and then evaluated which one each of our members would most like to make. Somewhat surprisingly, we all wanted to go ahead with my nun idea as the whole group agreed that it was a very unusual, yet successfully sinister concept, much like a thriller should be. Considering the fact that it is a very unique and bold choice however, we all also decided that a combination of Millie and Theresa’s ideas would serve as a good backup sequence, as they have very strong similarities and are both powerful and intriguing ideas in their own right.

As such, to progress forward we decided to make a mind-map of the concept to develop the idea. It was a chance for everyone in the group to suggest additional information and other shots in attempt to make the sequence the best that it could be. Consequently, my initial idea has since changed quite considerably despite retaining its original essence...

Perhaps getting a bit carried away, as seen from the mind-map above, we successfully brainstormed countless twists and turns that this once fairly basic concept could take. However, aware of timings and trying to keep the sequence simple, we decided that some suggestions were simply too complex, and so as a group, we had to decide as to what ideas were effective and should be included within our opening sequence. It was important to get rid of stuff that revealed too much about the actual plot of the film; rather, we just wanted to hint at it instead.

Consequently, our eventual idea is to commence the sequence with an establishing shot of a church yard from outside, in the bright morning light. It is our hope this would set up a very calm, and serene impression of religious life. Ideally, we would then have a zoom and pan as the camera ventures within the church. Inside, we would see a priest preaching to pews filled with people. The topic he was preaching about would be from the Old Testament, and an actual extract from the Bible, likely about something to do with sex (or adultery) being a sin. His words would continue on as a voice-over into the next shot of a young nun alone in a confessional booth, praying “Hail Mary” aloud. At first, her prayer will be calm and controlled. There will then be numerous shots between the two locations - in particular of the priest preparing the ‘blood of Christ’ where a single drop of dark red wine falls to the bright white floor, splashing against it. In the final shot, the nun will still be praying within her booth, but her prayer will have become short of breath and desperate, almost as if she is hissing in a very distraught fashion. We will see her from the other side of the confessional booth - through the grate - before we hear footsteps echoing along the corridor outside and the sound of a door opening. We see the nun tense, and then the aged hand of the priest land upon her shoulder, giving it a tight (and very sexual) squeeze. The camera pans down to her legs and we see they have been tied to the booth by a very bright red cord. The shot waits for a beat before cutting to black.

As the camera pans down, I’d like to include some contrapuntal music to the sequence, but I’m not convinced the rest of my group agrees. Otherwise, I think we are (overall) happy with the idea. If I were to complain about anything, it might be that just a bit too much is happening for something that is merely an opening sequence. All the same, what we have planned should fit into the allotted time frame - so it is just the pace that will need work on.