In our groups we created a story board with that detailed in a simple step by step fashion the basic narrative of our thriller. On each post it notes we drew a rough sketch of what the shot was supposed to look like and around it we also wrote a brief description of the shot, what it was supposed to show/convey and the angles that would be utilised in that shot.

The idea behind the storyboard was so that on the day of filming we would have a point of reference and an easy way to figure out how to tackle each shot that we did. We did also take into consideration that we may have a last minute spark of innovation that would lead us to change the narrative and deviate from the storyboard, it is for this reason that we created the storyboard with the flexibility to sustain changes to the narrative.

Below is an image of our storyboard. Please click on it to see it in full:

The detailed narrative outline is very useful for our thriller as it gives us a point of reference as to how we want the scenes of our thriller to look.  It can also be used as a guide for when filming our thriller.

Please scroll on the table below to view it in its entirety.

As part of the process of making our thriller each individual from the group had to create their own mood board that showcased the skeleton of their ideas that they wanted to use for the thriller. Below is each individuals mood board and a brief summary of the ideas that is conveying.

My Mood Board: The main idea for my thriller is of a victim being kidnapped by a satanic cult and forced to choose between two goblets of a mysterious potion, the one that the victim eventually choose plunges them into a psychotic pit of insanity. The victim is then told that they will fall into this insanity to the point of no return if they do not follow the orders of the cult. The victim then commits atrocities upon innocent people each act driving them further and further into insanity. They are finally rewarded with the “antidote”  which turns out to be poison.

Alex’s Mood Board: The main idea I have is the implementation of ‘chance’. The idea is that some friends come across a fort, they naturally loiter around and explore. The friends find a couple dice in an old dusty board game. The friends roll the dice onto the board and a sequence of bad events happen; continuous cutting to a different roll of the dice and in turn a different bad event happens.

Caitlin’s Mood Board: The narrative for this mood board is, an innocent man has been taken into a dark and dingy room. He wakes up tied up with a man in front of him with a gun to his head, he reveals two pills, and gives him a short amount of time to take one or he dies. The innocent man takes the blue pill then the mysterious man tell him that by taking that pill he has a prophecy of killing someone, a young girl. After sleepless nights and days counting down. The day comes to kill the young girl.

Roland Bathes – Media

Roland Bathes stated that all narrative were compiled of five codes (Enigma Code, Action Code, Symbolic Code, Semic Code and Cultural Code) . The audience will then decode and interpret these codes so as to perfectly understand the narrative.

1. Enigma Code (hermeneutic code): Puzzles purposely implemented into the narrative which are then later solved(maintains audiences interest and anticipation).
2. Action Code (Proairetic code): Progression of the narrative; involves codes of behavior or actions that lead us to expect consequences.
3. Symbolic Code: Representing an object, idea or feeling by something else (a visual metaphor).
4. Semic Code: The use of connotation to give the audience an insight into characters, objects or settings that we learn to read
5. Cultural Code: Concerns the culturally specific knowledge from outside the text which is used to make meaning in a text.

With the narrative codes in mind, I used them to analyse three examples of previous students work (The Hex, Suspect and Doppelgänger). By analysing these three thrillers it has given me a far better understanding of narrative codes and how I can use them in my own thriller.

Please scroll down on the table below to view all of it:

Below is the link to the results of the questionnaire that we sent out:

The results that we got from our survey showed that our target audience are mostly interested in comedy, crime and action movies mostly. A key example of a statistic that is useful for our thriller is 9 out of 17 people that they would either likely or highly likely to watch our thriller. This proves that our idea for our thriller is attractive to the vast majority of people who watch films.

key aspects of our target audience are:

• prevalent themes of mystery
• The sub genres of action and crime in thrillers
• A strong  use of enigma codes that leave the viewers interested and makes them try to figure the thriller out.

Below is an example of a typical member of our target audience.

16-24 year old males that show an interest in thriller movies.

This Facebook example of our target audience was used in order to show clearly what someone who would watch our film looked like, what their interests are and the types of things that they aligned themselves with.

Typical demographics of our target audience are males that are aged 16-24 years old, whereas typical psychographics of our target audience are students who listen to modern contemporary artists such as Tame Impala, attend music festivals (for example Reading Festival) and also watch modern popular indie cartoons such as the Big Lez Show and Rick and Morty.

To solidify and hone our skills at using premier pro editing software we filmed a montage of me going into school and going to my locker to find a bomb and then disposing of it. The process included us making a storyboard, filming the montage in accordance to the story board and finally editing the necessary shots to create the final piece.

Within our montage we had to implement certain features. Such as:

1. Shoot for continuity using montage to condense time and space.
2. Use speed to infer tension.
3. Use close ups to show reactions/expression of the person completing the task.
4. Shoot to edit at least one eye line match – significant object/person.
5. Edit in at least one match on action.
6. Use one interesting transition – fade in, wipe, dissolve etc…

Whilst filming we also had to fulfill the assessment criteria, which was:

1. Holding a shot steady.
2. Framing a shot.
3. (Shooting a) variety of shot distances.

Strengths:

• The music: The music that was used in the background of our montage was serious and fit very  well with the theme of our montage.
• The editing:  The editing of our montage was done quite well and conveyed feelings of danger and tension. For example when I open the locker to discover the contents the footage is put into slow motion to show that this is an important part of the montage.
• Shot variety: Within our montage we employed the use of various shots such as close ups, long shots and an aerial shot, this helped to differentiate the pace of the montage and gave the audience several interesting ways of observing the protagonist.

Improvements:

• Breaking the fourth wall: Whilst grabbing the bomb from out of the locker the protagonist looks directly into the camera which breaks the fourth wall, especially since it makes no narrative sense.
• Unwanted bystanders: On various occasions during the montage there are various people who got caught in some of the shots, this causes the narrative flow to be a bit clunky and slows down the pace of the montage. For example during one of the shots another group is seen filming their montage in the background, this obviously doesn’t make sense in terms of the montage.
• Smiling protagonist: In one of the shots the protagonist is seen smiling during a serious part of the montage, this doesn’t make narrative sense because there was no reason for the protagonist to be smiling.