Murder Weapon

For our Thriller opening, we were inspired by the murder weapon used in Heavenly Creatures. This inter-textual reference has connotations of psychotic tendencies as the two girls in the film were obsessive which resulted in the murder of one of the girls mother. 

Our murderer is a female and we have challenged generic conventions, much like Peter Jackson, in doing so. The use of this weapon is then feminine in that a stocking is used which is a common female item. This then tells the audience that the murderer is a woman without revealing too much of her identity. 

Our cliffhanger is that we don't know if the homeless man is alive or not and we also don't know the motive for the murder but it is suggested that it is a hate crime. The choice of weapon could suggests similarities between the murderer and the two girls in 'Heavenly Creatures', for example they murdered Pauline's mother as they felt she was trying to seperate her and Juliet and therefore had a psychotic hate for her mother. Our murderer may be prejudice towards homeless man which is implied in the shot of her crossing out pictures of her victims.

Soundtrack

This soundtrack was titled 'Redletter' and we felt it was ideal as it appeared dark, but was subtle up until the end where the murder will happen. It signified to the audience the genre of the film as it appeared threatening and suspenseful. However I did not feel the end matched the end of our Thriller opening and therefore I overlapped it with another soundtrack.

I liked the middle section of this soundtrack where it reminded me of the soundtrack in Psycho and therefore would be an inter-textual reference. The sharp, short repetitive sounds mimicked the murder scene which was appropriate to create more of a tense cliffhanger. The combination of these two soundtracks then created a subtle but ominous atmosphere which transformed into a suspenseful and thrilling end.


http://soundbible.com/1479-Splitting-Wood.html
In order to make the murder scene more believable, I decided that a hitting sound was required. This was the one that went most with the action and therefore was a good choice. I had to slow the speed in order to be in sync with the murder in order to make it appear diegetic and as if it was the actual sound made.

Practice Footage

This shot was for our previous plot of the homeless man witnessing a murder. We planned to use a rule of thirds of the homeless man, the wooden planks and the murderer. However, due to poor lighting, we were unable to clearly show each individual section. The murderer could not be seen in the background and therefore would be confusing for our audience.

The solution we took was to remove the witness plot and instead have the homeless man murdered in order to make our Thriller opening more easy to follow.

Similarly, we had problems with lighting in this clip. We used other source of lighting to create a focus on the murderer's face however this was only effective when she was near the camera, therefore we decided this clip would not be a good one to use in order to make our opening clear enough.

This shot was an inter-textual reference to Heavenly Creatures and we felt a close-up was required to clearly show the weapon that will be used to murder the homeless man. We were happy with this shot and therefore will use it in our final cut.

We used this shot to mimic the previous shot of the homeless man walking up those stairs in order to show our audience that they are now in the same place, implying that he is the next victim. I particularly liked the tilt shot at the end which connotes psychotic tendencies by the camera not staying straight. It suggests that she is not normal which visually presents her as threatening, along with the weapon in her hand.

Character Profiles: Norma

http://prezi.com/r2k2yhcw5lea/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Updated Shot List

Shot:	Character:	Location:	Camera Angle:	Lighting:	Type of Shot:	Action:
1	Sam	Underpass (city)	High angle to low angle	Non-ambient	panning	Sam – Homeless man – is sitting insinuating he has been there the night
2	Sam	Underpass	Low-angle	Non-ambient	Close up
3	Sam	Underpass	Eye-level	Non-ambient	Extreme Close up
4	Norma (murderer)	Her room	tilt	Non-ambient	Extreme close up	Norma crosses out a picture of somebody implying she has murdered them. She then taps her fingers on the picture of Sam to suggest he is her next victim.
5	Sam	Underpass		Non-ambient/ ambient	Long shot	Sam is walking away to show he is now moving to next place
6	Norma	Her Room	Eye-level		Close up	Norma is getting ready to suggest she is now leaving to murder her next victim, Sam
7	Sam	Shed Area	High angle	Ambient	Long Shot to close up	Sam sits down to suggest that is where he is settling for the night
8	Norma	Her Room	Perspective of murderer	Non-ambient	Close-up	Norma is preparing the murder weapon
9	Norma	Shed area (step)	Low-angle	Non-ambient	Close-up/tracking	Norma is holding the weapon to clearly show she intends to murder
10	Norma	Shed area	Eye-Level	Non-ambient	Extreme close up/ tracking	Norma is now walking towards Sam
11	Sam	Shed Area	Eye-Level	Non-Ambient	Extreme close up	Sam wakes up and gasps when he sees Norma (fast pace)
12	Norma	Shed Area	Low angle	Non-ambient	Medium shot	Norma swings the weapon- ends before we know if Sam is alive or not.

Fonts

We have decided to call our Thriller 'Unsettled' as the homeless man is always unsettled as he moves each day. The cliffhanger does not suggest that he is either dead or alive and therefore suggests that he is of importance.

This font is called '28 Days Later' which is gritty and unglamorous and therefore suits our Thriller well. It represents both the homeless man and the murderer.

Though this would be suitable for our thriller, the other font -'28 Days Later'- is more rough which makes it stand out more as a title. However this may be suited for smaller writing such as actors names.

Though our thriller does depict unglamorous locations of graffiti, it doesn't focus on the grittiness of the murder and does not suit the character profile of our murder. However the first font represents the homeless life of the man, and the dirtiness of the murder.

Heavenly Creatures Case Study

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Storyboard for revised Thriller plot

Further revision of Thriller plot

Our group had created a rough cut of our Thriller and felt having three characters was too confusing for an opening as there wasn't enough time available to make it clear. Therefore we have changed it to two characters and created more of a focus on our murderer also. Our current plot is:

1. Sam (homeless man) is walking to where he will settle for the night
2. Cut to Norma (murderer) who is crossing out a picture of her previous murder victim and circling a picture of Sam (suggesting he is her next victim)
3. Cut to Sam who is sitting
4. Cut to Norma who is preparing for murder
5. Cut to Norma with the weapon in her hand implying she has murdered Sam

Our cliffhanger is the ambiguity of whether Sam is dead or not.

Revised Thriller Plot

During the beginning of editing, our group discovered that there wasn't enough time spent on the murder scene. Therefore to lengthen it, we were inspired by the murder from 'Heavenly Creatures' in which allowed more of a plot and a wider variety of angles to be used. Therefore we spent another day re-shooting and this is our current plot:

1. Our murderer will place a watch as an allurement on the ground then hide
2. The victim will then come and begin to pick it up
3. The murderer will sneak behind him and kill him
4. The murderer will then put the watch back on
5. The witness (homeless man) will turn around