Planning Props

Rachael and I texted each other when deciding what props to use within our trailer. these images display the props we will be using. The alcohol will be fake and no pills will actually be consumed to make sure our trailer is filmed safely and no one is harmed. The candle will bring a mysterious element to our trailer. The iPhone will be used for when the mum character rings the police and when Jenny is looking through the photos of her friends on her phone. When Jenny takes the alcohol and pills it will connote that she is distressed. A stereotypical psychological thriller convention is to show one of the vulnerable characters (usually female) abusing drugs and alcohol to suggest that they are struggling with their mind. 

Film Schedule planning

 

https://youtu.be/wd05Qal2234

Rachael and I recorded ourselves discussing the possible schedule for filming. We decided that one day would be enough to film the main character, Sophie and her mum's parts in the trailer, as well as another day to film the best friend, Jenny's parts.

We talked about filming the miscellaneous clips for the montage in our own time as the clips won't take long to film and if we film individually we will get more varied footage.

We plan for these clips to be fitting for the psychological genre although they may seem random to an audience. The snippets will act as clips from throughout the film at different stages; this also brings another element of non-continuity editing. These clips are used to entice an audience to watch a film as they will want to understand all of the contexts that they are being shown. We decided to include this element as it was used a lot in the trailers we researched, for example, in The Snowman and The Girl on the train.

For our trailer, we plan to film in the dark to enhance a thrilling atmosphere. This could create some problems as the camera we use may not be able to pick up any images if the set is too dark. To combat this issue, we will experiment with filming in dim light or in the early evening and then add filters to the footage to make it look like we filmed at night. Another problem is that our trailer may appear more horror-like than a psychological thriller which we will try and overcome by actively including psychological conventions throughout.
 

Key Settings - Rachael Smith

Left Behind Trailer Storyboard

Props

 

We discussed what props we would want to use in our trailer. Some of the props, like beds, we chose as they are important to our narrative. We also chose to include phones and alcohol in our trailer as these props were quite common elements within the psychological trailers we looked at for research. For example: The Circle and The Girl On The Train.

Setting Choices

These are the settings we will be using for our psychological thriller trailer as they are all recognisable locations. This means that our audience will be concerned that events in our trailer could take place in their local area/ own houses. The locations we have chosen link back to our research on the snowman trailer as in this trailer the audience sees a lot  of scenes that are in the characters houses. Also from our research we found that the horror genre is known for using country and rural areas. Therefore, in our film, we have used urban and built up areas to ensure our trailer doesn't get confused with a horror.

Character Planning

From our research into psychological thrillers, we noted lots of vulnerable female characters. For example, in The Girl on the Train and The Snowman. Because of this we have chosen to keep our main characters female. We have decided to keep our character list quite small as to not confuse the audience, especially as we plan on using non continuity editing for our trailer. The police and the news reporter will be featured in our trailer to include a sense of verisimilitude and to make the film feel more real to the audience.

Risk assesment

This is the risk assessment for our film Left Behind. Some of the risks we may encounter when we film include: filming on the road and consuming alcohol and drugs. We have written how high we think each risk is and how we plan to avoid them. For example when we film on the road we will make sure no cars are coming. When we film the parts that involve dangerous substances we will  make sure nothing is actually taken and that the alcohol we use is just water or juice in a alcohol bottle.

Due to really bad weather conditions over the weekend and the beginning the week (11th of December), we didn't film as it would have been dangerous on the snow and ice.

Pitch and Feedback

 

When we presented our pitch our teachers and our peers, they gave us some feedback.
Some of the things we could improve on are: 

• Include specific locations we plan to use and why.
• Discus our unique selling point.
• Talk about the props we plan to use and why.
• Link everything back to research.
• Don't include screams to the sound track as it is cliché and doesn't suit this particular genre.

We have taken this feedback on board and created some more sides that we should have attached to our original pitch.

We have planned to use empty and abandoned locations as in our research we found this element was used frequently. An example of this is 'The Abandoned' (2015). The setting is an abandoned apartment structure which is creepy and makes the audience question why it was abandoned in the first place. Thillers usually use locations that the audience will be able to relate to, eg. a house or school, as these are familiar to their everyday life. This is effective as the audience will be worried the event could take place in their home or school. An example of this is 'Girl on the train' (2016) because train users may be worried that these events may be repeated.

'Left Behind' Pitch Script

We have written the order of our script for our pitch presentation.

 

'Left Behind' Pitch

Film Narrative.

Rachael and I decided to lay out our whole film narrative before trying to narrow our ideas down into a trailer. We did this as it would be easier to construct a non-continuity structure when we knew the full chronological order first.

We used a whiteboard to draw out a timeline that depicts the key event of our film.

The whiteboard reads:

1. Girls playing in the playground (best friends:).
2. One girl comes home, has dinner and goes to bed as normal.
3. Mum can't find her in the morning.
4. Mum rings the police.
5. *News Report* 'Several kids have gone missing'.
6. Mum tells the girls best friend that she's gone missing.
7. The best friend goes crazy, looking for and missing her friends, she's been left behind. (Psychological).
8. She is convinced she's next.
9. Hands come out from under her bed.. she ignores it.
10. It happens again but no one believes her.
11. The hands get her.
12. She goes missing.

Psychological Thriller Title Planning

We made a list of potential names for our thriller. We tried to think of names that sounded vague but linked back to the synopsis of our trailer. We thought 'The Missing' and 'Left Behind' were the best as they make an audience question what the film could be able as they are vague but they're also ominous enough to know the film will be a thriller.

We have decided on the name 'Left Behind' as we felt that the other could be mistaken for a documentary or a series on TV. We think the name we chose is best suited for our genre.

We experimented by writing some of the potential titles out in Photoshop and using different fonts to see which looked best.

We used mainly grey colours as this is ominous and mysterious. For one of the titles, we used a neutral red colour which has connotations of blood and danger. For 'Erased' we used a glow-like background with a lot of noise and saturation to suggest life falling apart, being erased.

We decided that left behind looked the best in a handwriting font called 'Brio' on powerpoint because it is creepy and makes the audience ask lots of questions.

We also chose left behind as a title because it has negative connotations attached to it.

The words have connotations of neglect and isolation. This links to our narrative as our locations are going to look like they are abandoned and forgotten about. 

Inital Ideas and Inspiration

We made a mind map together to lay out all of our initial ideas for our psychological thriller trailer.

We took inspiration from the sound effects and mise-en-scene used for the rollercoaster- SWARM from Thorpe Park. The rollercoaster's surroundings are very post-apocalyptic-like. The island has ambulances in the ground, fire and a destroyed down building. In the area, the speakers all play an ambience of crashing cars and sirens. In our trailer, we want to use similar sound effects to imply the world is in an apocalyptic state.

Psycological Thriller Research - Rachael Smith

To understand the thriller concept further, I have researched the top five films within the thriller genre. (IMDb: highest rated).

1. Se7en (1995)

2. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

3. Memento (2000)

4. The Shining (1980)

5.Requiem for a Dream (2000)

A lot of these films are also found under the different genre headings, like: crime and mystery, therefore it is not very clear what conventions and concepts are purely psychological.

What Makes a Thriller? - Rachael Smith

We created a wordle using thriller conventions.