Scripting

Here is the script to out thriller film “Jealousy”. In our opening sequence, there is not much dialogue as this helps to add to the mystery of the narrative. Due to the lack of dialogue, our script would have been very short, therefore, we have included locations, cinematography information and information on sound, so that we can easily associate where the dialogue fits into the story board of our film.

At the beginning...

During the initial planning stages of our piece, we did not have a script for us to work with, as we felt that due to the lack of dialogue, we would successfully be able to improvise the lines. After a little discussion, Josh and Hannah were aware of what type of thing they needed to say in the piece. However, once we started filming, we realized that not having a script was simply not practical. Not having the line the same each time it was said, threw the piece slightly, and made it a nightmare for continuity. Especially as our scene with dialogue is set over two different shots. This meant that we needed the dialogue to flow from one shot to the next, but without having a script to follow, this was extremely difficult to achieve for Josh and Hannah.

It was this that made us come together and draft a script that we were all happy with. Having a script allowed Josh and Hannah to be clear in what they were to say, and made it much easier for our piece to flow correctly, and not have any continuity errors.

We made the decision to include the shot list, location, editing and sound on our script as with the very minute amount of dialogue in our piece, it gave us the exact location in which the dialogue fitted. This made it easier for us to organise filming, and made sure that we included the dialogue in the correct shots.

Having not used a script the first time, and having learnt the problems that we faced because of this, I would now make sure to always use a script. This is because it would reduce filming time, as the actors would know what they are doing, and would make the editing process a lot more simple as it would eliminate continuity errors of speech.

Photo Collage

During the editing process, we felt that we needed a film sequence to put before our titles that would link in with our narrative to help give the audience an idea of the characters and their situation. We took inspiration from other thrillers that we have watched, particularly ‘The Missing’, which we spoke about in the previous post. Therefore, we decided we would create a photo collage to reflect the relationship between Josh, Hannah and Jazz, and to show their friendship. This was easy to create for us as we are close friends outside of our media group, and as a result we have a large bank of photos with us in together. 

To make this collage, we searched through our photos on our computers, social medias and on our phones to find ones that we thought would best showcase our friendships. We printed them out, cut them out and then had to find a suitable surface that we could make the collage on. We decided that Josh’s sideboard would be the best surface as it is it a plain colour, flat, and we could easily stick the photos to it without damaging it. We experimented with the positioning of the photos until we found an arrangement that we were happy with before we started filming.

 We tested a range of shots to showcase the photo collage, however, we decided that a slow pan looked the best, with the camera zooming in and out on a select few photos that we decided were of key importance to show the relationship between the characters. An example of this is the photo of Josh and Jasmine (me) at prom, which is shown later on in the film when it is featured in the frame that Josh picks up and lays face down. 

Throughout the time that the shots of the montage are playing, the music featured will be ‘Jealousy’ by Frankie Miller. This is because the audience will be able to relate the photos to the relationships between the characters and that the jealousy must be due to a love triangle within their friendship. Additionally, the titles will feature during this montage.

Inspiration for the Title Sequence in Our Opening

Once we had completed the first edit of our film, we thought about how we could add an improved title sequence that would help to tie in the narrative of the film, give the audience an insight into the characters, and establish a sense of equilibrium at the beginning. 

When brainstorming ideas for the beginning of our opening sequence, we came up with the idea of using a montage of photos. 

We came up with the idea of a montage of photos due to inspiration from existing thriller TV programmes, but mostly, BBC’s ‘The Missing’. This drama/thriller piece begins with a title sequence of a collection of images, that are used to give the audience an insight into the programme, and to get them to ask questions about the narrative and the characters.

Here is the full title sequence of BBC’s ‘The Missing’:

We liked liked the idea of including a photo montage as our title sequence, as not only was it already a feature in many popular thrillers that we had watched on TV, but it would also help to give the audience a sense of what our film would be about. 

We felt that using a photo montage for our film would help the audience to learn a bit about the background of our characters, and their friendship, as this would be displayed in the photos we used. At the same time, it would mean that the audience were introduced to the characters before the film began. Due to human nature, the members of the audience would have already imagined what this character may be like, and have a preconceived judgement of them. 

Using a photo montage would also help us to establish to the audience a sense of equilibrium at the beginning at the piece, fitting with Todorov’s theory, by showing the characters to be happy, smiling and enjoying themselves in the photos we include.

Prop list

In our film, we have a series of props that we need to use. Some of the props are part of the iconography of our film and help to shape the narrative.

The props we need to use are:

• Tablets 
• Phone
• Photo frame
• Ring 
• Ring box
• Printed photos
• Glasses

Final Story Board

During the process of fine editing our 1st edit of of film opening, we completed our final story board. This is because, during fine editing, we came to the decision of what aspects we wanted to keep, and what we thought we should add to the final edit to make it better and to tie in the narrative. 

Here are photos of our final story board:

1st Draft of Our Film

This is the first edit of our thriller opening sequence.

Filming Locations

As part of our filming process, we had to decide on what locations we would be filming our shots in. We needed to film all of our shots in/around a house, so, we discussed all of houses and which we thought would be the best for filming purposes. In the end, we decided that Josh’s house was not only the best for filming purposes, but was also the most conveniently located, as we could all get there easily, and it was only a 15 minute walk from school for when we needed to film after school. 

In Josh’s house, we filmed in 3 separate locations. We filmed in the downstairs hallway, the garage and in the garden.

The scene we filmed in the hallway was the argument scene between Hannah and Josh. This is also where we filmed the photo collage on a separate occasion. We filmed this in the hallway because we felt that this would be an appropriate and sensible location for the argument to happen. The hallway was also spacious which allowed for ease with filming.

The shots we shot in the garage were all the ones of Jazz’s (my) body. We decided we would film this in the garage as the lighting was very eerie, and everything was very grey. We felt this would add to the eerie-ness of the shots, and we felt that if we were to film it indoors, the colourful decor might take away from the intended atmosphere of the shots.

In the garden, we shot the low angle shot of Hannah and Josh walking out of the garage, the close up of the garage door slamming, the 360° pan of Jazz (me) and the medium shot of Josh. We felt that the garden was the correct location to the 360° pan which zooms into my eye, and zooms out of Josh’s eye into a medium shot of Josh, for a few reasons. The first reason is that the garden was somewhere we could easily film the 360° shot as there was plenty of room. Another reason that we decided to film this shot in the garden is that we felt like it linked the shots in the house and the garage together, and that it gave the audience an idea of the setting of the film.

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Title

Coming up with the title of our film proved to be quite challenging. The process of brainstorming ideas was something that carried on throughout the filming process, as we wanted to make sure we chose the perfect title to fit our film.

As the film changed gradually over the brainstorming process, this meant that ideas for the title of the film had to change, too. To begin with, our ideas were a medical based thriller. We had taken inspiration from the popular TV programmes Casualty and Holby City for our title, and we came up with the title ‘Pulse’ to represent a life line and a heart beating. Along the same lines, we came up with ‘Beat’ and ‘Beaten’, which not only represent a heart beat, but also give an insight into a possible narrative point, that one of the characters would get abused. 

Here is a photo of some of our title brainstorming:

As our ideas progressed, our narrative turned more towards a crime thriller. Our ideas formed for this genre of thriller after watching some crime thrillers such as ‘Broadchurch’ and ‘The Missing’ as we found these really interesting. We felt this genre of thriller would be more interesting to create than a medical thriller. However, this meant that the previous titles we had come up with were not useful to us anymore. 

We carried on brainstorming ideas with our newly acquired narrative, but nothing we came up with seemed right to us. Then, we came about the title ‘Jealousy’ and felt that it fitted our film, and the narrative, perfectly. We only came up with the idea of calling our film ‘Jealousy’ when we had chosen our music. When choosing the music, we knew that the narrative was based on the jealousy in the love triangle between Josh, Hannah and Jasmine, so we wanted s apiece to reflect this. Then, when we came across ‘Jealousy’ by Frankie Miller, we immediately had the idea that we should use that track, but also, that we should name our thriller ‘Jealousy’. Finally we had found a title that we thought suited our film.

Here is the title screen of our film.

Roles within the group...

For any film to be successful, the crew working on it must be dedicated, and they must have assigned roles. This ensures that each person has their own area of expertise to focus on and prevents any confusion in responsibilities.

In light of this, we decided that we needed to allocate roles within our group to make production a little easier for us.

Despite us having our individual production roles within the group, we will obviously be working on aspects of the production together - e.g, the script and the story board. This is because these are elements of production that without doubt need all of our inputs and ideas in order to make them the best they can possibly be.

The group roles we decided are as follows:

Director:

Caitlin Elward

Producers: 

Hannah Martin

Jasmine Greene

Editor: 

Josh East

Music Permission

As the music we decided to use in our film were not our original pieces (we did not create them), we had to attempt to get permission from the owners of the tracks to use them in our piece due to copyright issues. 

As ‘G321 - Thriller Opening Music’ was uploaded on Youtube, we figured that it would be easy to get in contact with the uploader. Josh asked in the comments section of the video if we could use the track for our thriller film, and the uploader replied within a few days saying that they were happy for us to use the track.

Getting permission for the second piece of music proved to be a lot more tricky, as every point of contact we tried, we did not get a reply. This was unfortunate, however, we are hoping to hear back at some point. Until then, if any issues occur when our piece is uploaded to YouTube, we have proof that we have tried a number of ways, and we will state in the description that we take no credit for the song, and that the copyright belongs to the artist, Frankie Miller.

Music

After our research into thriller opening sequences, we had a discussion with our class mates about the different elements of them and how they are key to making a successful opening sequence. We decided that music used in the opening sequence really helps to emphasise the narrative and create an effective tense atmosphere for the audience. We decided that if the music is chosen cleverly, it can help to tell the narrative, or can incorporate the title of your film. 

After some discussion and brainstorming with my group, we decided that the song we would use at the very beginning of our opening sequence would be ‘Jealousy’ by Frankie Miller. We chose this song as the lyrics link very closely with the narrative of our thriller film. The narrative of our thriller is: Josh & Jasmine (me) are in a relationship, however, Hannah is extremely jealous as she wants to be with Josh. It all leads to a horrific end for Jasmine, after Josh and Hannah’s plan to get rid of her, so that they can be together, is successful.

Of course, the name of our film is ‘Jealousy’ so that was incorporated impeccably with the song. The lyrics ‘I blame you, but it’s really me’ reflects the reason behind the jealousy in our piece, and helps to tell the storyline. Additionally, “I love you more, than you love me” reflects the relationship between two of the characters in our thriller. Although the song we have chosen is not stereotypical of a thriller film, we did this intentionally. This is because we wanted something that was unusual, that helped to grab the attention of the audience. Additionally, we felt that having the music help to explain our narrative to the audience would create lots of enigma codes, as the audience would wonder ‘who is jealous of who?’, ‘why did they jealousy start?’, etc. 

We then decided that once the mood of the opening had obviously changed, that we needed music that was a lot more sinister and eerie. Therefore, when Jazz’s body is shown for the first time, we decided we would use non-diegetic strings. This is a stereotypical music choice of a thriller opening as it helps to create fear and tension in the audience. We spent a while searching through different pieces of music, until we finally found one that we were happy with: ‘G321 - Thriller Opening 

Music’.

Inspiration for Our Thriller

Where did we get our inspiration from?

Existing AS Level Thriller ‘Captive’

The inspiration we took from the AS Level Thriller ‘Captive’, was the animosity of the guilt y individual. We did not want to reveal to the audience immediately who the guilty individual was, as this would be revealed throughout the film. Additionally, the fact that we made the death look like a suicide, was a way to deter the audience from being sure of the guilty party straight away. We felt that keeping the killer anonymous would keep the audience intrigued in the film, and by providing them with little hints and clues, it would leave them trying to solve the case in their own minds. 

TV Crime Thrillers/Dramas

As avid TV watchers, we all enjoy watching new crime thriller/drama series that are aired on ITV or BBC. We watched ‘Broadchurch’, ‘The Missing’, ‘Paranoid’, to name just a few, and from these we were able to a lot of inspiration. The inspiration we sourced from these programmes was mainly based around the crime and mystery elements that we wanted our piece to include. As a lot of these series include murder, or the possibility of murder, we felt that this must be a popular theme for viewers, and this prompted us to use it in our piece. Additionally, nearly all of these programmes included an element of mystery as to who the guilty suspect was. We wanted to use this in our piece as we felt that making the guilty individual a mystery, and having the audience solve the case along with the detectives in the show, was a really efficient way to build tension in the audience, and to get people invested in the narrative.

Double Jeopardy 

‘Double Jeopardy’ is about a woman who runs away with another man after she is framed for the murder of her husband. The husband has faked his own murder in order to get his hands on insurance money. This is one of the thriller films that we watched as part of our research when looking for inspiration for the narrative of our film. From this film, we took inspiration from the love triangle type situation, with the woman running away with another man after her husband was supposedly murdered. We also took inspiration from how the woman was framed for her husband’s murder, as this related to how we thought we wanted our narrative to go. The theme of jealousy is also evident in this film, as the husband that faked his own murder wanted rights to money that his wife had.

Safe Haven

‘Safe Haven’ is themed around a woman who has run away from an abusive relationship by moving to somewhere new. In the new place she is living, she ends up in a relationship with a new man. Still hung up over her, her ex-boyfriend tracks her down and finds that she is in this new relationship. Out of jealousy, he attempts to hurt her new lover, and to kidnap her and take her back. This is another one of the thriller films that we watched as part of our research when looking for inspiration for the narrative of our film. We took inspiration from this with the theme of jealousy of relationships, and with how the ex-boyfriend attempts to hurt the new boyfriend because of this jealousy. 

Radio Play ‘Jealousy’

Another piece that we used for inspiration for our film is a radio play that we found called ‘Jealousy’. It is based on the theme of jealousy taken from ‘The Whistler’. The description of the radio play states “A sick woman is sure that her husband is trying to kill her so he can be with another woman. She therefore decides to make the first move.” We came across this piece when we were researching thrillers with the theme of jealousy. We had never thought to listen to a radio play, however, we found that they are very useful, as they still have a narrative, but are just without footage to go with it. We took inspiration from how the husband is attempting to kill his sick wife, in order for him to be with a new woman. We decided that in our piece, we would use a narrative along the same lines, of a guy trying to kill his girlfriend, so that he can be with another girl.