Shot List

Here is the list of shots that are featured in our thriller opening sequence. We created this list so that we could make sure that we were organised and had filmed everything we needed to film. We added more shots to the list as we were editing, as we felt we needed some more shots to tie in the narrative. For example, the shots of the photo collage were brainstormed after our first edit, so these were a later edition to our original list.

Final Shot List:

Original Shot List:

The original shot list that we made did not include any of the shots of the photo montage, as at this point, we had not come up with the idea of these shots. Instead, the opening arrangement was different, and began with shots of Jazz's body lying on the floor,  and the subsequent shots. We felt we needed to include the photo montage at the beginning of the piece, as we felt we needed a method of displaying the backstory of the characters, in a succinct manner, to help tie in the narrative of the film better. In this draft, we had the title screen come in after the shot of the ring, which we felt would emphasise that the jealousy (which is the title of our film) was caused by this ring. Also, in this version of the shot list, we included a long shot of Hannah and Josh arguing. We did not include this shot in our final shot list as we felt that it not particularly add anything to the narrative, and we were struggling to condense our footage to the length of two minutes, and make sure the narrative was coherent. The order of shots in this version is slightly different, too, as we felt that with the argument scene, the order of the shots needed to be in this order for the narrative to make sense. If the shots were sequenced any differently, the narrative would have been very confusing, and would not have made sense. In our final shot list, we changed the order of shots because we felt that with the lack of the argument shot, the narrative was made more coherent with the shots in this order. 

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.

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:

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.

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’.

Planning: The Narrative

In order to plan the narrative , we sat down as a group and we discussed ideas for the film. During our discussion, we also talked about different shots that we could use in our film. We decided that we should also watch some crime dramas to further get some inspiration for the narrative of our thriller opening sequence.

Here is a photo of the mind map that we created with our ideas:

Draft Story Board

When any film is made, a draft story board is used to plan and showcase the ideas of the team. It is very uncommon for the final story board to be the same as the draft story board, as during production, certain ideas are found not to be suitable, and the team come up with ideas that they may not have previously had, or develop the original ideas into ones that they think would be more suitable.

Fitting to this, we created a draft story board to accumulate all of our initial ideas so we had record of them. The plan for this story board is to use it to further adapt our piece to make it better by brainstorming from these initial ideas.