Thriller ideas and thoughts on location.

My groups initial idea of a setting was a forest located at one of my group members house. It is dismal and dreary and the trees are overpowering, however, our tutor advised us not to use a forest as it will be too difficult to film in the darkness. Here is a picture of the forest during the day. Even in the ambient lighting of daytime, it looks eerie and ominous.

 Our orignal idea was that a group of friends were out walking the dog, but got out too late. They are walking around the forest when you see little bursts of light shining through the leaves and branches of the trees. The footage would be filmed handheld with elements of normal filming too. We thought that using handheld footage would be better because it makes the opening seem more realistic and believeable. Next, after the group of friends have recovered from the weird light display, they see one huge light shining onto the group with the person holding/shining the light unidentifyed to create suspense. The light would progressivly become closer and you just see the feet of the unknown person, a scream and a dog whine/howl, the camera is then dropped on the floor and you see someone being dragged away.

We origionally loved this idea, but we soon realised it was too much like a horror and we have now had to re-think. I had an idea that we could possibly set this is a different place, but still use the idea of being followed by someone you never ifnd out who it is, and the use of the non-ambient lighting really hides the identity and creates suspense doing this. So maybe one person is alone at night, walking to a friends home, and you see a light shining behind them, you don't see anyone there, just a shadow and the light shining. Have low angles of the feet running from both people and long shots to show the fear in the face and to create more suspense as you don't know what will happen to the victim. This is just a rough idea but I hope to develop round it and create something like this.