Our gradual decision on our final thriller Idea.

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 soon realised that this was extremely difficult to conduct as you would need expensive filming equiptment to be able to film in the dark, and we would need to find lighting bright enough to be able to see it. So, Sam, a boy in my group came up with an idea of a laboratory experiment, where there would be two scientists creating a chemical that would cure some sort of illness or virus. Then, scientist 1 would walk off to get some other chemicals, then scientist 2 was left by herself. A soundtrack would play then someone would suffocate scientist 2, and the enigmatic character would steal the cure and we would then see them travelling to a secret/unknown location. At this location the thief would empty the cure into the river where scientist 1 had followed them and pushes the theif into the river so she drowns. I thought this idea was very complicated and difficult to do. For example it would be very difficult to create a drowning scene with-out special equiptment and create it to look realistic. Sam came up with the idea of hovering a plastic container with water over the top of the theif to give the illusion of drowning but I decided that it defintatly not work because the water in the plastic container would be clear whereas the water in the river would be dull and murky. Also, the idea of a plastic container wouldn't work because I don't think it would give an effect of drowning in water as she wouldn't actually be in the water. This idea is also too long for two minutes so we all agreed that we needed to come up with a simple but menacing idea to create tension and suspense for the audience that would look realistic and have time to use more cinematography.


Next, I came up with a new idea, I suggested that there was a girl/woman going to visit her mentally ill sister. However when she approaches the house, there is one light on in her house and the door is wide open. We would then see this woman searching the house for her sister- she is no-where to be found. She hears a radio sound, which is on upstairs. As she approaches the radio in the bathroom to turn it off, she gets brutally forced and locked into the bathroom, where no lights were on, and you don't see the person who did this. A dramatic soundtrack is played in the backround whilst the girl/woman tries to escape the claustrophobic space.You then see a shadow appear under the door frame and the film stops, leaving you in suspense as you don't know what will happen to the girl/woman, who the attacker is, or where the womans sister is. I really liked this idea because it uses thriller conventions such as small claustrophobic rooms, bathrooms, dark, menacing atmosphere, and the shadow. But, however I was told that the idea was too complicated eventhough I had only explained the first few seconds, It was then I knew we had to come up with another idea. I struggled to see this, but I agreed to come up with, yet, another idea. I do also think that my idea does have too much of a feel of a horror element because of the way it is a dark housewhich was then meaning we were going to be doing the task completely incorrectly.


We were then advised to back to Sams idea, but I suggested a few things to improve upon. For example I suggested that there should be no physical killing as it if difficult for people of our age and knowledge to conduct a murder scene that would be realistic. Billie then came up with the idea of a poisening murder. A teen would be making a harmful chemical due to research and poisen their friend out of jealousy. This time we were going to have the production of the chemical in a garage, as this is a confined, claustrophobic, ominous location in which something evil is being created - you can then easily discover that this is thriller genre. We got the idea off of 'Essex Boys' because we thought that it really built up tension and suspense so easily.Then, we would go to a shot of some friends hanging out at a home. The killer would then stare blankly at the character of which they are jealous of, and offer to make them a drink. You see the killer pour the poisonous chemical into the drink(s) and the film closes on hands taking the drinks. We all really like this idea as it is simple, and we decided on camera angles such as panning and tracking of the feet for example, straight away because this was such a good idea and easy to mould. We also thought it was quite an original idea because not many thrillers include a poisoning from a teen.


*STORY BOARD COMING SOON*