MEDIA STUDIES: THRILLER PLANNING

Advanced Planning

Important factors:

• Accessible

• Local

• No rapid change to location

• Wooded

• Easily filmable

Locations

The location I decided upon is near my house which allows for easy pick up shots due to my close proximity and easy accessibility to the areas filmed. The woodland surrounding my house is also ideal as it stretched beyond the horizon line, reinforcing the sense of isolation and helplessness. My familiarity with the area also enables a wide variety of locations for certain scenes and specific elevations which is needed in shots such as the fall of Rebecca. The area also provides the abandoned house needed, however inside shot will need to be fabricated in another location as inside is not accessible. The want the inside of the house to be dark and enclosed, typical of a thriller.

Costume

For the costume of Rebecca I wanted to give the sense that she had run away from some sort of prison like that of the 2013 film ‘Eden’ in which young girls are captured and forced into sex work. There will be a number on her shirt like that of a real prisoner, this takes away her identity and also signifies there are other girls that have been captured. Therefore promoting questions such as, where does she come from?, are there other girls? what has happened to her? will they get caught? Etc., as well as introducing the mystery theme of the thriller genre, this will also entice the audience and keep them watching.

The enigma will be wearing all black and hooded, masking their face. This leaves the audience wanting to know more about the person chasing Rebecca. Black also connotes darkness and evil which reflects the intentions of the character and suggests that of his actions towards Rebecca, the darkness of his costume and the light tones of hers emphasises their opposition. The audience will empathises with the innocent Rebecca and may watch on intently in order to find out her fate, inducing tension and anticipation which, as I know through my case studies, are thriller conventions and important in the thriller genre

RebeccaPlayed By Rebecca Robinson

Characters

EnigmaPlayed By Niamh Devenney

Character traits:• Innocent• Likeable• Intelligent• Helpless

Action in the opening:• Running from enigma• Falls, injured

Action before opening:• Mystery (unknown)• Captive• Escaped

Action after opening:• Captured• Cliff-hanger (unknown)

Character traits:• Mysterious• Evil• Criminal• Unintelligent

Action before opening:• Dominant • Criminality• Capturer • In controlAction in the opening:• Not in control• Chasing Action after opening:• Dominate again• Control• Cliff-hanger (unknown)