In order to achieve a good opening, my film needs to conceal an enigmatic feel, mysterious, difficult to understand and never revealing to much. I wanted leave the audience guessing what's going to happen next, leaving several questions to be answered "why did Chantelle run off?" "what has she uncovered?" I feel that I have covered all, if not most of the codes & conventions of a thriller.
At the start of the film I wanted nothing to be revealed except that the plot is set in the woods, this meant a downwards panning shot was a perfect revealing only the trees from the top to bottom, the setting was chosen very carefully. I picked a day where the weather was fairly dull and the trees looked almost like silhouettes, I also choose to add a crow sound effect indicating death may be involved. Crows are feared by Many people simply because of their black feathers, which often associates them with death "a group of crows is also known as a murder".
Crows are a common convention within a thriller, In this case they tell us the narrative is set around a crime, such as a murder. The use of a close up's & panning shots really allows us and you as the audience to focus on what the narrative may be about. Although the opening sets our film as being a part of the crime-thriller, it does not expose that the plot, if made, is greatly centred around how the girl is killed; how the girl is found.
The editing in our film is quite slow and eerie from the start. The shot of a phone and the wallet suggests a person may be hurt or in this case killed and instantly strikes a sense of urgency for the audience, the urgency continues when we learn someone is lost, The editing then gets progressively faster, this is to emphasize the tension that is being built as the character is rushing to find her daughter. The story then takes a slow halt when we see the girl. The idea of pursuit (Jade trying to find Chantelle) is a popular theme in this genre, which is exactly why I used it. I then changed footage of the girl "Chantelle" running away into black & white to let the audience know that its a dream she's having, I was going to soften the edges but it would of took time I didn't have, however I still think what I got works well. I also edited the lighting in the shot of the wallet because the shot was not visible and very hard to see.I have also selected the title to discuss how our film incorporates generic/common thriller conventions, film title “The Willow”.
The title plays a key role in
providing a perfect cliff-hanger ending, with the film named "The Willow" I tried having my titles appear over the footage but when being watched feedback told me it was being lost against the visuals, I then decided having it against a plain backdrop would allow the audience to really play attention to the titles and admire there simplicity, I decided to have the rest of the titles appear In the same way, The lettering itself is a white san serif font and it's all in capital letters, this is too enhance it's importance and adds to the sense of enigma that is being built. I got my inspiration for the San serif font from a film called "black swan" Which is another thriller which focuses more on physical and physiological impacts on a young woman, The font I used is simple yet strong, it also shares a resemblance to other films such as “house at the end of the street” and “cabin in the woods”.
The motion of the text is a simple fade in fade out it’s a common way to display titles against a plain black drop it's effective yet simple.
To introduce my characters, I deliberately centred them in the middle of the frame to show their significance as the main roles and to show who has more prevalence within the narrative. When we see jade she is wearing dark clothing whereas Chantelle is wearing bright red this is to help the audience focus on one character more than the other, this was quite a challenge as usually the antagonist is usually dressed in dark colours, so I had to choose the dialog carefully in order to show jades caring; nurturing side whilst looking for her missing daughter.
My inspired clothing from shindlers list.
I choose to have Chantelle
dressed in a bright red costume to make her more visible throughout the film whereas
jade much darker clothing was needed due to Chantelle being our main focus, The
red coat allows the audience to focus on Chantelle more also red is a very significant
colour and the colour of blood allowing the audience to make the assumption
about death and Chantelle’s role in the film.
This frame shows the use of special effects we tried to create in my opening sequence. In this frame the young girl “Chantelle” is having a flashback/dream to how she ran away and how she came to be unconscious. The black and white slowed down effect made it more staggered and discordant and supporting it as another part of the narrative as opposed to an event that is happening elsewhere at the same time. Discordant effects and sounds are reoccurring within the thriller genre.
This frame leaves the audience guessing as to whether it's "Chantelle" who has been murdered or has she found a dead body?
By leaving these questions behind for the audience to answer it allows for a perfect cliff hanger ending and creates tension as well as enigma.
the scene from hollyoaks and my film are very similar in terms of location and mise-en-scene.
mine however you only see for about 10 seconds which is just enough time to give the audience a fright the length of the scene may add
The inspiration for this scene came from British soap "HOLLYOAKS" & the BBC's film network short film called "MUD BOY". You might also be able to tell that the picture from "HOLLYOAKS" is surrounding by dead leaves which may be a metaphor for decay or end of life something has come to an end and so is mine.
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