Storyboard for Our Thriller

Title Sequence of our Thriller

For our thriller, we decided it was important to play with a variety of fonts to see what best captured and reflected the messages we wanted our thriller to convey. In my research post, I discuss the typeface of Mission Impossible and how that shows the texture and detail, through typography, the sub genre of our film, and for our film, Torpidity, we want to have the same impact on the audience, where you can clearly tell the genre of the film through the typography featured at the start of the opening sequence.

The typography of the film gives it a clear basis in which to build the film upon, and in films such as Star Wars, it allows a whole franchise to be based around it, it becomes recognisable universally and is connected with your film, so in that aspect we had to ensure it was right, also, it has to share the feel and convey your intentions for your films, often the typography is vital in setting the genre of your film, as discussed in my research post, and we needed to get the typeface right as it can make or break an opening of a film. Using the website www.dafont.com, we reviewed a series of typefaces and what the font connotes etc.

Firstly, we looked through the list of 'Newly added fonts' to get a general consensus for the site.
We began by looking at the typeface that is pictured, called 'Infinite Strike'.  We analysed this typeface and decided why it wouldn't be great for our thriller. The cons of the typeface are really simple, it's delicate and elegant, and perhaps better suited to a romantic film, rather than a Psychological Thriller, or a film that uses Film Noir's femme fatale as a character type, as it best conveys key characteristics of this character type. The descenders are deep and finessed, it creates a connotations of femininity and class that is simply not present in Torpidity. Also, the kerning is too compact which would contrast the space shown through our location.

These are the main ideas we didn't select 'Infinite Strike' as our typeface of choice.

Another typeface we considered using for our film was 'Typographica'. This typeface was a candidate for our film, as it matched the intentions we were looking to portray through the typeface we eventually chose to open the film.

In terms of the connotations it has, it is a Sans Serif typeface, and this provides a clarity and intimidation that is required in a psychological thriller, it adds simplicity because of the clarity of each individual letter in the typeface as a whole. For this section, there is an air of clarity and individuality about the film, and it's present right at the beginning of the film, which contrasts the opening scene which is frantic and confusing, this contrast, along with the clarity and intimidating nature of the typeface made it a real strong candidate for our film.

In the end, we selected this font for our film, it is much like the 'Typographica' typeface however, it is more streamlined and more of a serif font. The connotations our font gives is clarity and simplicity to a scene of tension and drama. It plays on the mind as the line is representation of the divide between dream and reality, which is another inter textual reference to the film. The font is called Avenir Light.

Inter-textual References of Our Thriller

Di Caprio in Inception

For our film, we conducted loads of research on Psychological Thrillers and what has been successful, it was imperative for us as a production team to ensure that we drew inspiration for more successful films in this sub genre of film.

The first inter-textual reference of our film comes from the plot itself, as it based around the idea of questioning dream and reality, and with in that, having a reoccurring nightmare. The film Inception, directed by Christopher Nolan, was our inspiration for our narrative, and thus there are elements of that film present in our Thriller opening sequence. In the final scene of Inception, Leonardo Di Caprio is seen waking up and opening his eyes suddenly in this extreme close up, in our opening scene, we will replicate this shot to include an inter-textual reference early on, also, its helpful as it clearly distinguishes what is dream and what is reality and this is a successful piece of camerawork in a very successful film.

Another inter-textual reference in our film is the character of Xavier Martinelli. In the opening sequence, Martinelli is shown without a face, and sometimes he disappears altogether, which questions reality and dream and if it's different. His character is based on the 6ft3 Rabbit in 1950 film Harvey. The rabbit is only seen by the Elwood P. Dowd, the films main character, and the audience, which is qualities shared by Martinelli, because he is only seen by Josh Masterson and the audience, creating an illusion and an illusion between what is reality and what is in the dream being experience by the protagonist. We considered the message of the Rabbit as the protagonists best friend and how his characteristics can be channelled through an antagonist in a different genre of film, in terms of success, I think basing Martinelli on the Rabbit is a complex but clever idea from ourselves.

These inter-textual references allow us to show a knowledge of films through our film, but also can provide texture and understanding for our audience. As keen film lovers, our production team are allowed to add sections from successful films and that helps make the film more successful due to them being recognisable, particularly the reference from Inception.

Written by Connor Southwell

Soundscape of our Thriller

In our thriller, we would use sound to help create suspense and tension in our thriller, a psychological thriller is aimed to provoke the audiences thinking and I think it's important our soundscape replicates this as it would match the convention of a psychological thriller. This would be achieved through the use of different methods of sound, for example, opening the title sequence with a score that sets the scene, for our thriller, it would be a piece of score that could replicate a heart machine at a hospital, or a lullaby that is darkened to match with the theme of torpidity.

This would involve the use of underscore to whack up the tension, which would be present when Tom Rush's character enters a shot, to clearly match the intensity and really get the tension high. This score would be an intense piece of music to compliment the high intensity of this 'chase scene'. This is an underscore which will play when Rush enters a scene, it becomes associated with him as a character and thus provides connotations of him being a tense character who provides negative connotations, which matches the intentions of the character. With the use of an underscore, the character relies on good acting and body language, whereas with it, it creates connotations and a motif.

The diegetic sound of breathing at a range of pace allows us to create tension and suspense as breathing presents the idea that something is going to happen, and the physical action of intense heavy breathing creates tension, as if a character the audience relates to is heavy breathing, there should be cause for concern amongst the audience, it also raises questions and linking back to conventions, works the mind.

Finally, the use of silence also helps creates tension and suspense, often the use of silence gets overlooked as a method of sound, but as a production team, we have carefully considered our use of sound and how to use it to full effect in order to create tension and suspense, also, the use of silence allows over technical aspects such as Mise En Scene and Cinematography to take over and allow that to transform the scene as oppose to relying on the sound to create connotations and imagery, however, silence, especially when combined an extreme close up creates tension and suspense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XyW7791kCQ This is an example of a score we could use in our thriller film.

Written by Connor Southwell

Explanation of Planning Process

Our production team, which consists of Thor, Robert and I, came up with a mind map of initial ideas which gave us a foundation to base the general idea of our film around. As a group, we were always well aware that we wanted to make a Psychological thriller, as this was a sub genre that interested us in terms of technical aspects, for example, how the use of sound can be used to make the audience think? Secondly, it was about formulating a narrative that both engaged and interested our audience, whilst retaining the conventions of a psychological thriller. After developing our narrative through writing a script and making a shot by shot plan, which gave us a general consensus of what we wanted to achieve in the opening 2 minutes of our thriller and the messages we wanted to create. I wrote a script to back up this plan and narrative, and after the production of it, we analysed it as a group and changed sections and added sections, so despite it being constructed and produced by myself, it was very much a group effort. For the majority, decisions were taken as a group despite being led by an individual, and that drove us to a successful plan and foundation to build and craft our film into what we wanted it to be. Overall, as a group, we worked hard and successfully as a group to achieve our initial ideas, we worked together to achieve an objective that started as ideas on a piece of paper and that's credit to our group and how hard we've worked.


Written by Connor Southwell

Selection of Actors

In terms of acting, as a production team, we wanted to ensure that we that the standard of acting was up to a high standard because it improves the overall complexion of the film as it makes it less 'amateur'. Reflecting upon our Preliminary Task, our focus on that task was based solely around narrative and less so the technical components of the film, so for our thriller, we wanted to strike a balance between narrative and technical aspects such as lighting, mise en scene, camerawork and sound.

Connor Southwell- I decided to act in our thriller as alongside my studies of A Level Media Studies, I also study A Level Theatre Studies, which means naturally, I put myself forward for the acting and as a production team, we decided that my experience with acting and study of theatre allowed me to play the role of the main character with flexibility and professionally which doesn't decrease the quality of our film. I play the role of Joshua Masterson, who is the main character in the film, and a character who needs to be presented in a way that shows mystery and illusion towards the opening of our thriller.


Thor Forster- Thor plays the role of the films antagonist in Tom Rush. Thor is excellent for this role, because he is able to characterise really well, which is needed when playing a character who relies solely on body language and movement to play this character, as throughout the opening, his face is completely hidden which is in relation to not being able to see people's faces with in dreams.


Written by Connor Southwell

Shooting Schedule

Explain the title of your film

The title of our film is 'Torpidity'.

Torpidity means 'lethargic' or 'inactive or sluggish', and for us, this really sums up the narrative of our opening scene of our thriller, because our thriller really questions the difference between dream and reality, and 'Torpidity' is a great word that reflects our intentions as a state of inactivity is exactly what we are after in terms of narrative and actual content present with in our film as we delve into questioning what is dream and what is reality. Our aim in choosing this title is that it will relate to the audience as I'm sure a majority of people have felt the feeling of being in a dream state or as the film displays feeling trapped. This feeling of torpidity is something that can happen to any individual and this is something that we really conveyed in the films opening sequence.

The word originates from the Greek word torpidus, which means 'numb' or 'stiffness', this is relevant to feelings that character feels, so in relation to word origin and historical context of language, this is evident with in our film. Also, as a production team, we wanted our characters to experience feelings of being trapped and experiencing panic, we want to present that Josh Masterson is trapped both in reality and in dream, and Torpidity perfectly captures this sense and that is our reasoning behind the title of our film.

Torpidity is a feeling that can be experienced at any time by any individual, whether in a state of dream or not, and this sense of Torpidity is a feeling that can be felt at any time.

Written by Connor Southwell

Costumes (UPDATED)

In terms of costume, we have placed a great quantity of thought into what is being worn by our characters and the characterisation in which costume allows, and how it influences the piece in its entirety.

Josh Masterson-  Wears a hooded coat along with grey jeans and grey shoes. The thought process behind the hooded coat is to reveal the identity of his character slowly, and present him as a character of mystery and shadiness. Despite the audience feeling sympathy for Joshua, there is also an air of wondering what is happening etc. Masterson's face is always made clear, plus, his colours are blue and grey, which are quite neutral in comparison to dark, bland colours worn by Rush. In terms of the meaning behind the denim jeans, Jean designer Yves Saint Laurent spoke in an interview about the meaning behind jeans  “They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity,” sighed the owlish Frenchman. “All I hope for in my clothes.” This was certainly applicable to our thriller, as the use of jeans add simplicity and modesty behind our character, Masterson is a much warmer character in comparison to Rush.The intimacy and commonness of Masterson's costume presents ideas of normality and commonness, as a production team, we wanted Masterson to be quite mysterious but also relatable.


This is the coat worn by Josh Masterson.




Tom Rush- Wears a tracksuit supported with a green coat with a large hood as we don't want his face to be seen throughout the opening as faces aren't ever seen in dreams. It is used to make him seem a tough and hardened character. This is represented through his stereotypical characterisation. The hood also connotes ideas of mystery and illusion around Rush as a character, in many ways, the use of a hood is much like the use of a mask, but more intimate with the audience. Also, in a dream, wearing a coat is to wear the coat of your father, mother, royalty or a beggar is to take on an aspect of that role. All this research concluded our decision to use large coats in different forms, but for these reasons, Rush's coat is used with different intentions than Josh's coat is used to create this idea of mystery and distance between the audience, which is also shown through proxsemics as Rush is also further away from the screen than Masterson is, which helps creates distance literally between this character and the audience.



This is the coat worn by Tom Rush.



Written by Connor Southwell

Plot Synopsis

The plot of our film is aimed to raise a simple question; what in our lives is dream and what is reality. This is the story of Josh Masterson, who is subject of this intensive reality. Josh struggles to differentiate between the two. Stuck in between two worlds, Josh encounters Tom Rush, who plays the villain of the film, and as Josh gets in trouble financially, Javier is there to assigned with catching a struggling Josh, is this real? Or is Josh stuck in a dream?

Written by Connor Southwell

Film Pitch (Updated)

Ever felt that your dream is so real it must be true? You're not alone, in our film, Torpidity, we question the difference between dream and reality, and is there one?

Location and Mise En Scene

LOCATIONS & MISE EN SCENE:

Throughout our thriller there will be several possible locations where we'll be filming, such as a bus stop, Ketts Hill and a dark, dead end street or alley.
The opening sequence of our thriller takes place in a location looking over Norwich with an establishing shot. The primary candidate
for where this scene will be filmed is Ketts hill, this is because you can see the whole of Norwich from here and in the winter it looks particularly dark,gloomy and isolated. The atmosphere created in this opening scene would be mysterious and chilling, these are both general conventions of a typical thriller.

The second potential location we have chosen to film in is a bus stop, this is because it gives general conventions of city life and an every day setting. Furthermore, we have a scene in our thriller in which a character is sleeping at a bus stop and the bus stop could be interpreted as the entrapment of his mind. This bus stop could essentially be anywhere, however a preferred location for it would be on a quite desolate road to show he's isolated and alone. When filming in this area we would have to pay careful attention to the lighting as it could be an issue because it is outside and very open. But, to combat this as we are filming in winter and at night there is going to be very little to no diegetic light, except from possibly the moon, allowing us to create our own non diegetic lighting with equipment.

For the chase scene in our thriller we are looking to film down an alleyway. This alley needs to be empty,rough and relatively long. This alley must connote how trapped the character is feeling and how vulnerable he is. As our thriller is a psychological thriller all of our locations, especially for this scene must connote this constant sense of isolation and paranoia. Also, our thriller is about a teenager fighting the concept of reality within his own mind, so the settings are vital in depicting this plot.

Written by Thor Forster

Initial Ideas

Thriller Planning- Script

Thriller Script by connor southwell on Scribd

Introduction

Hello
This is my Year 12 AS Level Media Blog which will be containing my work throughout the year.

Connor Southwell