Thriller final cut

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Treatment

We planned to use the concept of a rogue detective who has lost his wife who has either disappeared or died. Either way, the detective has taken matters into his own hands and plans to take revenge on whoever or whatever took his wife away from him. In our coursework thriller opening piece, we would have the detective returning home with a duffel bag in his hand. What is inside the bag remains unknown throughout the piece, but it would likely be information or weapons of some description. Once he is home, he enters a study were he has pinned news articles and pictures linking to his wife's disappearance or murder. He becomes infuriated by the reminder of his lost wife and tears down the wall of information and swipes all the items on his desk onto the floor in a fury. Before going to the bathroom, he pegs his suit jacket to a coat hook. He then goes to the bathroom where he takes out a capsule containing pills or medication and takes them as he looks at himself in the mirror above the sink. He may wash his face to try and clear himself of the grief. At this point, he decides to get some air. He picks up his jacket from the hook he placed it on and leaves the house. After a while of walking, he finds himself in a dark and dismal alleyway. There is another person at the other end of the alleyway walking towards him. As a single streetlight lights the alleyway, the detective comes to the realisation that when the other man comes into the light of the streetlight that he is the man who killed or abducted his wife. He knows this because he saw the same man's picture on his wall before he tore it down off the wall. The detective then proceeds to either interrogate the man or kill him depending on the decision that is made based on how it might affect the plot. In either outcome, the detective kills the man. The final shot is of the detective walking away with a bloody knife or set of keys in his hand, with the dead man's hand lying completely still on the floor.
We took a lot of influence from the movie Se7en, with the idea of a detective who is different from the others and likes to do things his own way. Also including the disorientation and somewhat fearful factor that Kevin Spacey's character brings into the fold of the film, with the bloody knife or keys set and the pills that the detective takes illustrates his instability and rogue nature. However, we thought it would be effective to take influence from more typical film noir pieces such as The Third Man with the way that we use scenery to create tension and an increased fear factor.

Characters, Costume and Props

We decided as a group that our piece should be focused on one main character and to fully focus on him and how mysterious and enigmatic they may or may not be. We thought that having the character be a rogue detective would add a lot of enigma and disorientation to the piece. We decided to do this by taking much influence from the movie Se7en, almost mirroring Detective Somerset as a character in our own piece. We also considered and decided to have another character in our piece who never makes a physical appearance in flesh but in a photograph. This being the main character's wife who is either missing/presumed dead or is in fact dead. We thought that by having this character not in the opening itself, it adds more to the connotation of disorientation because the character feels broken about the loss of his loved one. This then becomes his "fueler" as his motive remains unclear throughout the piece but he is searching for revenge for whoever or whatever made his life so unfair for him. We considered having a thug that the detective murders in the piece, however including said thug and murder would depend on how long the piece lasted with the rest of the piece filmed and edited.

Since our character is a rogue detective, we thought it would only be fitting if the costume he wore was a suit and tie. However we would try to make the suit look slightly rugged and informal by perhaps having the tie slightly loose or his shirt untucked to reinforce the connotation that the detective is broken and not "to the book" as he may should be. If the thug was to be included in the piece, we would expect them to wear informal and scruffy clothing which illustrates their difference and contrast to the detective.

Finally we would focus on 4 main props: the detective's house keys, his duffel bag, his locket and his pills. The house keys would not only be a metaphor for unlocking his house and his heart because the memories of his wife are in their, but he would use his keys to kill the thug. The duffel bag would remain a McGuffin, so the audience would never find out what is inside but it is still a vital part of the plot. The locket would contain a picture of his wife, giving the audience some backstory but still not enough to fully inform them on the detective's past and the pills would remain unclear as to their purpose again to reinforce the connotation of disorientation.

Storyboard

Thriller Rough Cut

Fonts analysis

In various different thriller films which are linked to our own coursework film opening pieces through the genre, we see a variation of different fonts and texts which are used to create different affects in each individual piece. An example of this is the text and font used in the opening of the thriller film 'Se7en'.

(Example of Se7en font)

We see that the font allows the text to become jagged and slightly etched away in different places, constructing the connotations that the film or the characters in the piece may not be whole or complete in different places. What we also see is that the text is a bright white contrasting the dark background. The use of the contrasting colours could potentially construct the connotation that whatever 'Se7en' represents is a source of goodness and hope amongst despair and evil. We later see this in the movie as Detective Somerset appears as a gentle and kind man with the people he is working with appearing somewhat hopeless and slightly irritated by Somerset's enthusiasm to be a caring person. Another aspect of the font that is used in 'Se7en' is that in the background we can see that the same text has been projected a second time of the title text. Linking back to the connotation of good surround by evil, it could be that there is another source of good and hope in the film but it is not as strong as the main source of goodness. Linking to the films characters, we could assume that the title texts link to Somerset being the main source of goodness and Mills being the second but not as strong source of goodness following Somerset.

Another example that links to our own coursework piece is The Third Man.

(Example of The Third Man font)

We see that the text that is used in The Third Man is very different to the text and font used in Se7en. The font used in The Third Man is very focused and pinpointed constructing the connotation that the piece is going to fairly basic an predictable. However, the film in this case is the opposite of the connotation that the font creates, therefore we can see that the font was used purposefully to create a sense of disorientation for the viewer as the piece is not what they expected based off of the font of the title card. Also we can link that since the font is very angular and straight keeping the font very neat, particularly so with the font having a constant invisible line that the font sits on. This links back to the ideology of German Expressionism, with a lot of aspects of film being straight, pinpointed lines which constructs the feeling and sense of entrapment in the film for not only the viewer but for the characters. Again, the sense of entrapment creating disorientation for the viewer as typically neat and focused aspects of film and general life do not tend to lead to the feeling of entrapment.