Intertextuality within my thriller

The first intertextual reference is to 'Fargo', due to the snow shown throughout, this could link to the plot of 'Fargo' where a man hires somebody to kidnap his wife, only to have the situation spiral out of control. This links well with our thriller because the main character of Peter captures Tiffany for unknown reasons only to start regretting his actions. Another link between these two films is the hired men that kidnap the wife in Fargo, and the Man in our thriller who is scene later to be dragging Tiffany's body through the snow.


Another intertextual reference is between 'The Third Man' and our own thriller 'The Red Snow'. I utilised the same font in both to strengthen the idea that the death at the centre of both films may not be all that it seems. This will be an effective link because it will make the audience think twice about Tiffany's death. Another link between the two is the large black coat worn by Harry Lime and Peter from our thriller. This was in order to strengthen the enigma around our character because we rarely see Harry Lime's face or Peter's.

Another film that we can link our Thriller to is 'Animal Kingdom' this is because both main male characters sit in a bathroom thinking about a close female friend they have lost. This link could show that it is not directly Peter's fault that Tiffany is 'dead' but the death could still be linked back to him and that Tiffany's murderer could also be after Peter. Another intertextual reference is to 'Fight Club', this is because our character could be fighting personal demons which cause him to create a second persona. This is intertextually linked through the flashing between two characters, one pulling a body through the snow and the other trying to remember what happened to Tiffany. This could link in a way back to Fargo because the main character is not in control of the two men he hired but it was his own greed that caused them to become part of his life.

Once Upon a Time in America

Whilst researching for our thriller we were shown shots from once upon a time in america, these shots have become very useful because they show the characters brute like exterior and create links behind the characters true personality and there intentions. One shot that we decided to use in our own thriller was the amazing worm's eye view shot. A worm's eye view allows the audience to see from a characters vulnerable perception and allows the audience to become placed within the situation. Within this shot we notice a lot about the character standing above. He is obviously very dominant due to his large influence among the shot and the fixed look of anger upon his face. We do however see that he is helping the character that we are seeing the shot from the point of, we know this because the character has extended his arm across the shot, almost creating a shield across the worm eyes body. We also know this because the characters trilby hat, (which is a generic convention to most thrillers because it shows social status whilst creating danger and reassuring the idea of power and potential enigmas) is tilted away from the character showing his face plainly, in many ways this is his non verbal way of telling the man on the floor that he has arrived and that he will be okay.
The final reason that this worms eye view is such an effective shot is because the shot is reversed, this could create the idea that the man is feeling faint and is not truly with the scene, or the alternative view that this character is on the opposite side to the other men and therefore he is a stronger character.

Throughout the film close ups and tilts are used in order to reinforce enigmas and to add mystery into the scene. In this shot a close up is used in order for the horrible situation to feel realistic and for the violence to become truly represented. This style of close up would be efficient in our own thriller opening because it would allow the audience to truly understand the murder. For example, when our character is lying dead in the snow, a close up shot of her blood covered face would allow the audience to pity her at the same time as understanding how she died. This could allow her death to be linked to an item later on in the thriller, for example, if she had bullet wounds then a close up of a gun or an empty box of ammunition would link the item with the murder to show the audience who committed the crime.

FONTS AND TITLES FOR THRILLER

TITLES:
After much consideration I decided that my title would need to involve the word snow, for example DEEP SNOW, THE SNOW. I finally decided that RED SNOW not only sounded the best but linked the must to the deviant actions which take place in the snow. The word red symbolising the blood, and contrasting with the white snow to create the imagery of blood splattered across the snow. This is effective because it links to the idea that the murder of Tiffany Wise was hard to cover up, much like trying to remove blood from the pure white snow. The Titles [directed by, starring and produced by] then needed too be placed throughout the Thriller opening. I decided in the end too place all of the titles on top of the snow shots. This is in order for the detailed shots in the bathroom to be uninterrupted and also so that the black writing can contrast with the snow, making the titles easier to see.
FONTS:
The font was surprisingly the most time consuming part of my entire edit, this mainly down to the limited selection of fonts. At first I decided that I would utilise the Quentin Tarantino style for titles, where a large font covers the majority of the screen in his classic yellow.
after getting as close to this font as possible I decided to make the font Red to link back to the title and the idea that somebody has been murdered. When I had finished I was left with a Title which looked like this:

This title sadly
did not work for me because it seemed too flashy, it lacked subtlety and even when shrunk the font would still make the title curt across the shot in a way which just seemed too tacky. I would have too rethink my font if I wanted an effective title sequence. For inspiration I decided to research even more thriller titles.
After looking into Animal Kingdom, once upon a Time in america and Memento I finally realised that the best titles are the originals. The Third Man stood out instantly as a strong yet discrete title, the title was stacked word by word on top of each other creating a compact and effective image. It was almost as if the title was dependant on each layer to hold it up, this gave the idea that everything was in the balance and about too collapse. I then decided that my title needed to have a reasonable order too it, as well as my font needing to be more precise. I added the following font to all of my titles.

This new font was simple but not too formal like times new roman, it worked due to its simplicity, I needed the title too be spread out in one line because I would place it along the bottom of a shot where preserving detail is important. I kept the size small and made sure that the black would always contrast with the whitest parts of snow. Now that I had my font prepared I wanted to create the ordered tower effect shown in the third man. In the end I managed to fit the following title in effectively, the resized titles did not take as much space as the previous clumsy red titles, so I managed to fit them into places which previously a title would not have worked. I stuck this final layered title in a shot where a hand is scene to be picking up a bracelet. This shot later links to the idea of perfecting a crime, which is why the many layers help to show the preparation that goes into carrying out a murder.

Proper Locations for thriller

Our thriller takes place in two different places, one being a bathroom, and the other being a snowy woodland. The edit will skip between the two locations every few seconds so that two stories which link together will be told and the same time, one of a murder victim being dragged through the snow, the other being the friend of the victim in his bathroom trying to locate the friend. This bathroom scene links to both Kill Bill part 2, where 'blondie' cries on the bathroom floor and Animal kingdom, where the main character sits in a bathroom whilst worrying about his girlfriend.

Props

One prop is a bracelet which falls from Tiffany's hand in the second shot, it has many vibrant colours and stands out within the snow. Two phones will also be used within the scene, one is Tiffany's and one is Peter's, they are used in order for the search for tiffany to begin.
The final props that are to be used are a pair of gloves, these will be pulled off and dropped when Peter enters the claustrophobic toilet/bedroom. Even though there are very few props they each have a part too play, the first few scenes are very empty of props because the character is being pulled through a snowy forest. The Bracelet helps to link Peter and Tiffany's relationship, the Phones are used in order to clarify this connection, and the gloves are used so that it becomes apparent that peter feels uneasy about the situation.

Music for my thriller

The music for my personal edit of the thriller will be from a webs tie called cllct.com after being given permission I was aloud to use several tracks for the thriller, the music needs to add suspense but not dominate the visual aspects, therefore I needed quite music that would can have diegetic sound above. the music will come in slowly as the opening minute ends. The music will be posted below when the best fitting track has been chosen.

Final shot list

Shot one- Begins with a close up shot of the female character being dragged 
through a field covered in snow by a man, cut to:
Shot two- Close up shot of a significant looking bracelet or headband falling 
off the dragged girls hand, then cut to:
Shot three- Close up low angle shot of the man holding the girl under her arms
 whilst dragging her still through the snow, cut to
Shot four- A point of view shot of a boy walking along the field and finding the 
significant looking bracelet or object, this could be a slight tilt shot when he
 picks it up to signify confusion, cut to
Shot five- Cut to a point of view shot of the girl as she is dragged through the 
snow, cut to
Shot six- Worms eye view of the girl looking up at her murderer, cut to
Shot seven- birds eye shot of the boy who previously found the bracelet sitting
 in a claustrophobic space maybe a small bedroom or public bathroom holding 
onto the bracelet that he found and crying, cut to
Shot eight- tilt shot of the Girl being buried in the snow, cut to
Shot nine- Boy in bathroom or a small space phoning the girl, this could be a 
close up shot of either him dialling which enables the audience to see the 
characters name of who he is phoning, cut to
Shot ten- girl lying in undergrowth where the male character has dumped her,
 her phone beside her then goes off, you hear diegetic sound of her ringtone, 
cut to
Shot eleven-  low angle tilt in the bathroom as the the boy looks at the bracelet
 he found in the snow, there is an identifiable object on the boy as well. 

Shot twelve- a very far away shot of an orange blur in the distance, the phone 
can still be heard in the distance. The shot slowly fades out and the title appears.

Initial Story Board

This was out original story board for our thriller, we decided that it was not good enough because it was not thrilling and lacked supsence and tension.

This is the first 6 shots of our original thriller, shot one shows Tiffany, the main character, looking at a photo of her and a barely visible man, this man is the enigma throughout and therefore is hard to recognise even within the photo. Shot two shows Tiffany's face at low angle tilt, this makes us feel uneasy and generally sets her mood. The third shot shows a hand pressing a button to call a lift, we know it is Tiffany from the clothes but we are cannot see her face or expressions. The fourth shot shows Tiffany within the lift, she is looking at the camera and slowly goes from happy to sad, this shows us that she is worried about something. The next two shots are tracking shots and they help to identify where tiffany is.

Tiffany then walks into her bathroom, this relates to psycho, where the victim is caught unawares in the shower. Tiffany then takes the picture out again, in the background of the shot we see the male character, he is hard to recognise and is the definite enigma within the shot.

Costumes for Thriller

The thriller opening sequence for our thriller has two characters, the main character of Sarah who the plot revolves around and the minor character of John who is causing distress to Sarah due to unknown actions in their relationship. We see John at the end of the thriller and also in a photo which Sarah looks at in the opening and ending shots. This photo shows John and Sarah together looking quite happy. The clothes worn in the photo will be the same clothes that they wear in the thriller, this will show the audience that not much time has passed between the photo being taken and the events of the thriller. It also allows the characters in

the photo to be easily linked with the characters of the thriller.

Blake: Being seen as the deviant character we need his clothes to portray his evil nature or allow the audience to understand why he became part of the evil party of the thriller. The character will wear a black leather jacket to link him to being hard natured and commonly dominant over women. The leather jacket is seen most commonly from the late 60's were men still had dominance over women in relationships and marriage. A leather jacket would create the effect that this male character is a misogynist. The head of the character is not seen in the thriller and only slightly in the photo so no classic trilby hat will be needed.

To man will be wearing black jeans to show that he combines the colour scheme of most men in working around the age of 30 (commonly in black suits working in common office jobs) The jeans aspect shows that he is more of a casual dresser and that this links with the leather jacket to give the audience the idea that this man is a punk, leading the audience to finally see that he is the deviant of the two. He will also be wearing a black hood in order to hide his identity, this will make the scene more realistic because a murderer would never expose who he is.

Tiffany: She will be dressed in a large orange coat, this is in order for her to stand out from the crowd, the orange contrasts with the white snow in order for her the audience to understand her significance within the scene and the importance of the murder. The idea that she is wearing a bright colour that stands out helps to symbolise the idea that the murder is hard to cover up. Tiffany wears very vibrant colours in order for her to contrast with the snow and to stand out as a target. A signifier throughout the scene is her bracelet, which she falls off of her corpse in the snow and is later linked to the crime.

Peter: the third character is Blake's opposite, this is because he is searching for tiffany whereas Blake is trying to hide her and get rid of her. In many ways the fashion of the two characters must be opposites, this is so that they will target each other and label the other as an enemy, for example the fashion of Mods and Rockers symbolised their personalities and the two gangs could easily identify each other by fashion. Where Blake wears cheap a cheap black hoody, Peter wears a large coat, this helps to separate the two characters into class, with the working class fashion worn by the murderer and the middle class fashion by the hero. A jumper also helps to create the divide between the two characters. Both characters however wear the same style shoes, this links to the idea that peter and the man are linked, or to add suspense to low shots wear the characters feet are the only identifying characteristics.

Final shot list

1st shot) an over the shoulder shot of a female character called Sarah, looking at a photo, the photo shows Sarah and a Male character called John. the key features of this shot will be the photo and the hair. Much like the shots in 'Another Earth (2011)' the shots of the long hair will emphasise the gender and the innocent stereotypes that come with the female gender. The sound throughout the scenes will be diabetic of the woman sniffing and crying. This will enable the audience to feel for the character, there will also be non diabetic music very silently playing as well, the music will be soft and orchestral to show a link between classic thrillers and our own.

2nd shot) We see a shot of Sarah's face, the shot shows her crying and looking down at the photo, she wipes her eyes from time to time and pushes her hair, this shows that she is trying to overcome the situation. The idea that this character is overcoming a situation allows the audience to become more involved with the plot and the characters. when she pushes her hair back we see an bracelet on her arm, the bracelet shows a cross, this adds religious imagery and leads back to her being innocent (the innocence of christ).

3rd shot) we move to a shot of a metal panel on a grey concrete wall, the metal panel has buttons and is the buttons for an elevator. Sarah's hand reaches into the scene and presses one of the buttons... we see the bracelet again to continue to imagery of her innocence within the scenes. The music still continues to play in the background very quietly. The sounds of machinery and the elevator dominates the music to show corruption. we then see Sarah's waste walk across the screen after a few seconds to show that she is entering the elevator. The wait will add effect to the scene to add urgency to the situation

4th shot) the shot is brighter than the others and we see the characters face and hair lighter than before. the shot is equal to the second shot where we see Sarah's face straight on. Sarah looks happier but slowly deteriorates throughout the scene until she is look as sad as before. whilst she deteriorates we see the scene become dimmer and all sound will slow and become fainter. This will symbolise her change of thoughts from happy to the distressing situation involving the photo.

5th shot) cuts to a long shot of Sarah walking out of the elevators and to the left out of shot. This shot will create the journey link from the evaluator to the home.

6th shot) shows another long shot of a door, we see the character entering her house and closing the door.

7th shot) a tracking shot along a corridor within her house, this tracking shot will link too the tracking shot in 'Jackie Brown', this will show that she is deviant like the character or Jackie Brown. Sarah places her religious bracelet down on a cabinet/table as she is walking, this shows that she is shedding her protection/innocence. We see her walking into her bathroom, the non diabetic music has become louder than before.

8th shot) point of view shot off sarah looking down at the photo from her toilet. A point of view shot allows the audience to become more involved with the situation and allows us to feel the same fear as Sarah feels.After a few seconds we see a figure appear in the entrance. We only see torso and lower body of the man creating suspense. the photo is lowered to show the change of situation. The man in the photo is dressed the same as the man in the bathroom door. The music is still getting louder by this point.

9th shot) the music final hits the climax. we see a side on shot of the mans hand, we know it is him because we see his distinct shirt from the previous shot and photo. within the hand is the religious bracelet. this shows that he now controls her/has her innocence. At this point in very basic font we see the title hit the screen, the font is in yellow to show that we are linking our thriller with most of Quentin Tarantino's thrillers were he uses his classic yellow font.

Thriller Planning

Basic plot:

When me and Alice sat down to plan the thriller we first had to first decide upon the basic format for our thriller. We decided that we would not use dialogue due to the fact that it would sound rough if we plan to use the school camera equipment. It would be much smarter for us to use non-diegetic sound throughout the scene. Secondly we decided on what we thought would make our thriller stand out, gender and social status were our first ideas, but after much consideration we decided that it would be much better to have a middle aged woman as the centre of attention. The image I had in my head was a far more deviant version of 'Jackie Brown'.
We then had to start work on the shot list. Without dialogue there would be very little point in using the 180 degree rule, however, to contrast victim and killer we may have used some form of the rule with extreme close ups.
The shot list is as follows:

1) The camera is facing from some distance away at the second story front windows of a house. The camera does not need to be parallel, it can be a high or low angle... The shot will be taken at night time and the lighting will come entirely from the room that the camera is focused on. There will be a woman in this room and she will be walking around in a hurry, picking items up etc. The camera will slowly zoom into the top left hand corner of the window, where the production company's name will appear. I took actually spent a lot of time deciding which corner of the window to zoom into, I decided on the top left corner mainly because we right from left to right, so if we were to zoom into any corner we would feel more comfortable with the right hand side.... I decided that if we are already reversing gender roles then why not build up to this by reversing the shots as well.
2) The previous shot has faded to white and now a new shot fades in. This shot is of a car park, the camera is facing down a hill looking into the car park. The shot is an over the shoulder shot, we see the hair of a woman so we know that this is the character from before. She is looking down at two men in the car park. I want to trick the audience by reversing the shot so that we see the men looking up at the woman but It would be hard to do this without breaking the 180 degree rule, however, I shall try my best to succeed.
3) we shoot from the floor for the next shot, it is an extremely low angle, we see one of the men from the car park walking towards the camera, as he comes closer and closer he covers more and more of the shot, finally he walks through the shot, revealing the woman from before to be walking behind him at some distance.

4) the final shot shows an elevator, the man presses the button and waits for the lift to reach him, when it does the woman is there, the camera moves slowly to the left to show a blank wall. We hear the diegetic sound of fighting and the film title suddenly appears on the wall along. The title will be in the classic Quentin Tarantino font and colour (yellow).
The idea of the first 3 scenes is to quickly show that there are two characters, both equally deviant, one a man one a woman, in the fourth scene we know that they have a fight but we do not know who started or won the fight. After the forth scene fades out the words '4 Weeks earlier will appear upon a black screen'. This shows the audience that this is in fact the end of the film, and to understand the history behind the characters and what happened at the lift they must watch the events of the previous weeks. The idea that this film is non linear not only helps create suspense straight away but it also insures that the audience stay to watch the rest of the film.

My original ideas behind my Thriller

From my persepective, there are three ways to make a great thriller, these three things are not what makes a thriller but personally what should be included to make a thriller successful.

1) Dialogue:

Dialogue is by far one of the best features of any extraordinary film due to its effect on the audience and ability to create tension and suspense between characters. For example, Pulp Fiction is a long stream of perfectly written dialogue. The script is written in such a way that throughout the film that the dialogue does not give the effect of being informative, instead the film is portrayed to the audience as being a sequence of events. The very idea that watching a film should be like watching extracts from potentially real events, is what most films miss out on having, I believe that most modern thrillers are instead seen more as being a story which leads from A to B. This simple story technique does not allow the audience to truly emerse themselves within the plot-line and therefore does not allow the audience to see any form of tension of suspense.

2) The Camera Angles:

A film of course work with a well written script, but without a visual aspect, I doubt many people would watch or appreciate the film. And so came about the unintentional invention of camera angles and shots. The visual side to films sadly dominates the audio side, and therefore films like Avatar can entertain an audience with beautiful scenes whilst having a script and storyline equal to the conversations shared between children and toys at a lonely teddy bare tea party.

Certain shots are what create amazing films, within Animal Kingdom, there is one scene were the Josh (the main character) is standing in a hallway, he has a blank emotionless look on his face and slowly looks behind him to see the police run from one side to the other of the hallway. This shot stuck with me because it not only uses an amazing angle but it also utilised the characters facial expressions to adapt the imagery of the shot.

Another amazing shot is in fact Quinten Tarantino's commonly used 'Car boot shot' which is used in 'Reservoir Dogs', 'Pulp Fiction', 'Jackie Brown', 'Kill Bill' and 'Death Proof'. The angle of the camera is placed in a car boot and looks up towards one or more other characters, the camera symbolises somebody within the car and it portrays the characters above not only as being dominant but also as being deviant. This shot is also used in 'Inglorious Basterds' but from the forest floor instead of a car boot.

3) The Actors:

The largest effect on how people perceive a film is the actors playing each part. The way an actor looks and acts can change the script entirely, for example if Bill Murray was born with a less glum looking face but the same acting abilities, then groundhog say would of been seen in a less humorous way. 

All great films have had great actors flourish from them, this is because these certain actors are good at the role they played, for example Hugh Grant is not inept because he knows that his best suiting role is as a british romantic. If he were to try and star in another awful Hulk film, yes it would be funny, but he would not pull off the role successfully.

I have decided that I shall base my thriller upon some of if not all of these three rules... I shall also jazz up the name of the rules so that I may add another small glimpse of hope to the world of potential media success. The Three Filming Forms, seems like a fitting name and now I shall decide how to utilise each 'Form' within my 2 minutes of thriller filming.

1) Dialogue normally slowly builds over time, and if there is one thing we are not given it is time. To have a two minute scene of dialogue would show that we understood about the 180 degree rule, but it would show no real talent with a camera, merely scripting.

2) If we have already ruled out the idea of complex and well written dialogue then we shall add more effect upon the actors and camera angles.

3) If we are to use camera angles then we must show skill without danger, I will most likely wrack my brains for several days before concluding that in fact my mind is a barrel of hope and that I understand millions of never before shot scenes.

4) With good scenes a plot must be amazing, or at least as amazing as a plot can be within 2 minutes.

5) Actors, if we are intending on using actors that fit the roles then we would most likely need a stern looking man with a strong jawbone etc... I personally believe that this is to mainstream and that if anything we should have someone who doesn't fit the role and then adapt them so that the stereotype we are fighting is what makes this character not only fit the role well but also work better than the stern man.

6) The stereotype shall be that of a young female doing what a male character would usually do within thriller films.

7) Finally we need to link both the character and camera with the idea of suspense and tension, this is because the Three Filming Forms (I really wanted to say it again) are created to fit any film, not just thrillers, in order to create a thriller we must add in thriller features as well.

8) With the previous 7 steps followed to some level of success we should have the basic structure to our Three Filming Forms Thriller...