Thriller Planning // Plot + Narrative

The plot is the rigid backbone to any piece. Without solid narrative development, no matter how good your Cinematography, acting etc. is, you will be unable to make a cohesive or interesting text, and therefore anything of any quality. For this reason, there was much deliberation over the plot of our thriller, with many revisions and changes before settling on a final idea. The initial idea was a simple pursuit sequence set in a wide open space such as a marsh or field, inspired by No country For Old Men, with a psychopathic murderer chasing down and executing a helpless victim. The idea of this was to provide a simple basis on which to build up the other aspects of our thriller, such as cinematography and editing, which would have worked but it was felt that the idea was too simplistic and defied justification, logic and any hooks or cliffhangers for the audiences interest.


The idea of including a witness who is revealed at the end of the film was formulated, to add further interest and make the film a more typical and engaging thriller. Although this idea was good it was still felt that the idea was too illogical, with no feasible explanation for the events, no defined characters and no plot development. We began to play with various ideas such as the secret psychopath idea (such as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho), and the idea of a jogger character, to explain their being in the middle of nowhere. Further development of this idea was that the killer would be revealed to be a innocent appearing and pretty but not weak teenage girl, as this would be interesting and unexpected to the audience and may interest the audience into wanting to watch the film. Soon after, our class discussed and evaluated their respective ideas, and it was found that most of the groups had also chosen to go with the pursuit idea, although with different angles. This caused me to re-evaluate the idea completely, as I wanted to avoid clichés and generic ideas as much as possible.

I wanted to retain the location and characters of the plot which I felt were pretty good but change the whole premise of the film. At this stage there were many ideas that were discussed including a hit-man premise and the idea of a domestic argument gone violently wrong, but these ideas were also thought to be contrived and scrapped. However, the inspiration from our final idea rose from the ashes of our previously scrapped plans. The idea of the couple, the idea of the unfortunate witness and the unexpected killer were adapted into our final plan. A eureka moment heralded the idea of a photographer character, the protagonist of the piece, coming to witness a murder between a couple. the cliffhanger hook arises from the realisation of the photographer realising they have just witnessed a murder, as the murderer waves at them. both the idea and premise were evidently inspired by the Hitchcock classic "Rear Window" but closer in tone to Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow Up". Overall I was glad to have finally formulated an idea that was both achievable and interesting and allowed me to focus on other aspects of the piece.

We can see a little of the narrative in this storyboard, reflecting the outline of the opening's story. we start with a long shot of the protagonist, Grace, before cutting to a pov shot of the camera, which reinforces the camera and photographer of the mise en scene. Then there will be a cross cut, section, where the violence is first suggested, then shown, in contrast to the peace of Grace's situation. Then tension is built using the reveal of Grace's unwitting involvement in the murder, as she witnesses. the last shot, shows a zoom shot to be used as a cliff hanger.

Revision: 21/01/14

Following a short discussion and assessment within the group, we came to the conclusion that due to both time and resource constraints, that there should not be a fight scene. the fight scene that would need to be choreographed for the latter half of the piece would be: too hard to choreograph effectively within our deadline, hard to make convincing without trained or professional actors and too long within our 2 minute film. Thus we decided to slightly alter the storyline, with our witness, Grace finding the already dead body of the victim, Fred. We would retain the tension and cliff hanger with the killer, Lizzie, emerging either round a corner or out of grass red handed, spotting Grace at the same time she is spotted. 

Revision: 26/02/14

Having started the edit and having reshot a lage amount of footage, it soon became apparent that 1) we did not have enough footage to make the film to the planned storyline (due to time constraints during the shoot) and 2) the film was not of the high quality I am aiming for in this piece of coursework. In order to remedy this, I have made a small revision. I originally had the idea of filming new complimentary footage in order to make an opening sequence similar to that used in the film Se7en. to do this with the absence of high quality production software, I considered the idea of using claustrophobic black and white cinematography similar to the cinematography in Pi. However I chose instead to revise how the piece is edited. Instead of starting with the photographer and then cross cutting between the murder and photographer, we chose to start the film with the murder and then cross cut with the photographer, who finds the body. I felt that this way, I could retain the photography we had already shot without having to spend precious time filming more footage and instead spend that time making the films we already had better by spending time on titles effects and so on.