Style and Tone

Our film is going to be a social-realist style. Therefore, our atmosphere that we are attempting to create is one of harsh, gritty reality; there will be no glamorisation or dramatising of the issues that are being addressed in the film - i.e. dealing with the consequences of violence and loss.

We will do this by using a combination of diegetic and non-diegetic sound; some points will have a subtle soundtrack but there will be parts with the absence of a soundtrack with purely heightened diegetic sound in order for the reality to be brought to the forefront and focused on. This will build the intimacy and personal relationship between the audience and the characters.

We have been influenced by Fish Tank, a social realist film which follows the life of a teen girl. It bares to the audience the true relationships she has with her family, herself and the new people she meets in her life; nothing is glamourised, and this heightens the harsh verisimilitude. Frankie and I hope to achieve this tone with a combination of mis-en-scene to define the characters and their backgrounds, and a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic sound to create both tension and a more intimate, empathetic relationship with the characters.

For example, we have taken inspiration from the way Mia has been filmed walking through streets; even though there is no dialogue, we are able to see her emotions through her body language and stride. This is important as social realism relies on techniques such as emotion and camerawork rather than CGI and expensive sets/locations. 

The scenes shot in the street will be very dark as we will rely on the light from cars, shops and street lamps, giving the scene a dark orange tinge.

       Shutter island has influenced our opening as we are going to include a flashback. The lighting is similar, as the present is dark and bleak, whereas the flashback will be set in the light with the sun throwing golden light over the ethereal scene. 

We also used the golden-hour scene from The Virgin Suicides as inspiration for our flashback.

Our original interest in strong colour semiotics will be included in the second flashback, inspired from We Need To Talk About Kevin. The colour red will also be hinted at in the house, as the walls of the kitchen will, too, be red. This will give the flashback a stylised tone, connoting blood, danger and death. 

Film Pitch and Narrative

Change of ideas after collaboration:

I have changed my ideas for my narrative since collaborating ideas with Frankie - the film is still going to be an urban crime thriller revolving around a murder investigation, but we decided it would be set in the present day as we felt this would be much more appropriate for the social realist aspect. Furthermore, we decided to not show a dead body in the opening and instead only hint at the murder which will leave the audience guessing but will also make film more creepy as less tends to be more. However, Frankie and I both had similar ideas to do with amnesia and memory loss, so the concept of the protagonist not being able to remember how she is involved in the murder is still the central plot line. We also chose to portray the male as a close friend / possible lover as this way the audience are able to form and invest a stronger relationship with him.

However, we both had strong ideas with colour and lighting - we wanted a scene in the golden hour (which we will use in the cafe flashback), and a scene with block colour (deep red will be used as a semiotic of danger and violence in the murder flashback).

Change of ideas after audience research:

1. As very few people liked the idea of having a romance within a thriller we decided to make it uncertain as to whether she is in a relationship with the man in the flashback or not.
2. In the survey, people seemed very interested in suspense, so we decided to end the opening with the sound of an answer machine and a sound bridge as a cliffhanger.
3. In our second flashback we want to make it very ambiguous and not have to rely on gore to make it dramatic, which was an aspect highlighted in our Vox Pops.

Final narrative: 

The opening wide shot will be from the side of a busy road at night - cars and traffic will be driving past, and the protagonist is seen on the other side of the road. The light will come from car head/tail lights, from buildings and lampposts. There will be a sound bridge in our ident into the opening shot of the heightened sound of the cars driving. There will be no non-diegetic sound in order to establish the social-realist genre.

We then follow her down the road to a house (it is unclear whether it is hers or her parents.) Her walking will be filmed from different angles and edited to be fast paced. There will be soundtrack in the scene here.

There is a cafe outside her house which triggers the first flashback of the golden hour with a man (it is ambiguous as to whether he is a close friend or a lover). There will be no diegetic sound here, only soundtrack. 

We are then brought back to the present with the protagonist entering the house - she walks in to the kitchen and brings out her phone to ring the man from the flashback (we will show this by the protagonist looking through her contact names and pausing at the man's). The diegetic sound will be heightened (e.g. keys jangling, the door opening/shutting, footsteps). As she brings out her phone, a new soundtrack begins, bringing an ominous sense of foreboding.

As the phone is ringing, her eyes notice one of the knives glinting on the rack, triggering the second flashback - the red, violent snapshot of potentially a murder but is kept too short and ambiguous to tell for sure.

The scene ends with the phone going to voicemail and a sound bridge of the answer machine beep onto the title frame of our film.

Certification

After researching the classification for both 12 and 15 rating films, I have decided that my film opening will be a 15. This is because there is depiction of an easily accessible weapon (a knife/blade) in the opening, and this will be shown in further length and detail throughout the film. Even though there will be no bad language in the opening, as the film unfolds and the tension begins to heighten it is very likely that strong language will be used to intensify emotions. Threat and violence are central themes of my film as it revolves around a crime - even in the opening, a suggestion of bloody violence is briefly seen.

Audience Research - voxpops

F.L. 

Frankie and I used structured interviews to obtain more qualitative, detailed responses from our target market. These voxpops have given us a more comprehensive insight in to what our audience is enticed by and interested in.

Audience Research - surveymonkey

M.H.

Film Questionaire 

Frankie and I sent out an online survey to our target market (15 - 25 year olds) in order to find out what aspects of film interests young, contemporary audiences.

Qu.3. What are your three favourite films, and why?

Qu.4. What is your least favourite film, and why?

Qu.6. What makes a good thriller film?

 

Preliminary Task

My Preliminary Task includes:

• a match on action shot
• the 180 degree rule
• a shot/reverse shot

Film Opening Idea

Pitch: Think Reservoir Dogs meets Fargo, with the social realist aspect of Fish Tank. An urban, 70s style crime thriller with an edge of satire.

Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino)

Fargo (Ethan and Joel Coen)

Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)

Audience: Certificate 15. The film will be aimed at 15 - 25 year olds.

Plot: A small scale murder investigation.

A young girl (17/18 years old) will come across a dead body and go to the authorities. (It is someone she knew, but not particularly close to.) It then becomes apparent that she has been involved in the murder and becomes a suspect, but she has no idea or recollection of why she is. The plot becomes the story of her and her own personal investigation of piecing together the murder, with the sub-plot of the two investigators officially solving the case.   

Style / tone: A combination of contemporary quirk and social realism.

The visuals will be stylised and full of semiotics (e.g. deep red = murder and blood, green = suspicion and threat, blue = sadness and peacefulness). These colours will be obvious, and the shots will be close framed in order to add significance to everything the eye sees. I would like to use both the 'golden hour' light when the sun is low in the sky, and the night sky with light from street lights would be atmospheric and appropriate.

An example of close framed shots with colour semiotics. (We Need To Talk About Kevin, Lynne Ramsay)

Characters:

1. The young woman / girl. 17/18 years old. Quite hardy/tough looking.
2. Investigator one: Young - 18 or 19 years old. Perhaps an apprentice to the elder.
3. Investigator two: Older - 40s. Experienced.

Costume: Ideally I want the film to look as if it is set in the 70s; outfits including leather jackets, high waisted trousers, denim, flares, stripes, shirts, sneakers, doc martens etc would be suitable.

The Runaways (Floria Sigismondi)

Graphics: The credits will appear at the bottom of the screen but will not take the viewer's attention away from the visuals. The film title will appear in large bold writing, overlaid on to the film footage, flashing on screen in time with the soundtrack in an intense, fast paced part of the sequence.

Kill Your Darlings (John Krokidas)

Sound: At the start there will be either no soundtrack or a soundtrack which is background noise compared to the enhanced diegetic sound (e.g. cars driving, trains rolling, footsteps, breathing etc.) This enhanced sound will help the audience pay attention to detail. However, when the sequence becomes fast paced (perhaps during a chase), the soundtrack will replace all diegetic sound - this music will sound similar to 70's style rock. (This will help the element of satire but also bring more excitement into the scene).