Group Discussion – Initial Ideas

During our first lesson as a group today, we brainstormed some possible ideas and storylines that we could use for our film opening. As we were all interested in the thriller/horror genre and thought this could be the most effective as an opening, we developed ideas based around this. It has very specific generic signifiers so we thought we could produce something effective and recognisable for this genre.

As a group, we started by identifying and listing significant conventions generally seen in thriller and horror movies. This included:
-Typical themes – revenge, obsession, murder, stalking, being watched, fear
-Characters – male villain, woman victim
-Locations – ordinary home, abandoned buildings, alleyways, dark isolated places
-Key iconography – weapons (knives), blood, shadows, candles
-Lighting – dark, low key, unnatural light
-Camera movement - canted angles, zooms and jump cuts to create sense of disorientation, fear, paranoia
-Editing – alternating the pace of cuts to create and build tension
-Sound – screams, heartbeat, breathing, creaks, weather, creepy music

By the end of our discussion, we had produced a few ideas. The two that we most liked and thought would be the most practical are:
''Rose Killer'' idea - day in the life of the notorious killer, except we don't know it is him until the end
''Obsession'' idea - based on an obsessive man who killed his girlfriend out of his love-fueled fixation on her

We will develop these ideas further in a group meeting later.