Main Character Profile

This is the protagonist in our opening sequence - the infamous "Poppy Killer". He is an ex-soldier; having served in the Iraq War, where he was stranded by his battalion and had to fight his way out of the war zone alone. On returning back home, he makes it his mission to track down those who betrayed him, and seek his revenge...

We have decided to leave his name unknown, possibly throughout the whole film, but definitely in the opening sequence to emphasise his mystery. He will be referred to as The Poppy Killer, in the news broadcasting and in the newspapers. This is the only information that people know about this murderer as after killing his victims, he leaves a poppy by their side (a signifier of death and related to war.)We thought that Ben would play the role of him well because on the surface our character needs to represent a normal man but on the inside lays his dark secret.

This photo shows that this character will be wearing a green shirt over a white top which resembles the sort of clothing worn by soldiers whilst off-duty. His dog tags are a reminder of the war he was in and he is wearing a poppy in honour of those who were killed, and those who will be killed...

Meeting

Next Meeting
During this meeting, we still couldn't make a decision on what idea to go ahead with. We gathered feedback from different people but they all had different opinions. We agreed with the positives and negatives that they put towards the ideas.
We have therefore decided to Test Shoot both ideas on Monday. From this we will see what types of shots work and which ones don't work so well. We can also test lighting and the location ideas for both openings.
From this Test Shoot, we hope to make our decision based mainly on what we found.
After we have made our decision, we will work towards finalising the location and sorting out the shots that we will do. We will also finalise our actors. If we choose the idea with just one character, we will just use Ben. However if we choose the other idea with the two main characters (the boy and the girl) we will also use Ben but will have to find a girl that will fit the role and can also act. She'd have to look like a typical, innocent female, that has got caught up in this situation that she doesn't want to be in. We would then test out the actor/s, take pictures and make them act scenes out. If we use the boy and girl, we would have to make sure they work well together and fit the idea.

Idea For Film Opening

I had an original idea which is slightly similar to the idea below, but changed bits after talking to Miss and realising that something simpler and easier to shoot would be more suitable, and also effective as an opening. It has the same overall concept and themes, but the idea that would be shown in the sequence is different. My original idea involved the same start, but had a different flashback that was all one sequence. It involved the killer following and stalking the girl and killing her. There was also another character involved (the girl’s boyfriend.) However we decided that this idea was too complicated to shoot and difficult with a lot of camera movement, point of view shots etc. It also seemed extremely time consuming, especially as we only have a limited amount of time to complete it. We therefore came up with another idea which I like more and think is a lot better.

The idea:
It's based around an obsessive killer, whose fixation causes him to do something he may regret. The scene would open on a male character sitting in the corner of a dark, empty room (however we just need to show the corner and could have a prop like a tray of food.) He seems quite disturbed and is therefore rocking back and forth, shivering, mumbling to himself and generally acting like he’s not quite right in the head. Then there can be a close-up of his feet (bare foot, dirty etc.) and it tilts up to introduce him properly as a character. He’s looking down at first but then looks up, straight into the camera. We will then enter his thoughts (zoom into eyes?) and see what he is thinking about. It will cut to him and this girl together, hugging, seeming happy but there is something going on. During this it will cut back to him in the corner. From the shots of the boy and girl, it will gradually begin to show them arguing, (she’s dumping him, but it’s completely unexpected to the boy). The boy is so in love that it has turned into an obsession and he can’t accept or understand why she is doing this. It then starts to get increasingly violent between the boy and girl, where the boy starts to get frustrated. Example of a shot could be she touches his arm saying “I’m sorry,” and in return he grabs her arm violently. There can be dialogue added in such as, Girl – “you’re hurting me,” “what’s wrong with you?!” “get off!” He’s silent. Throughout these shots, we will inter-cut with the shots of him in the corner, getting more and more uncomfortable, upset, distressed, seems like he’s suffering a lot. Eventually he kills the girl, and it abruptly cuts back to him in the corner, where he is sweating, breathing heavily. The final shot will be of the sound of the door opening and a woman (nurse?) entering and saying something like “here’s your medication,” and then it shows how the man is reluctant to take it.

The shots of the boy and girl could be shot in one sequence and then cut up into different shots that we will flash back to in the opening sequence. The shots of the boy in the corner can also be shot as one sequence, or a few and then cut up. For location, we would just need one room for the boy and girl and just a dark corner for the boy.

“If I can’t have her…no one can”

Possible Titles:
Obsession
Fixation
Love Obsession

Meetings

Second Meeting:
Our second group meeting didn’t have Selina; therefore we didn’t have her idea to compare. However, Ben and I went into more detail with the other idea and researched certain aspects of the opening sequence. We decided on parts we could add to the sequence to make it even more effective and planned some shots that we could test on our test shoot. We mainly concentrated on the shots that could be used in detail, and used the storyboard as a basic outline. We also thought about dialogue and sound effects. For the next meeting, we plan to make the choice of idea final and start going into more detail with that idea, for example different shots. This will then prepare us for shots that we could test on the approaching test shoot.

Group Meetings

First Meeting:
During our first group meeting for this project, Ben, Selina and I were concentrating on ideas that could be used for the opening sequence and whether it would fit our chosen genre of thriller/horror.
We had a few ideas that would work and managed to cut them down to my idea and Selina’s idea. However, we could not make a decision on which idea to go ahead with. We therefore decided to go off and consider our ideas in more detail and roughly storyboard them to make it more visual. We did this to make the process of choosing an idea easier.

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.