Animatics

Essay Question 2

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real thrillers?

Our film is based on the horror sub genre of thrillers although it still uses some psychological elements, horror films usually use complex codes and conventions that provides the suspense and tension the audience wants. Most of the codes and conventions in horror films portray different important aspects of the film such as a battle between good and evil, this is important because it helps to inform the audience of the basic narrative structure of the film.

Some of the conventions that are important in horror films are:

A victim or victims- In The Nursery the victims are the young children that have been ruined and negatively affected by The Nursery Teacher, the Protagonist can also be viewed as a victim to the Nursery Teachers psychological tor

An abandoned nursery

ment.

A secluded location- The Sunny House Nursery is the secluded location that is used in our film, it is shown as abandoned and desolated in many parts of the film. The mise en scene is very important to us as we believe it significantly affects the tone of each scene, the secluded nursery will help us to make everything feel creepy and scary.

Representation of evil- The Nursery Teacher will be portrayed with a devil like demeanor in order to show him as a dark force and an embodiment of evil.

The fake scare- A fake scare is used most distinctively in our opening scene where a
doll flies across the room unexpectedly in an attempt to scare the audience, we are using the fake scare as a distraction to the protagonist before he is violently attacked from behind

Dark/Shadowy lighting- We will use dark lighting in many instances throughout the film and opening sequence, darkness can symbolize fear and death and will be used to create suspense and can help to foreshadow a possible malevolent event

Dark lighting

Essay Question 1

How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?

Interesting and entertaining characters are extremely important in helping to create a good film that captures the audiences interest, in our film and specifically our opening scene we focus on two main characters the "protagonist" who is the undercover cop/detective and the "antagonist" who is the nursery teacher.

The Undercover cop/ Detective - Protagonist

The undercover cop is a young, intelligent man who has been informed of some strange things that are happening at Sunny House Nursery, he sets out to investigate but encounters the nursery teacher, the film will follow the undercover cops psychological battle with the unidentified nursery teacher as he tries to discover the truth behind Sunny House Nursery.

We want to portray the undercover cop as a confident, smart man able to utilize his skills to track and follow the nursery teacher. He has an air of confidence that makes people feel safe, so, we want to show him as a tall, handsome man who is clearly motivated towards achieving his goals.  In terms of personality, we want to show the undercover cop as a quiet person who is actually extremely kind and positive as a person, however he always remains serious and focused.

We are going to use different technical aspects that will help us to represent the character in this way:

Mise en scene- His attire is one of the the ways that will help us to portray the character, he will wear a long coat with a jumper underneath along with trousers or jeans as well as a cap that helps him to hide his face allowing him to be incognito as an undercover cop.

Camera shots- We will use mostly mid or long shots in bright light when showing the cop because we want the audience to be able to see every little detail about him, this will help the audience to understand the character better.

Sound and Editing- The cops voice will be deep, slow and steady that helps to show his composed nature, he will also be represented by more faster paced music that plays to the characters role as a cop.
The editing will be paced normally to show that the cop is person who is in control of the situation.

One character the undercover cop reminds me of is John Blake, a character from the film "The Dark Knight Rises". In the film John is a cop promoted to detective who uses his instinct and intelligence to warn of the incoming danger to the city of Gotham, he remains calm and is motivated in everything he does even when the city becomes locked down by the villain of the film Bane. I think that John Blake is exactly how we want to represent our undercover cop, a character who is seen as noble and admired.

The Nursery Teacher - Antagonist

The Nursery Teacher appears to be a cheerful and kind person but masks his true intentions to everyone, in the film we see that he is actually an extremely lonely, quiet person who is isolated from society. He is extremely intelligent but is twisted and sinister and is the only teacher at the Sunny House Nursery.
We want to portray the Nursery Teacher as silent, composed man who looks like an average guy, although the audience is given an insight into the nursery teachers true personality, his true intentions and background are not revealed surrounding him in mystery making him an even suspicious but interesting character.

We are going to use different technical aspects that will help us to represent the character in this way:

Mise en scene- The nursery teacher will be wearing trousers and a shirt, this is to show the simplicity of the character making him look more like an average person who you would not expect to be malevolent. One of the main props that he posses is a creepy child's doll that he regularly and unusually smells providing him with pleasure.

Camera shots- When showing his face we only want to show extreme close ups of certain parts of the face not showing his whole face throughout the film, there will also be only a few shots of his whole body, all of this will help to add to the sense of mystery. 

Sound and Editing- The nursery teacher will be mostly silent throughout the film, there may however be moments where you can hear the teacher laugh evilly or mumble under his breath. The editing will also be slow paced using close up shots that are long in duration, the close up shots may make the audience feel uncomfortable because they are not used to being so close to a character which they are not familiar with.

One character that reminds of the Nursery Teacher is Dexter Morgan from the crime, drama TV show Dexter, this is because both characters are hiding their true personality from everyone they know, we also want to show the nursery teacher as intelligent as Dexter. However, one thing that is drastically different from both of the characters is that Dexter's goals are revealed to the audience whilst the nursery teachers are not. We believe that Dexter is a good character to base the nursery teacher off of because they share so many similar attributes that we want to convey in our film.

Production company Ident

I used photoshop to create this ident for our production company Clueless Productions, I decided to design the logo in this way using black and white colours to represent Light and Darkness. We wanted to create a sense of mystery for our production company and logo to help entice people and make our company more interesting to the audience.

Story Ideas

Hostage (Crime Thriller)

 A crime thriller, based on a kidnapping of a teenager at school who was staying after school hours when she is taken. However a dilemma occurs when the kidnapper finds out that the student that they have taken is the president’s daughter.

 FEEDBACK:

•3/4 people said that this idea could be done with only two actors

•People believed this idea could work with our given circumstances e.g. budget, surroundings and props

•When asked to rate the idea out of 10 the results were 7 - 6 - 7 - 8 with an average of 7 out of 10

•Everyone was interested by the film idea and agreed that they would watch a film based on it

•People liked the fact that the president’s daughter was being used

•The idea of broadcasting on TV was not well received; people didn’t understand the effect it would give

 John Smith (Action Thriller)

 John Smith, your everyday business man's family are kidnapped. In order to save them he is put through several excruciating tests, How far can he go?

 FEEDBACK:

•The idea was intriguing and interesting

•The idea was original and there was none other like it

•3/3 people said they would watch this film if it was in cinema

One after the Other (Psychological Thriller)

 Six serial killers are pitted against each other by a mysterious powerful force. They either get the others killed or caught, using the city as their battlefield. The last killer remaining wins.

FEEDBACK:

• 3/4 people said that this idea could be done with only two actors

•People believed this idea could work given our circumstances e.g. budget, surroundings and props

•When asked to rate the idea out of 10 the results were 7 - 8 - 7 - 7 with an average of 7 out of 10

•Everyone was interested by the film idea and agreed that they would watch a film based on it

•The general concept of the film was well received; a lot of different things can be done in the film such as unique characters and a variety of locations

•People thought that executing the well would be very hard to do

 

The Nursery (Horror Thriller)

When parents Nicole and Michael parker are recommended Sunny House Nursery for their son, they find that once their child has gone, he is not their child anymore.

FEEDBACK:

 
•The sub-genre was clear

•Horror thriller was as good choice

•Suggested that maybe we could use a flashboard

•They liked the idea and theme of children and a nursery

•Rating was an 8.5/10