Thriller Treatment Research 1.

Explain how the treatment for your film fulfils the conventions of the t hriller genre The use of an imaginary friend that is only seen by one character puts the audie nce in an uncomfortable position, as they cannot see this character and so have to use their imagination to create an image in their minds. They are constantly not shown the whole story by having this invisible character, which also may cau se a sense of frustration. An integral part of the thriller genre is using suspe nse, and throughout this film the audience will be questioning things such as wh ether or not this girl is possessed, if she has a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, or if she is an innocent child whose loneliness has unfortunatel y driven her to creating something evil. 2. Do you intend to challenge the conventions in any way? How and why? Although the narrative of this film leans more towards the psychological aspect of the thriller genre rather than, for example, using a thriller-horror hybrid, there is a single death, which slightly defies the psychological-thriller genre, which usually involves characters with mental disorders, such as the main chara cter in this film. However I think that the rest of this film follows the main c onventions of the thriller genre. 3. Which real media texts do you think have influences your creative choice s regarding narrative? No direct sources of inspiration were used for the writing of the narrative, how ever once the narrative was totally complete we noticed similarities between our film and a book by Henry James called The Turn of the Screw, which also involve s young children and ghosts, and also similarly to our film takes place mainly i n a forest. 4. As an institution, what king of Film Company do you see yourselves as? W hat kind of work would you like to be known for? Our institution is a small independent company, and if we were known for a certa in type of work or film, it would be dark but simultaneously light-hearted films , such as Moonrise Kingdom, Submarine, and Amelie, which are all dramatic romant ic-comedy type films but address darker issues, such as depression or suicide. I think in terms of filming styles, Tim Burton would be an influence as well as G uillermo del Toro, who directed Pan s Labyrinth. Both of these directors use surreal versions of everyday settings. 5. Who is your intended audience? Our intended audience for this thriller would be teenagers and people in their t wenties; however it would also be directed at older people who enjoy thrillers. Because we plan to shoot it in a relatively easy-to-watch style, and overall the narrative is not overly sinister, people with older children, such as twelve/th irteen year olds could take their family to see this film. If we were to rate it with an age restriction, I think it would be a 12 or a PG film. 6. How might that affect distribution and box office takings? Because this film is directed at people of many different age groups, I think th at box office takings and distribution will not be as restricted as films direct ed at, for example, only teenagers. 7. What technical skills do you think will be improved by the making of thi s film? I think that although our understanding of basic camera and editing techniques w as already used in the making of our preliminary tasks, it will be expanded in t he making of this film. I also think that understanding the effect that using di fferent shots can give a different mood than, for example, using all straight ov

er-the-shoulder head shots during an onscreen conversation. 8. What difficulties do you envisage for example weather, location shooting, casting? Because filming will take place late in the year, weather will be a big issue as it is very unpredictable, however I think that we are prepared for most weather types as bad weather would cause a sense of pathetic fallacy on screen and refl ect the dark themes of the film. Almost all of the shooting of the opening will take place in a forest, and some issues cause by this will be the fact that ther e will undoubtedly be people walking through this public area, and so filming wo uld have to stop and start continuously. Another problem that this causes is the fact that it is technically private property, and so if we are filming with a l ot of gear, the owners of the land could choose to revoke our access to this are a. 9. What ideas do you currently have regarding: Sound: I think that using ethereal sounds and music in the background of the scenes wit h no dialogue would be effective for making the audience feel on edge and also r eflecting the inherent darkness and surrealism of this film. Lighting: Because most of the opening will be filmed in a forest in the daytime, no extra lighting will be needed. Although I want to include more surreal aspects, the na tural lighting of the forest will be enough to provide enough light to be able t o clearly see the characters, but also creating dark spaces and interesting shad ows that will reflect the darkness of the narrative. Location and setting: The opening will be filmed in a forest near school, because not only is it easil y accessible, but it also looks rural and overgrown enough to be in the middle o f the countryside. Another reason why this area was chosen is because it is far enough away from a main road and will not be affected by noise pollution from tr affic that it seems even more isolated.