Presentation of Thriller Ideas for Coursework

My initial idea:

My initial idea stemmed from the fear of the unknown, it started out as an exploration of human condition for the acceptance of innocence and the way in which people respond to innocence.

It originated with a man driving a car down a dark, usually bustling road, that was lined on both sides with cars with the driver dead in the front seat. The car driver continues down the road and sees the silhouette of a child. He is extremely scared, and thinks the child is in danger. He stops his car and waves the child over to his car. The child approaches slowly, as the child comes nearer it is evident that his pyjamas are covered in blood and that in his left hand he is hold a knife. The driver says something that is unaudible to the camera, the child simply replys with one line of speech "My mommy told me not to talk to strangers, The people in the cars didn't listen to thier mommies". The driver gets extremely scared and puts his car in gear, he looks up from the gear box and looks into the reer-view mirror. In the reer-view mirror is the child sitting in the back seat. The screen goes black. And the childs voice says "You didn't listen.. Did you?".

Props & Location
Location - It would be shot in its entirity, on a large suburben street.
Props & Cast - A car, A knife, A child, A middle aged man, Extra's in cars.

Composing the Initial Shot Sequence for a Potential Story Board & WHAT IS A THRILLER?

After sever creative discussions that resulted in the complete finalization of our sequence, we took rough notes on the shot sequence, and added further input into the development and improvement of our concept. Once we had sustained our final line-up that conveyed the majority of our original demands of the sequence we added the necessity of the titles, therefore we embarked on creating original ideas to compliment our sequence for title placement.

The final sequence is intended as followed;


What is a Thriller?
A thriller is a genre of film production that plays on the emotional investment of the audience to become uneasy, uncomfortable and to feel fear. Thrillers rely deeply on the success of suspence in order to make the thrill come alive. Thrill stems from the early word "pierce" - This suggests that a thriller is created in order to pierce ones comfort zone and ensure they are in uncomfortable position whilst observing a thriller.

There are various subgenres of Thrillers:
Phycological Thrillers are those that toy with the mind of the audience, and generally suggest a mental abnormality in the protaganist or antagonist of the plot. They ensure that we become intellectually invested in uncovering the plot, however sustain fear at the same time.
Horror Thrillers usually involve great entertainment in regard to the blood and gore of a scene. The audience is welcomed to be replused and thoroughly shocked about the occurances of the sequence.
Supernatural Thrillers play on the unnatural, unknown things about our wider world. This revolves around the audeiences fear of the paranormal, and suggests concepts such a ghosts and spirits.

A key theme in the success of thrillers is sustained theme of voyeurism. The word voyeurism derives from the French word 'voyeur' which translates as 'someone who watches.' This suggests that a character is watching or stalking thier "pray" in order to torture or kill them. This plays neatly into the hands of a successful film technique - dramatic irony. Dramatic Irony is when the knowledge of the audience is greater than the knowledge of the on screen characters. This undoubtably hightens the thrill and suspense within a film. Another charactaristic of thrillers is the concept of the audience becoming sadomastic, this means that the audience takes pleasure in the horrific misfortune of those within the sequence. If the audeience sustains sympathy for the character before they are tortured or murdererd, the plot usually because more emotionally investable and therefore, creates more thrill.