Film Poster/DVD Cover

This is the final version of our DVD cover. The eye in the center represents the eye of the "stalker" featuring in our film, and is aimed to catch the attention of the potential audience. The lighting also provides an eerie effect, whilst the bold titles and review quotes also appeal to the audience.

I used Adobe Photoshop to create this poster after careful planning and analysis of other film posters from the thriller genre.

Logos for our film

Having decided on a name for our production, we decided to think about which sort of image to associate with the production name. The chosen name for our production is 'Fallen Angel Productions' We thought this was a good idea as it has relevance to our thriller, because the stalker in our thriller is called Lucifer and also, we wanted quite a weird and creepy but also quirky name for our production, so that's how we came up with the idea.

I then created 3 possible designs for a logo.....

Fallen Angel Productions design 1

This image gives an idea of falling out of the sky, hence the cloud and slanted titles. The lightening bolt, colour of the cloud, and devilish letters convey the sense that an angel has turned bad. We know it's an angel becuase of the text and because of the addition of wings and haloes on the text.

Fallen Angel Productions design 2

Again this conveys the theme of an angel, through the image of wings, and could be a suitable design for our logo.

Fallen Angel Productions design 3

The 3rd and final design portrays the idea relevant to our production name- that an angel has turned bad (fallen) and the halo is slanted as if it has slipped off the angel's head and is falling. The letters are also slanted to give the falling effect and the titles are again coloured in red with reference to a devilish theme.

Use of costume in our thriller

There are two main actors in our thriller movie: Lucifer (antagonist) and Lily (protagonist). Costume plays an important part in our thriller as it define's the characters' personalities and sets the scene to give an idea of the sort of environment they are in. It conveys as an important element for mise en scene. The costumes are both 'work clothes' so we needed to use smart clothing, to depict an idea that the two characters are part of a working environment.
Lucifer's costume:
- Black trousers
- White shirt
- Black tie
- Black jumper
- Black shoes.
We used smart officewear so that he would blend into a an office-working environment. We also used this smart clothing (tie) to show he has a slight OCD over his appearance. The clothes emphasized a neat and tidy look. His costume also lacks colour and is mainly black to show that he is quite a mysterious and quiet character.

Lily's costume:
-Black trousers
-White shirt
- Black boots
- Grey blazer
- Black bag.
Again we used smart clothing to show that Lily too, is part of a working environment. It also shows that these two characters work for the same company. Lily's costume gave her a sophisticated look.

So costume definately plays an important role in our thriller, and we hope that this will define the characters and help to present the storyline clearly and effectively.

Group meeting 3

After watching our filming back we have made some decisions about the changes we want to make to our opening.
-We have decided that we need to make the scene where our antagonist is packing away his suitcase shorter.
-We have also decided to include a scene in between the antagonist leaving work and him arriving home. This scene will
show him stalking the protagonist and it will also improve the continuity.
-We also decided that we wanted to include more dialogue.
-We also want to use more of a variety of angles.

We also need to continue working on our soundtrack and credits.

By Chloe Barnham, Charlotte Hallisey and Sadaq Mohammed.

Our thriller movie soundtrack

After watching many thrillers between us, we tried to pick out a type of sound we thought would suit our thriller. We listened to the soundtracks on various thrillers such as 'North by North West', 'Vertigo', 'Seven', 'The Birds', 'Psycho', 'Jaws', 'Hostage' and many more, to get an idea of the type of sounds associated with thrillers. Many were creepy, fast tempo, high-low pitched, frantic sounds. We decided we wanted a more discreet sound track to suit the personality of our main character (the stalker) but with hints of creepiness/horror in the soundtrack to make it more thrilling. We learnt about the two different types of sound used for soundtracks: digetic and non digetic and decided we wanted a mixture in ours.
We had previously experiemented with garage band as it was a new programme to us, which we spent time getting used to a learning how to use it. We had already decided on a base sound to suit our thriller deciding on a classical sound called emotional 1. This is suited to the OCD stalker in our thriller, we also added a pulsing sweep sound to accompany the classical, which added a sense of unormality and sounded quite eerie. We also got this from garage band. Towards the end of the track, we had sudden, loud heartbeat sounds to add a bit of panic and fear to the track. We got this sound free from sounddogs.
We are still developing our soundtrack, and would like to experiment with different pitches and tempos and maybe add a bit more digetic sound to our soundtrack to make it more creepy and effective as a thriller soundtrack. In away we would also like it to tell the story as we don't have any dialogue in our thriller. This will make it more effective.

Thriller conventions

Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov, Vladimir Propp, and Claude Levi-Strauss are theorists who have different ideas about the conventions that make up thriller films. We have used these theories to help us develop the ideas for our own opening.

Roland Barthes believes that if you look at films from lots of different perspectives you are able to gain a greater understanding of a film. He also believes that most thriller movies have narrative codes, which are used to help analysis and define a film’s meaning. These codes include; action and enigma codes, symbols and signs, simple description and points of cultural reference. This theory defiantly applies to certain areas of our own opening because we have tried to create an enigma code, when the antagonist is watching the protagonist. The audience does not know why he is watching her, therefore creating and enigma code. Our opening also finishes with an enigma code because we focus on a date and the audience does not yet know why the date is circled.

Tzvetan Todorov is a theorist who pay’s particular focus to thrillers. He believes that thrillers generally follow a distinctive pattern, where they begin with a state of equilibrium. As the film progresses the equilibrium is then disrupted, followed by the acceptance that the equilibrium has changed. The protagonist then tries to re-establish the stability that has been lost, which is what eventually happens. This theory applies to our own opening because although towards the end of our opening, something suspicious is happening, nothing has actually happened to our victim yet and she is carrying on with her everyday life.

Vladimir Propp’s theory focuses on character roles. His theory states that there are eight main character roles:
The villain.
The hero
The false hero (take praise for the work done by the hero)
The dispatcher (sends the hero on his way)
The donor (someone who provides the hero with a magical object)
The helper (helps the hero)
The princess (the one who is the hero’s reward and the object of the villains schemes)
Her farther.

Although out opening does include a princess and a villain our opening does not posses all of the characters who are included in Propp’s theory, its is left open meaning there is still the potential for the rest of the characters to follow in the rest of the film. A theory like this has given us guidance on the sort of characters we would include in the movie to help make our opening convincing as a thriller.

The final theorist we have looked at is Claude Levi-Strauss. Strauss focuses on narrative structures by looking at the binary opposites, such as love and hate and good and evil, which constantly cause conflict within the film. We can apply this theory to our opening because there is a clear contrast between the two characters we meet in the opening.

By Chloe Barnham

Pitch

Pitch

Posted by Chloe and Charlotte