Q5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Throughout our thriller opening, we have tried to incorporate effective clips, sound and editing to firstly attract our audience, and then create the right sort of effect and emotion to hold the audience’s interest, these are handful of shots I believe help show how we have done this.

This is one of our opening shots, we have found from watching other movies that having the first main shot as an establishing shot, which we have done here using a long shot, lets the audience have an instant feel of where they are and what kind of surroundings the film is set. This shot helps show how the building is very secluded from anyone else; this gives an eerie feel as of isolation. The way we have captured the house in the centre of the shot helps show how we want this to be the main focus, it is also portrayed as the main focus as the scenery is very green and living, however the house is a very old and tainted colour, also having the dark within the windows helps allow the building to look more deserted, I think the location is conventional of a thriller, as it’s an old building surrounded by woods.

This is a shot I am really happy with, within the shot you simply see the antagonist walking towards the old building, the shot was done as a low angle shot, looking up towards the building, even though the character is walking, the building is still shown to be the main focus, this is an interesting shot as the storyline up to here seems to be focused more towards the building rather than the antagonist, the use of having it lower also makes the building seem a lot bigger than the character walking towards it, giving it that sense of power and authority.

This shot, I feel, helps cut up the scene of the antagonist walking into the building, this helps hold the audience’s attention, the shot of the barbed wire shows how the character really shouldn't be going into this building and it foreshadows the danger that will come from him going inside. The sudden cut from a long shot to a close up could also startle the audience; we wanted sharp, straight cuts between shots to hold the tension within our thriller. The use of straight cuts also helps to keep everything in time, instead of a fade, which could seem as if a certain amount of time has passed between the two shots, this way makes everything seem more real.

I feel this shot is very effective, throughout our production we wanted to use more natural, darker lighting to portray a scary feel to the house and this shot is the best to show it, we chose that we wanted to have the outside of the house well lit and visible, however, then contrast that with the darkness inside the house, this create the feel that the house is withered and old, even dead, the use of the contrast also enhances this effect to work really well through our whole production.

We have also used this graffiti to our advantage, the secondary contrast of the gloomy essence of the building with the words ‘This is my happy place’ works extremely well and gives off an eerie feel, we then wanted to increase this effect by adding linked music over the top, we chose ‘Daddy, Daddy’ by Tiny Tim, this very much sounds like a child is singing this song, mirroring the idea of our plot of a boy being stuck within the fire and also mirroring the child style design of the graffiti, from the drawing of the sun in the top of the shot, from our audience research we found people enjoyed psychological thrillers that make you think, I feel this shot helps us show how we have taken this on board and made our thriller more than meets the eye, in turn, making it more enjoyable for our target audience.

This is one of the corridor shots; we wanted to add these types of shots in to give the audience a feel of the scale of the building and how much destruction it has faced from the fire, it also helps to hold the tension as you wonder why he is there and what he is walking towards, however when we watched over these we found them to be a bit long, so we decided to cut them up, we liked the idea of a flashback, but instead of having it to the past, we wanted to just show what the antagonist was walking towards, giving the audience a hint at what is to come. As we have overlayed the clips you are not fully able to see the other clips above it, this has worked effectively at increasing the tension, as you have glimpses of what he will find, however he is completely unaware, I feel this helps to bring the audience into the thriller more and make it more effective.

For this shot, we chose to use a close up, point of view shot, I feel this shot helps the audience feel more part of the movie, the use of the close up on the killers face really emphasises the shock effect we have, we have also made it so when you see the killer rocking back and forth, you only see the normal side of his face, however, when the antagonist turns off the music, you are suddenly able to see the burnt side of his face, I feel this was a really effective technique and was a very good way of hiding what was to come from the audience, holding a large amount of tension as it increases rapidly after the music is turned off and there is a second of complete silence.

This is also a good example of how we have used the rule of thirds to catch the audience’s attention, here, the top right focus is on the eye, how it is extreme wide, as if the character is angry, or demented, the bottom right however is on the face adornments, the burns in the characters skin, the other two points show how we have used depth of field to have the character in focus, whilst the background is completely out of focus, bringing all the audience’s focus towards the character.

This is our final shot; I feel this helps to explain the story of the thriller and the reveal the past entwined with it, we have again, added an overlay of two shots, this works well at you see the first establishing shot again, but this time, moving away from the house, as if, mirroring how the life has been taken away from the antagonist by the house, also the shot of the blood dripping on the photo of the father and the son, the son being the boy being the killer inside the house, the dripping blood hints at the fact the one of the characters was killed, however, you are not able see who this was, this cliff hanger type ending creates a second peak of tension, one that the audience will not expect, making the thriller more exciting to watch.


The long shot of the building as you get further away contrasts with the close up of the dad holding his son to have an effective last shot and also shows how the picture is within the house itself, we have added non-diegetic sound of droplets of water, this helps emphasise the blood being dripped onto the photo, we also merge in a demonic laugh, one that hints that they have took pleasure from killing the victim.