Proposal for Film Opening

Film Opening Proposal from Harry Hancock

Video Interviews

The Package - First Film

Conclusions of Research

After taking a survey and studying several thriller film openings, I have found that my target audience is ages 15-25, inkeeping with the BBFC set certificate 15 and appealing to what is commonly known as the 'youth market'. I've decided this based on my research and ideas for the film, I want to make something very psychologically thrilling that is hard to understand and will take the viewer time to underdstand exactly what has happened. I also want to represent me and what I enjoy personally and in films, therefore I will be making quite an urban style opening, with lots of dance and storytelling but also with subtlety.
I don't want to make a hollywood style movie that makes it obvious what is going on so that anyone can watch it, I want my viewer to have to delve into their thoughts to understand what is going on and have seperate interpretations. Obviously this is no easy task for a first project and undoubtedly the opening will not turn out exactly how I imagine it now, but hopefully I will manage to get somewhere close to it.

After collating all my research into the genre and Alfred Hitchcock, possibly the most famous directors of thrillers, I'm quite tempted to make a black and white film, mainly to capture an essence of timelessness and to take colour out of the picture as a signifier, colours tells us things and make us feel a certain way and therefore without colour only the camera and shots will do this. However I'm not certain about this decision yet.

My question on the survey about Black Swan and further research into the film told me that it is a very well recieved movie and that ensures me that their is an audience for the kind of film I want to make. I also found when looking at the suggested target audience for Black Swan, it was similar to the audience I had chose previously to the research which was helpful to know.

Certification

                                                     

Certification

"Suitable only for 15 years or over - one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema. No-one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work." BBFC.

Horror (Taken from http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/ )

Taken from BBFC Website after they did a survey exploring parents views on certification-Interestingly, while respondents noted that the tone of I Am Legend had clearly contributed to its ‘15’ classification, a number of parents felt that the BBFC had not always taken tone into account and two films in particular were discussed in this respect – Beowulf and The Dark Knight. Both were felt to be on the borderline between ‘12A’ and ‘15’ and whilst opinions about the actual classification did vary, it was clear that the BBFC Guidelines need to reflect feelings about a ‘dark tone’ within the context of ‘fantasy’.

Survey Results

   After leaving the survey to completed for just over a week, I gained these results. A total of 36 responses! I collected the results and made graphs as part of my research into the two minute opening I'm going to make for my AS Media project. 

Most of the people who took my survey were friends who are still in sixth form aswell, therefore the highest percentage was 17 or younger.

A large percentage of my survey clients were women, although this means the results will be slightly biased I am not worried about their accuracy because my film is about dance & ballet so will be slightly more female orientated anyway.

Most of the people who took my survey were under 18, my friends at school and university, who are currently still in education. However I also feel they will be my target audience because it was this age range specifically that chose horror/thriller as their favourite genre.

People seemed to enjoy comedy the most and then horror/thriller as a second choice. However merging these would be very hard because they have completely different objectives as films.

The largest percentage was once every few months which tells us that generally people only go to the cinema to see specific films, not because it's a hobby of theirs. Therefore my film will only apply to a certain target audience and for example, it's unlikely that a rugby player will come and see a film about ballet.

A  high percentage of suevey takers preferred psyhcological to physical types of thriller and therefore I wil definitely be making my opening more pyschologically challenging than action packed.

A persons home movie collection is often very important to them and says alot about what kind of person they are and obviously what movies they are into. My target audience (17 or younger) all chose very or moderately often as an answer to this question.

Because of this fact I want to make my film as intense and gripping to watch at home aswell as on a larger screen or in a cinema.

Question 6 & 10 where comment questions, 

I asked this question to get an idea of films that people enjoyed most and to see if there were any common factors. 

  The most commonly mentioned film was Paranormal Activity, a film thats successful for it's realistic home view of the action, the whole project is filmed on a home movie or DV Camera which makes the movie seem like it actually happened. It's set in North America, focusing on a newly-wed couple in their early 30's. They are very normal but the wife has slightly paranoid tendencies, for instance she believes in ghosts. During the film she becomes stalked by some sort of ghostly creature, you never actually see the ghost or demon but you see it's mental and physical effects on the characters, which is in some ways more frightening. This is a feature I will be using in my opening, the idea that there is an invisible force, controlling the action. 

I asked this question specifically because of the theme of the movie. I do alot of dance myself, including ballet and I find the extreme time and dedication that professional ballet dancers put into their work inspiring but also scary. There is a need that is quite desperate in the most succesful dancers that seperates them from the rest, it mostly ends up that dancing is their life and they do little if anything else.

This idea of dedication to the performance and your art is used in Black Swan to show the Natalie Portman character hallucinating and becoming obsessed with the main role in the ballet.

I'm hoping to encapture a similar theme in my opening and show the dedication needed to be a prima-ballerina. The question above informed me that dark themes and subtlety were the most enjoyable parts of the film.



Thriller Definition

Definition:

• Thriller films are movies that primarily use action and suspense to engage the audience. Thriller films are different from horror movies which emphasise fear or action movie that emphasise exhilaration.
• Suspense is an indispensable factor.
• One of the things Alfred Hitchcock said about his film making is that he puts the 'common man' in the position of the protagonist. 
• A thriller often overlaps with action and horror.
• Thrillers are often hybrid; legal, erotic, film noir, atmospheric etc. 

Narrative:

• relentlessly pursues a goal, tension occurs when protagonist is placed in an unpleasant situation
• build up is created more by what you don't see, subtlety is key

Characters: 

• the hero of a typical thriller faces danger alone
• more often the hero is an ordinary citizen thats brought into a situation by a means unknown, thus creating tension because the protagonist doesn't want to get involved but must

Alfred Hitchcock:

• considered as the master of the genre
• North by Norh-West, Psyco
• Most of his films don't rely on acion but instead upon a minimum of action, relying on mystery and the 'untold story' to build up tension
• he has a tendency to put the 'common man' in the protagonist position, which makes the films relateable to a wider audience
• He has an obsession with blonde heroins and reportedly found an attractive woman much easier to write about because she was seen as an idol by the audience, making it all the worse when she's brutally stabbed to death in the shower
• He often dealt with taboo or perverse characters such as the obvious homosexulaity in Strangers on a Train