Our Film Idea
1) We brainstormed ideas.
Considering the most obvious possible genres we each suggested a type of film and discussed what we each were interested in doing. This required some compromising - for instance, I wanted to create a comedy at first whilst the others did not. We narrowed down our options until all three of us were satisfied. We chose horror and crime/gangster as our top genres and brainstormed themes that are associated with each.
2) I came up with my first ideas for the opening
My first idea:
'The opening begins with a various close-up shots of newspapers being manufactured, tracking across the articles and their bold headlines moving across the screen accompanied by suspicious music. The audience may notice key words, such as ‘murder’, ‘killing’ and ‘shock’, in these headlines and infer that a significant event (worth broadcasting in the news) has occurred. The preferred reading here is that the film being introduced is of the crime/drama genre and that some event, or crime, has caused a disruption. It places the narrative in the middle of the usual narrative structure, where they would want to know how/why the crime transpired and what will happen in the quest to resolve it. As credits appear, the photographic images of the character’s victims and objects flash on the screen, giving the viewer brief ‘clues’ and creating a sense of curiosity. The combination of mysterious headlines and objects should effectively create a sense of enigma. Following this a close-up of hands attempting to discard of evidence and unidentified dark figure shown from a low-angle shot (from the P.O.V. of the victim) standing over. This could end as the unknown person covers the camera with a bag [signifying that the victim’s head is covered], resulting in a black screen. This intends to make the audience feel that they’re experiencing the murder from the victim’s perspective.'
3) Choosing and exploring the genre
We chose to do research into the codes and coventions of horror films, looking at other films and analyses for inspiration. Our team made decided to make the product a psychological horror film.
4) Creating the Synopsis
We drafted a rough storyline for our film, incoroprating ideas that we all liked from the brainstorm. At this point it was a combination of concepts from horror, crime and gangster movies. The main idea was that it would inolve a kidnap victim experiencing some telling flashbacks, a sadistic killer whose identity remains an enigma for most of the story and a plot twist (as many psychological films do).
