Reason for change of idea/plan

We decided to change our idea for the opening sequence.Firstly because our main actress,my friend Christy , last minuite could not make it and she pulled out.The other idea also would have been too short to film for an opening sequence and I think it would not be so thrilling and intersting.Our new idea was adapted from our previous one and the story line is quite similar but it is definetely clearer and had improved. 

Animatics for Snatched

These are   our storyboards for our idea of filming the nanny and her dailt routine and then when she walks in the room she is going to have a delayed reaction to the girl being kidnapped so the audience are slightly suspicious of her .The story board was useful in decided why and what shot types to use to have an effct on the viewer and make it continious however i think on the day of shooting our shot ideas will change as we get in the creataive zone and when we are in the enviroment in which we ar actually shooting the film. It is useful however in planning our ideas which our in our heads and sharing them with our group.This is our storyboard animatics:

Description and questions we thought about for our idea for the opening sequence

Why you liked it generally ?

Because it creates suspense through out the opening sequence enabling the viewer to understand who will be involved in the kidnapping without giving to much information.

How it feeds into narrative?

The opening sequence will feed into our narrative as it introduces the nanny and what her daily routine is normally like. Tt does not give away too much information about why or how Sophia got kidnapped but it introduces the significant event by leaving us slightly suspicious of the nanny’s involvment. Her delayed reaction to the girl’s dissapearance will make us wonder what her agenda is, and make us want to carry on with the story.

How it might appeal to your audience, target?

As the story is of the thriller genre, it will appeal to a wider range of people, not just a specific type of person. Suspense entices any sort of person to want to know what will happen, however the story of the movie will appeal to a younger audience as we are enticed by the enigma and excitement of the opening sequence.

How will it hook the audience?

The way in which the audience would be hooked is by the enigma, and all the questions one would start to ask themselves, like “Whats the nanny’s agenda?”, or “what’s gonna happen to the young girl?”. The suspense hooks the audience.

Why it will look like a thriller

The enigma is the main element that will allow the film to be of the thriller genre.

Technical ideas (camera shots, mise en scene, sound, editing),

Mise en Scene:

-We want the setting to look as if it is stereotypically a  wealthy looking house

- smart looking nanny  (mid-length skirt, tight shirt, pulled back hair)

- well light house

- could be a rainy day

 We did not carry on with our ideas because we had a slight problem with the actress.We might come up with a new idea because although this one is good,we think it may be too short to film and not as exciting as out new idea. We will probably keep the background story line similar but shoot something else.

My personal Editing /shot ideas for our Thriller opening sequence

My Editing ideas:

These our some of my editing and technical ideas, I think if i share them with the team and we used them it would work quite well. I attempted to come up with continuity editing which was exciting but flowed well.

• First shot needs to be the house (location shot,pannig shot of a massive house)
• second shot of the nanny tidying away toys/books/gadgets...
• Then its a shot of her in kitchen washing up and drying ( a shot from the side with running water) she hears a big thud
• we film a close up of her reaction-she has to look very worried to trick viewer and create suspense because in the next scene we will be suspicious of her...!
• Then we film a mid/long shot of her walking towards the door from behind -at a low angle ,we film her opening the door and shutting it behind her.Then from the otherside we film her pulling the door shot to make the ediditng seem as if it is contiuity editing.(cut to shot ahead of closing door mid way through action,continuity shot)
• We film her walking up the stairs, do shot from above,infront and behinf-cut to be continious,look at whisper olivias hurtwood trailer for reference.
• Film foot steps
• Film her back mid/long shot and we see in the shot in the distance one of those children door signs on the door saying Sophia.Close up shot of the sign to tell the viewers she is enetering a childs bedroom
• Then go back to a mid long shot of her by the door and her reaching for the door handle and turning it 
• Film a close up of her hand twisting the door handle and cut to that to add continuity
• Cut half way open door camera far corner of the room and films women walking in.
• Film a close up of the women turning obviously to the bed ,film her looking at the bed so it is an eyeline match!
• Now do a Shot of an obviously messy bed like someone has been taking and then a close up shot of her teddy lying on the floor.
• Then film a long shot of the nanny from a low angle looking at her watch and then dropping a glass in an obvious way
• Close up of glass smashing
• Copy along came a spider shot of nanny calling for help " help me help emergency emergency . security at the gates do not allow any visitors in or out...sophia is gone and i think she has been kidnapped "
• Cross cut to Sophia in car boot tied up with tape and then film someone slamming the car shut and cut to black.

Opening sequence idea selection

Our group came up with some different ideas for the begining of the opening sequence, after discussing them we then chose our favourite idea. we kept in mind the conventions of the thriller genre and some of the feedback and results from the questionaires about what people liked about thrillers

1. Our first idea was that we started the opening sequence with the girl sophia in captivity but we felt that this would leave the audience feeling as if they knew what was to come and that it lacked suspense and excitement.
2. Our next idea was that we have a shot of the nanny and the uncle (the audience dont understand  who this man is when they first see the shot) on the phone and the nanny could say something like "its time to do what we have been waiting for, do it now " . I think this also lacks thrill and excitement and feel that this would not be correct for the beginning of  a thriller.
3. I came up with the idea of  filming the daughter in the house all alone and scared, we film her as if she knows someone or something is in the house so she searches the house and grabs a knife, she then locks herself in her bedroom and tried to call for the body guard but they dont reply. Then she tries to call the nanny with one of those phones which are on the wall and you press a button to speak to the nanny but she doesnt reply or the nanny sets her up and replys saying " someone is in the house and they are coming for me, lock yourself in your room  and wait for help, i will get you help" and then Sophia gets kidnapped (as planned by the nanny all along). I think this idea is a good idea but perhaps a bit too dramatic for the begining of the film.
4. The next idea was all our favourite:

The opening sequence will feature the nanny doing her daily routine ,sweeping the floor , tidying up sophias toys and doing the dishes it is her routine and consists of her going into the daughters room to wake her up to prepare her for her school day. She goes into the room, sees the daughter is not there, looks at her watch, waits a few moments which seems strange, she then drops a glass of water ( to create the illusion that she was scared when she doesnt see the daughter ), and she calls security on her special microphone ( that security people have ) and says "emergency emergency security at the gates do not allow any visitors in or out...sophia is gone and i think she has been kidnapped " Similar to the shot below!

• We will probably name it "Snatched" i thought the name would be a bit of a giveaway but i got outvoted by my group. 

Important charts -which i used to compare my online questionaire results

Important charts -which i used to compare questionaire results

My Online Questionaire(about and my results SO FAR )

I decided to go home and make a questionaire because I think it is much more useful, unbiased and easy to compare online. Instead of asking only people from my school i shared it using social media like facebook. I am so happy that i decided to do this, it was very hard work to do on my own  but i cant wait to show my group as I think they will be happy with the feedback and it will be useful to us because we can use it to find out what age group like thrillers and what they like. 

I found a good website online but you had only 10 days and then you had to pay, so i thought it was worth a try and I sent a nice email to them. They said i could use the questionaire site till the begining of August for free and upgraded me.

I wanted to find out what age people were so i could see the proportion of how many people liked thrillers and the average age of people answering the questions. This will be useful in finding out how many people prefer thrillers, what they expect from them and then I did an open question which interpretevists would favour. It will be useful in finding out "what attracts you (people) the most to thrillers" . 

We can then find out what attracts people to thrillers and use their feedback to help us when we shoot and make our thriller opening sequence. We can use many thriller conventions in our own opening sequence thriller and this is important to help attract people to our thriller

I think my online questionaire is useful, even though it isnt perfect and there are a few mistakes. I love how you can make pie charts and easily compare live  results and the results keep changing and getting bigger and bigger. 

Here is the link to my questionaire which i emailed and posted to facebook and twitter asking people to fill it out for me: http://freeonlinesurveys.com/app/rendersurvey.asp?sid=rgu526z0t7ae51p476261&refer=www.freeonlinesurveys.com

Results:

Currently as I am writing about my results I have 59 people who have already already filled out my questionaire and for what we want to find out , this is more than enough people. 

Below are the questions I asked:

• Above , you can see that mostly girls answered the questionaire but still a lot of boys did too.Over half of the people who took part ,were female.
• 72.4% of the people who took part were 15-21 and this is very useful to us  because this is our target age for when we make our opening sequence to a thriller.

One person wrote a rude work above, apologies for this and this person was just being silly .I will treat it as an anomylous result(odd one out) .Most of the people that took part were in the Uk,this is also a mistake above because if people didnt live in the Uk they could press wither no or if not what counrty do you live in. From my live results which only i can log into , i also found that 2 other  people answered from outside the Uk who do not state where they come from, it tells me as it can see peoples location that 2 people from Holland took part in the questionaire. This is most likely my dutch family. I think it is useful how we have a few people from outside the Uk because we would wnat as many people as possible to watch our thriller if it was made into a movie 

Most people watch movies according to my questionaire via their computer (downlaoding or streaming ) 

These results above our very useful because i found out that the majority of people who answered were teenagers and that their overall favourite Genre was Thriller and that they expected most before watching a thriller that it would be tense,that they create tension. The second most popular answe was mystery which they try to solve. 

When we create our opening sequence to a thriller i will try include with my group conventions of a thriller genre and these things which i found out , 

People loved the "mystery" and "the build up of tension throughout the story" ,"the suspense" and "original plots", "twists.." and mant of these things above are what  59 different people like the most about thrillers. If we use a few of these different things in our opening sequence to  a thriller i am sure it will be successful.

I am very proud of my questionaire and look forward to sharing it with  the group. 

*update* now on the 8.05.14 there are many more responses to the questionaire around 82 people have answered it  but results havent changed too much , this just means it is even more reliable now!!Very happy because my results are more represntative as loads of people have answered my questionaire.