The document discusses the filmmaker's choices for the title, setting, costumes/props, camerawork/editing, title font/style, story/character introduction, genre, and special effects for their short film opening. They aimed to both challenge thriller conventions by introducing older styles while keeping elements familiar to engage audiences. While some choices like the doll and blood amount test horror boundaries, other aspects stick closely to thriller genres.

2. The title of the film

3. The title of film-annotation
In the planning and research section of my blog, I had mentioned that I was
intending to give my piece the name “Childs Play”, as this seemed relevant to the plot
(the use of the doll), and hinted at possible plots. However, I came across the fact
that there is already a successful mainstream horror film with the name “Childs Play”.
This was an issue, as it was the most popular choice with my target audience and it
seems to be the title that fitted most successfully with my ideas. I overcame this by
choosing the second most successful name on the list, “Disturbance”. Although this
title doesn’t have the desired affect of being obviously relevant to the piece, it still
hints at some possible plots and suggests the genre of thriller. Another thing that’s
successful about “Disturbance” is that it’s just one word, and this is much more
typical of thriller titles (e.g. Psycho, Se7en.) Overall, I think that my title is a
successful asset to my piece because it’s relevance is obvious from the film that’s
played both before and after it.

4. Setting/location

5. Setting/location-annotation
I had decided from early on that my location would be a very simple, worms eye view
shot of a generic, non-carpet floor. This is because I knew that at least one of the
main focus’s of my piece would be the blood that runs across the floor- as stated in
my research and planning the most successful place to achieve this was on a light
coloured wooden floor, as the blood would run easily and would show up well. I soon
realised that this one shot of the floor wouldn’t be enough to sustain a successful 2
minute film opening and this was problematic as I didn’t want to include any dialogue
in order to keep my soundtrack, and therefore my overall atmosphere of the piece
consistently ambient. To overcome this, I decided to film the room over two minutes,
and chop it up at random interludes with different angled shots of the location in
order to make my film slightly more diverse- however still keeping its original
suspense by doing all the filming in the same room. Overall, I think this sticks to the
genre of thriller because it isn’t obvious where exactly the location is set, nor is it clear
whether the location has any specific meaning to the characters/plot line in general-
which was a common feature of thrillers that I found during my research.

6. Costumes and props

7. Costumes and props
One of the focal features in this piece was the doll that appeared throughout the film.
The doll is dressed in ripped clothing and her hair looks as it it’s been ‘dyed’. I
decided that using a doll instead of a person would create make my opening a bit
more eerie and mysterious than the typical thriller film. This really challenges the
boundaries of when a thriller should be considered a thriller and moves into the
horror genre. This is also reflected in the excess use of fake blood throughout the
piece. Although blood is very much accepted in the thriller genre, again my piece
challenges this convention when taking into consideration just how much is used and
how focal it is to the structure of my piece. Although both the doll and the blood
both test the boundaries of thriller by relating themselves more closely to horror (For
example, the doll I use in my film is of a similar style to the one used in “Childs Play”
). I believe that other factors of my film stick more rigidly to the thriller genre,
therefore the piece still works as a successful thriller film opening, because it still
allows for the rest of the film to follow a strict thriller plot.

8. Camerawork and editing

9. Camerawork and editing - annotations
I have mentioned throughout my blog that my piece was influenced quite heavily
by the work of Stanley Kubrick, and this impacted specifically on the
camerawork and editing of my piece. I decided that my shots would be much
longer than the conventional time in a more modern thriller film opening, and
the screenshot shows a particular shot of 30 seconds in which nothing happens
other than blood slowly runs across the floor (An example of this can be viewed
here, where the same shot lasts from 0.50-2.17). Although this challenges the
conventions of modern thriller films, it’s very inkeeping with the themes that
were used around the 70’s. I believe this develops the conventions of thriller by
introducing some older themes to a younger audience who haven’t necessarily
come across them but are still as successful as they were in the past. Combining
this with a more modern and conventional use of jump cuts that hint at some
kind of counterplot means that the audience are still engaged and still have some
familiarity with the genre.

10. Title font and style

11. Title font and style - Annotation
I decided to keep a consistent font style throughout my piece, as this is a normal
convention of any film opening. However, there are some exceptions to this and the
way I have styled the font holds potential to challenge the conventions of a thriller
opening. I decided to use a very basic, white font to begin with as this similar to the
Stanley Kubrick style (example here) that I took influence from in my planning and
research. I also took influence from the simple black and white theme of
Ghost in the Shell However, I sought to develop this by giving the font a coloured
shadow and making the font shake as it appears. This reflects the general atmosphere
of the piece, which is simple – yet eerie. There are two exceptions to the main font.
The first comes right at the beginning of the piece (first screenshot). I thought it was
an important convention of film openings that the production company had its own
shot and I wanted to reflect this by changing the colour of the shadow behind the
font. The second exception comes at the end of the piece. I changed the font so that
the audience would easily recognize that a plotline was being introduced – and I feel
this works successfully alongside the common conventions of a thriller opening.

12. STORY AND HOW THE OPENING
SETS IT UP

13. STORY AND HOW THE OPENING
SETS IT UP - ANNOTATION
There is no dialogue in my opening, and therefore I had to take a different
approach when dealing with how my plot will be introduced to the audience.
I decided that, in order to not interupt the ambient music and therefore the
eerie atmosphere of the piece, I would instead introduce a character by
showing a name at the bottom of the screen near the end of the opening. I
also include an age, and a seperate shot stating that she’s dead- while a hand
falls and is dragged away in the background.

14. Genre and how the opening sets it up

15. Genre and how the opening sets it up -
annotation
I decided to make my genre clear by using the same kind of cross cutting that is
used in films such as Se7en, as this is conventional of the thriller genre. To re-
enforce this effect, the shots that are not the worms eye view of the floor
have been filmed in a lower quality so that they would look homemade. The
use of blood and the obvious murder are both very conventional of thrillers,
and I feel my film opening does this very successfully. The way the font
disappears of both the main title “Disturbance”, and right at the end of the
opening “Dead”, is also a quite conventional technique used specifically in
thriller and horror films. An example of this could be taken from Fight Club.

16. How characters are introduced

17. How characters are introduced -
ANNOTATION
The character in my opening is introduced just by showing her hand fall to
ground, while her name and age appears in the shot. I think that this
challenges the conventions of thriller because there is no dialogue or faces
shown at all. Although this isn’t typical of film openings, I still feel this is a
successful feature as it is intended to make my audience feel uncomfortable. I
achieved this by taking out some of the conventions that they would take for
granted (e.g. the dialogue), and replaced this with a very focused introduction
of just one character.

18. Special effects

19. Special effects - annotations
Special effects are a very conventional aspect of nearly all thriller films, but I
didn’t have the funding for a green screen. However, there were some
techniques I used in order to achieve certain ‘looks’ in my piece. For example,
the fake blood is watered down tomato ketchup with some soy sauce in to
darken the red. This was the only way I would afford to make enough fake
blood of the right consistency to run along the floor.