First Production meeting: Idea generation

Last week we were divided up into groups of three's to come up with ideas for our thriller opening. 

Shelby, Louis and I were put together to discuss three possible ideas. 

Idea 1:

The first idea that we came up with was a romance/ psychological thriller.

Key points 
-It would be set in america.
-Police/ FBI themed
-Prisoners/ inmates on death row.
-A race against time.
-Male protagonist & Female antagonist.

Synopsis 

We decided to do something centred the police force/ FBI. This would be set in a prison following one of the inmates who is on death row. We wanted to focus on gender roles with this idea so decided on a male protagonist who is a prisoner on death row and a female antagonist who is a corrupt police officer- as a motive these two characters would have an intertwined past. The male protagonist used to be in a relationship with a detective but after forcing her to have an abortion, she becomes bent on getting revenge as she can no longer have children. This causes her to become obsessed with revenge and making the protagonist suffer, so she sets him up for a crime he didn't commit which puts him on death row. The antagonist however soon starts to see that she made a mistake and that really deep down she still loves him. From then on she takes it upon her self to do all she can to get him free, facing great struggles in the process doing all she can to try and beat the clock. Just as she thinks she has succeeded we see it is all too late as he is already dead. Slowly all the focus draws onto the body zooming in on the necklace that is sticking out of his shirt, the woman then also pulls out the other half of the necklace. 

We thought this was a good idea as it would manage to be a psychological thriller while incorporating violence for the crime, suspense and a death when the main man dies. Also due to the fact that this idea contained both romance and violence means that it would be enjoyable for both genders. However we concluded that this would be too much content for just an opening, it's more like a whole movie. Even if we managed to condense it down, we would still have to worry about the plot as it's pretty complex. This means that it could be hard to follow and potentially confusing to film. In addition the money needed to make this thriller a reality would be a problem. We would need to buy props and costumes and it would all be too expensive so we probably wont be able to pick this idea to do as our final course work.


Idea 2:
The second idea was a crime thriller.

Key points

-Serial killer.

-Set in a forest/ woods.

-Girl victims.

-Stalking / hunting down the girls.

-Murders.

Synopsis 

 Our second idea was more of a crime thriller which consisted of two girls out for a walk at a local wooded area while being watched by a hooded psychopath. We wanted to focus on something that felt isolated so the two girls being alone in the middle of nowhere with no one to help them if anything went wrong felt like a good way to achieve that. Also we felt if the two girls were separated and picked off one by one this would add to the isolated feel. When the girls decide to stop and sit down one of the girls see's someone hiding in the tree's, however she is lead to doubt herself when her friend cant see him. However with much persistence from the first girl she convinces her friend that there is someone watching them in the tree's. With this information the girls decide to run away however while in the process of getting away the first girl trips and falls and the other keeps running leaving her behind. The second girl keeps running until she realises that her friend is no longer with her then makes the decision to just go home and hope for the best. 

However when she gets home she finds he friend dead on her bedroom floor. Suddenly afraid the girl looks behind her and see's the hooded person from before just as she is about to run he pulls out a knife and stabs her repeatedly. The girl falls to the ground next to her friend. As she dies the hooded guy pulls out a picture of the two girls among some friends and slowly crosses them of the list hinting that they will not be the last killed. 

We liked this idea as it contained some key thriller conventions such as deaths and violence. We also concluded that this would be an easy idea to execute as it wouldn't cost all that much money and the set would be easily accessible as we live near several wooded areas that we could shoot our film in. This idea seemed to us to be simple enough for us to be able to pull off while not being too simple that it would be boring. It would still contain suspense  that would engage the audience when they begin to wonder if the girls will get caught by the psychopath. So we came to the conclusion that this was a good idea and could potentially work for our final footage. 

Idea 3

And our last idea was an action thriller 

Key points 

- Jewellery store robbery 

- Gang 

- Mcguffin

- Murder

- Cliffhanger

Synopsis

In this idea we decided on a basic thriller idea with a twist. When the idea of thriller came to mind the majority of the time they are based around bank robberies so we wanted to do something similar so we chose to have this idea centred around a jewellery store robbery. A major gang decide to go and clear out a jewellery store, but the leader of the gang tells some members to go home because they're not needed. These people are not happy and end up arguing about it because if they leave they wont get any of the money. Eventually they leave saying that their boss will regret this decision. Leaving the audience wondering what they plan to do. However this is quickly side tracked by the event of the jewellery store robbery taking place. This involves criminal activity and suspense as the audience don't know if the gang will make it out before the police get there. But they do make it out on time and the audience thinks everything is fine but when the gang leader gets home you see his wife lying on the ground dead as he drops the necklace he stole for her you hear their baby cry up stairs. 

This was an interesting idea as it had a death, criminal activity, suspense and a twist. All things that make thrillers more interesting however when we thought about the set we decided that this would probably be quite hard to film as we would need to find a set that looks realistically like a jewellery store. Also we thought this idea may be a little complicated to pull off and potentially confusing for the audience if not done right. Although this seemed like a really interesting idea it would probably be too hard to execute as such would not be the best idea to choose for our final thriller. 

These are some pictures of our planing process one is of our group discussing the ideas and the other is of our idea sheet.