Thriller Brainstorm

Thriller Brainstorm

For my thriller brainstorm I chose situation 2:

A kidnapper watches a child at a fun-fair. The parent and child are separated. The kidnapper moves in for the abduction.

I decided to do an opening for a thriller movie. The shots used are detailed in my storyboard. The editing will be quick cuts, a use of slow motion, and continuity editing. Mise-en-scene and sound are explained in the rationale and my list of conventions.

First, I made a brainstorm of things that create fear in a persons life:

Next, I added a few of these examples onto a brainstorm for the Fun-Fair Kidnapping:

Rationale:

There are 4 main characters in the scene:

The first two go hand in hand- a man and woman exchange a childs bag awkwardly. They are both dressed in white-collar uniforms suggesting they both value there jobs and have power and money. The lack of rings on there fingers (as shown as they exchange the bags with their left hands) shows they are not married which implies divorce. We are shown this more in the way that we are shown them fighting with big hand gestures as their daughter watches on.

The third character shown is the quiet little girl who watches her parents. She has an obvious attachment to the toy which could be because it may be the only constant in her life with her parents split up. She is young and naive as she heads to the forest beyond the fun-fair to pet a rabbit identical to the one she id holding.

The fourth character is the kidnapper. He is young (30) with a slight psycopathic look about him as he watches the girl- but we never see his full face as at least half is always shadowed by the trees. It is shown that the man has done his research and has purpose to taking this girl in particular as he knows about how she likes rabbits. Whenever his eyes are shown they dart around as if waiting and watching nervously.

The scene is set at a fun-fair with a deep forest beyond it. 

The family friendly carnival which is a signifier for happiness and family-fun is surrounded by a deep, dark forest which is a signifier for darkness, danger and getting lost. The dark shadows the trees cast give an eerie feel to the seemingly harmless setting. The trees and forest also offer a believable escape for the kidnapper- if it was set in an open space someone would spot him in no time, but in the dense forest, he could easily slip int the darkness and follow a pre-arranged path to his car/van.

Some examples of Iconography and Symbolism I have used are:

The fun-fair is a contrast to itself in the scene as a fun-fair is usually a symbol of happiness, whereas in the video we see two divorced parents arguing and a kid getting kidnapped.

The toy rabbit the little girl carries around represents childhood and innocence, it is what she keeps with her to avoid having to focus on the world around her- she looks and takes care of the rabbit as opposed to watching her parents have a public fight.

The rabbit the kidnapper used is a symbol of pure innocence being used for evil. Another way of putting this is it represents the term 'All that glitters is not gold.' The rabbit from the little girls view is a sweet, little creature that is welcoming her to him, the rabbit in the kidnappers eyes however, is a tool to entrap the little girl.

The conventions I chose to use from the list given were:

1. Extreme Close-Up

On the 12th shot on my storyboard, an extreme close-up is used to show the tears and fear in the little girls eyes as she is taken captive. This makes the audience empathise for this 4 year old as they see the petrified and confused look on her face.

2. Shadows

Shadows are used in two different ways in my thriller. The first is to symbolise the eerieness of the forest and to be a signifier for darkness and evil that happens in the forest. The second is the way in which the kidnappers face is never shown as there is always a shadow cast about one side of his body by the tall trees. This creates a sense of tension and mystery for the watcher as they are left in the dark in regards to the kidnappers identity.

3.Eerie Music

At the start of the scene the non-diegetic music will be happy carnival songs, but as soon as the racking focus in shot 4 goes from the little girl to the man watching her, an underlying tone of eerie music will begin. The carnival music will die down in volume as the eerie music increases in volume as we see the mysterious man reach into the box.

4.Slow Motion 

Slow motion will be used in shot 14 as the toy rabbit falls from the little girls hand to the grass. This will increase the tension as the music will slow down with it. Lets what has just happened sink into the audience. The rabbit which represented her childhood has happiness has fallen away from her reach as this man has kidnapped an innocent 4 year old girl.

5.Dolly Shot/Tracking Shot

This is used in shot 10 when we see the little girl move away from the fun-fair and move towards the forest. We see her moving from a place of safety and security to a place of danger. The tracking shot also gives the watcher a good view of the trees the kidnapper was in. This builds suspension as they look for him in the shadows.

6. A Vulnerable Character

The vulnerable character in the story is the 4 year old girl who gets kidnapped. She was to naive to imagine anyone would hurt her by the shadows and she was not properly protected by her parents as they were too wrapped up in thee own issues to be looking after their child. Her vulnerablility is mainly shown in the way in which she simply walks away from her parents with no worries.

This is the storyboard for the opening: