Planning individual narrative - Miss Georgiou

The narrative of a film is the result of two main factors, the ideas of the story line and how the story line will be presented, a narrative is any recollection of connected events presented in a sequence in spoken word or moving images. Narratives can be spoken or written, it is made up of different events that link together to form a story. Narratives help the audience to make sense of the film or a scene as without a plot the story line would be hard to follow, it would mislead the audience and without a follow able story line the film would not be able to carry out its purpose of making the audience feel a certain way or effect the audience in the way it should.


My narrative is about a young girl who lives with her father after her mother passed away. Within the two minute sequence we are introduced to pictures f the two of them throughout the years, showing family pictures over a fireplace. The beginning of the film will be filmed from the perspective of the killer by using a hand held camera it will look like the killer is filming inside of the families house. The audience will not see who is holding the camera which will create tension and suspense within the audience. When the father and daughter arrive home they feel as if someone has been in inside their house and that someone may still be watching them. This is where the audience are properly introduced to the father and his daughter. The two of them become disturbed as they realise some of their possessions have been moved around (little do they know the killer is still watching them from inside the house). They convince each other that they are both over reacting and that there is nothing to worry about. Both the father and the daughter are mentally attacked during their sleep that night yet. These clips will be accompanied by slow passed music which is conventional to the thriller genre. The audience see the daughter become disturbed by a shadow outside the house. All the sounds and images build up tension.

The setting of my opening scene will be set in a house where there is only a fireplace showing in the frame, none is around but you can see pictures of a father and a daughter over the seasons in picture frames above the fireplace. This would make the thriller film conventional as a house setting that none is in is typical and leaves the audience wondering why no one is in the house and why someone is being secretive when walking around and staring at photos of the people that live there this leaves them questioning what the setting has to do with the rest of the film. The setting of the actual scenes are not all taken place in the house some of it is taken on the street which will shock the audience as we see the stalker follow the family on their way out, from the opening sequence the audience will be able to tell that the killer will stop at nothing to get them it will keep the audience hooked from the opening sequence.

Iconography used in the thriller opening sequence wold be the typical weapons such as knives which is conventional to thrillers as there is always someone that dies in the first couple minutes of the film who puts the audience on edge. The use of weapons will help the audience create a relationship with the characters as they know what's going on before the characters are made aware. Also iconography helps the audience feel empathy for the characters which is why I believe this is a good reason to incorporate weapons into our sequence.


The use of costume and makeup would just be ordinary clothes for the victims but for the antagonist he could be masked up and with a hoodie on to hide his identity. The victims would not carry any weapons as this would not be realistic and the audience will find this untruthful, this was if the audience can Identify the father and the daughter as ordinary people the audience may feel they are able to relate to them which creates an element of real life so they audience are scared and engaged more in the scene.


Advantages and disadvantages.


Advantages of this idea includes the fact that the idea is conventional to thriller films. It is conventional because there is a conventional use of characters and iconography. A point of view shot is conventional as we do not know who or what is looking in the victims house. The narrative would create an enigma because the audience will be left wanting to know the answers to many questions, wondering what would happen next which helps develop a relationship with the character as they want to find out more about the antagonist. The idea would create tension because the audience will be dying to see what happens at the end of the film. The disadvantages include the fact that there would not be enough to show just in the opening sequence this idea is very simplistic and would be hard to fit into a two minute sequence let alone a whole film.


Target audience
The target audience for this opening scene would be teenagers from the age of 15-18 which would fit the BBFC's requirements depending on how much blood and gore the opening would envelop. I think that the sequence would fit well in the 15 age band as there is not to much violence and in order to make the stabbing look real there must not be much coverage on it anyways as we do not have the technology and props needed to make it look so realistic.


In conclusion this idea is just a starting point that could be easily adapted if my group would like to alter any certain bits. It may not be achievable in the long run but the original concept and idea was there.