Music Ideas.

http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?genre=Horror

Character Names.

Character Names And Meanings

• Nicole (meaning 'victory of the people') - Chosen because it supports her role of being the ring leader in the story that encouraged Leah to torment Ebony throughout her childhood. Shows her powers over people. 
• Ebony (meaning 'dark strength/beauty') - Chosen because it supports her ability to manipulate people, showing a strong character, and also because her appearance makes her appear trustworthy and so easy to believe and follow.
• Lily (meaning 'symbol of innocence') - Chosen because she's unknowing of Ebony's intentions, yet trusting enough to go along with them, and never means to drag Nicole and Leah into the situation.

Props List.

Bags
Bags are essential within our second location for creating a realistic feel to our story by making sure that the actors are completely in character and have the essentials that a college student would need.

 

Rope
The rope will be needed within our first location for when one of our characters is tied to a chair.

 

Chair
The chair will be needed within our first location for one of our characters to be tied to.

Brick
The brick will be needed within our first location as it is the murder weapon within our story.


Fake Blood
The fake blood will be needed within our first location to put on the murder victim and the murder weapon to create a realistic feel.










Final Treatments.

Full Film

Title
Ebony - The film is based around her and her childhood, the name Ebony also has a dark meaning to it, making it appropriate to the theme of our story.

Duration Time 

92 minutes.

Audience
Certificate 15. Aimed mainly at females, possibly males, aged 15-25 as the film shows manipulation throughout child/teenage life and how people can be affected by it, the consequences of people's actions and how people cope with their problems. There is no particular ethnicity or class targeted. 

Synopsis 

The film begins with the death of Ebony, the tormentor in the film, and the girl, Lily, being saved from her captivity by her friend Nicole. Nicole then asks Lily about her ordeal, and as she begins to explain it, the narrative reverses and then begins with when Nicole and Ebony first met Lily. On their initial meeting, Nicole is very welcoming of Lily, but Ebony acts strangely and initially slightly unwelcoming. The film then progresses as Ebony befriends Lily and eventually manipulates her and turns her against Nicole by telling her about events within her childhood which involved Nicole deeming herself better than Ebony and belittling and bullying her, yet Ebony stuck around because she felt she had no other friends. Ebony's childhood has left her tainted and bitter, and so is the reason for her turning Lily against Nicole. Once Lily has turned against Nicole, her and Ebony grow closer. Nicole then slowly notices changes in Ebony's character from afar and becomes increasingly more suspicious when she realises that Ebony is skipping lessons at college. Nicole informs Lily of her observations and tells her that Ebony's acting out of character, but Lily pays no attention as she believes that Nicole is jealous of her and Ebony's friendship and lets Nicole know that Ebony has been missing college due to family problems. When Ebony finally comes back to college, her and Lily go to her house after school one day and Ebony drugs a drink of Lily's, knocking her unconscious, and then takes her to an old abandoned house where she then keeps her captive and tortures her mostly mentally but also in some physical aspects. This torture takes place because Ebony wants to release her angst from her childhood traumas. Nicole quickly observes Lily's absence and finds it suspicious that she's now missing as Ebony is back. This makes Nicole suspicious of Ebony, and so she follows her home from college one day and discovers that she hasn't been going home every day, but to the abandoned house. As she watches her go inside from afar, she then slowly follows her in and discovers that she's been keeping Lily captive. She then kills Ebony in a moment of panic and desperation and saves Lily, taking us back up to the point the story began at.

Suggested Elements 
The storyline is non-linear, captivating the audience from the start as it makes them curious to find out what happened throughout the rest of the story. The opening shot of Ebony dead can lead an audience to believe that she's the victim of the situation, but the narrative then corrects the audience, making them want to watch the whole film to understand the full story.


2 Minute Opening Sequence 

Title  
Ebony - The film is based around her and her childhood, the name Ebony also has a dark meaning to it.

Duration Time
2 minutes


Audience
Certificate 15. Aimed mainly at females, possibly males, aged 15-25 as the film shows manipulation throughout child/teenage life and how people can be affected by it and how they cope with it. There is no particular ethnicity or class targeted.


Synopsis
The title sequence opens with some jumpy and scratchy clips of the three girls in the story, Ebony, Nicole and Lily, all being together happily and enjoying themselves. There are also several short, intriguing clips of a girl falling off a chair, someone's body being dragged away, someone being tied up, two blurry close ups of two people's faces and a close up of a brick that then gets thrown at the camera that will intrigue an audience to want to know what the story's about and thrill them into knowing there's some sort of mystery within the film. These clips are broken up by titles that have a distorted looking font and appear jumpy and scratchy on the screen. At the end of the clips and titles, there's a title of the film saying 'Ebony' and the 'o' is in the shape of an eye. The title then fades out to a clip of an eye, making a graphic match. The camera then zooms out from the eye slowly to reveal a girl's with blood on her face lying on the floor, telling an audience that she's dead. The camera then continues to zoom out until someone's calves are visible, and they eventually drop a brick to the floor. We then see the girl, Nicole, who's been holding the brick with a shocked look on her face. She then hears her name being shouted and turns around to discover her friend, Lily, tied up in a chair, and then looks really ecstatic and happy to see her and starts rambling on and asking her questions about what's happened to her. She eventually unties Lily from the chair and Lily starts to speak of her ordeal, the camera zooming into her eyes and the screen then flashing white for a flashback. Within the flashback, we see Ebony and Nicole approaching Lily at college and eventually befriending her, but within this time Ebony is acting quite strange by being reluctant to talk to her yet she is watching her quite carefully and curiously. The opening sequence then ends when Ebony introduces herself to Lily.


Suggested Elements 
The storyline is non-linear, captivating the audience from the start as they're the curious to find out what happened throughout the rest of the story. The opening shot of Ebony dead can lead an audience to believe that she's the victim of the situation, but the narrative then corrects the audience, making them want to watch the whole film to understand the full story.

Initial Treatments.

2 Minute Opening Sequence.

• Title Ebony - The film is based around her and her childhood, the name Ebony also has a dark meaning to it

• Duration Time 2 minutes.

• Audience Certificate 15. Aimed mainly at females, possibly males, aged 15-25 as the film shows manipulation throughout child/teenage life and how people can be affected by it and how they cope with it. There is no particular ethnicity or class targeted.

• Synopsis Title sequence opens presenting an eerie and mysterious atmosphere as it shows a character, without revealing their identity, looking at photos of girls that are later identified in the opening sequence and making drawings and notes (like on Se7en opening sequence). The titles will appear over this in a scribbled font, jumping around and looking scratchy (again, as in the Se7ven opening sequence). The titles then disappear off screen and the image fades to black, and then fades into a shot of Ebony's eye. As the camera zooms out, more of her face becomes visible and it's clear to see that she's dead and in a dark, abandoned location. Eventually all of Ebony's body is visible and voices can be heard. The camera then cuts to Nicole and Leah helping Lily out of the location in which she's been kept captive. Her face, clothes and hair look neglected and dirty so it's clear that she's been kept here for a long time. As the girls are exiting the location, Nicole and Leah are panicky and curious about the ordeal Lily's been through, and so ask her lots of questions about it. As the questions are being asked, the camera slowly zooms into Lily's face as she tells the girls she didn't expect all of this to happen to her, and then as the camera is zoomed into her eyes, the screen flashes white and then back to when the girls first met, showing a flashback of the story from Lily's point of view, demonstrating a non-linear narrative.

• Suggested Elements The storyline is non-linear, captivating the audience from the start as they're the curious to find out what happened throughout the rest of the story. The opening shot of Ebony dead can lead an audience to believe that she's the victim of the situation, but the narrative then corrects the audience, making them want to watch the whole film to understand the full story.

Full Film.

• Title Ebony - The film is based around her and her childhood, the name Ebony also has a dark meaning to it.
• Duration Time 92 minutes.
• Audience Certificate 15. Aimed mainly at females, possibly males, aged 15-25 as the film shows manipulation throughout child/teenage life and how people can be affected by it and how they cope with it. There is no particular ethnicity or class targeted. 
• Synopsis The film begins with the death of Ebony, the tormentor in the film, and the girl Lily being saved from her captivity by her friends Nicole and Leah. Nicole and Leah then ask Lily about her ordeal, and as she begins to explain it, the narrative reverses and begins when the girls first met. On their initial meeting, Nicole and Leah are very welcoming of Lily, but Ebony acts shiftily and wary. The film then progresses as Ebony proceeds in befriending Lily and eventually manipulating her against Nicole and Leah by telling her about the events in her childhood which involved Nicole and Leah singling Ebony out and picking on her, yet Ebony stuck around because she felt she had no other friends. Over the course of manipulation, Lily begins to act more coldly towards Nicole and Leah and Ebony also acts strangely by missing lessons and being cautious around Lily. Nicole and Leah pick up on Ebony's change if character and try to warn Lily about it, but she pays no attention. Later, Lily stops showing up to college and it's apparent that she's gone missing. Nicole and Leah decide that Ebony has played a part in her disappearance and follow her home from college one day and discover that she hasn't been going home, but to a desolate location. As they watch her go inside, they slowly follow her in and discover that she's been keeping Lily captive. They then kill Ebony in a moment of shock and desperation and save Lily, taking us back up to the point the story began at.
• Suggested Elements The storyline is non-linear, captivating the audience from the start as they're the curious to find out what happened throughout the rest of the story. The opening shot of Ebony dead can lead an audience to believe that she's the victim of the situation, but the narrative then corrects the audience, making them want to watch the whole film to understand the full story.

Genre Research: Thriller.

• Thriller is a genre of literature,television and film which uses excitement, sucpence and tention as its main elements. The primary subgenres of thrillers are: psychological thrillers, mystery and crime. Thrillers are often characterised by an atmosphere of menace, violence, murder through showing society as being dark, abandoned and dangerous. Even though the endings are often happy with the villains either killed or arrested; thrillers heavily promote on literary devices such as plot twists and cliffhangers. After the assassination of President Kennedy, political thriller and paranoid thriller films became very popular. The brightest examples of thrillers are the Hitchcock’s movies.

• Thrillers promote a range of moods such as; high levels of anticipation, adrenaline rush, uncertainty, high expectation,arousel, anxiety and occasionally even terror. The tones in thrillers are usually rough, slick and vivid. 

• The cover-up of important information from the viewer and fight/chase scenes are extremely cruital to help create the suspece needed, they're also very common methods used in all of the thriller subgenres.  Common methods in crime thrillers are mainly ransoms, captivities, revenge, kidnappings heist. Common methods in mystery thrillers are, investigations and the whodunit technique. Also common elements in psychological thrillers are mind games, psychological themes, stalking, , horror-of-personality, obsession and confinement/deathtraps. While elements such as conspiracy theories, false accusations, paranoia and sometimes action are common in paranoid thrillers.

Top 10 thriller movies yet:  

• 10. The Others 
• 9.North by Nothwest
• 8. The Usual Suspects
• 7. From Hell
• 6.Se7en
• 5. L. A. Confidential
• 4.The Shining
• 3.Psycho
• 2.Silence of the Lambs
• 1. Memento 

Some of the methods that are used in the top 10 thriller films above such as; flashbacks, plot twists, uncertainty and captivities would be used in our full film, and will be used breifly in our 2 minute opening sequence. 

 

Production Company Logo Research.

We decided to call our production company 'Regal Pictures'. This choice was made after deciding our production company would be a British one and then brainstorming things related to Britain. We decided that the monarchy is something unique to Britain and then brainstormed words relating to the monarchy, which eventually led to us choosing the word 'regal'.

After settling on this company name, I began researching other company logos to get inspiration for our own. Here are some logos I looked at:

























I thought about images relating to the word 'regal' and decided a crown would be easily identifiable and easy to relate to our production company name. I then created this logo:

Preliminary Exercise.

Practice Exercise.

2 Minute Opening Sequence: Initial Ideas.

Ideas for title sequence for a Thriller film (inspired by Se7en):

• Sequence following the central charcter of the story (the psycho/killer), show them doing mysterious things such as writing notes, making diagrams and looking at pictures of other characters (developing photos in photography studio) within the film that are potential victims, but throughout making sure to keep the central character's identity a mystery.
• Use of lots of props to associate with genre of film noir, dark lighting compesates for low budget.
• Dark rooms, spotlight on main character, shadows.
• Low angle shots, canted angles.

• No dialogue to build suspense. 
• Titles played over opening sequence that raises engma followed by contrasting character setup.