Our Thriller Opening

Filming and Ideas:

At first we had only an abstract idea of what we wanted to do. We wanted part of it to be set in a forest. We also thought it would be good to have some of it take place in a darkroom and may be have a wall of photos. Throughout the darkroom scene suspense music would be played. I thought it would be interesting if we had an interrogation playing throughout the forest scene. The idea was that there would be a stalker who has been following this girl and in the scene where he follows her through the forest you find out that he’s actually murdered her as well. During later stages we decided it might give the start more energy if we cut between these two scenes and we could also add suspense if as we cut back to the forest we get closer and closer to the girl (played by Yolande). In the darkroom we cut to things the stalker has such as a film reel, camera and pictures of Yolande on his cabinet. Filming in the forest was hard because sometimes Yolande had to be a certain distance away from us and yet we needed to tell her when she was meant to run from here to there. I had to be called to give the right cue to Yolande at times. It would've been easier and a lot more cost effective to have used a radio.
The first day filming was spent 3 hours set in the dark room to reflect on the stalkers thoughts/ideas/plans. We filmed; panning shots over pinned up photos of the victim with red and white lighting, we did a white spotlight in the dark room over film reels floating in water with the effect of a tap dripping which gave a gentle ripple effect, moving the images giving a rhythm and feel of stillness and silence in the room; to create suspense as you wait for something to happen. The use of the steady, hand held, swinging spotlight in the dark over the camera gives an indication of the theme or the base of the subject is. The audience think why? What? Where? Confusing them, enforcing vulnerability on the audience as part of the thriller film.