The Pitch

We had to plan 4 different ideas for our chosen genre.
Our chosen genre was the "Thriller" genre, so we planned 4 ideas around what we thought made a good "Thriller"

Idea 1


Our First idea is the idea we have chosen to film.
This idea is about the 10 commandments.
There are a lot of religious Thrillers and they seem to have really good plots and twists surrounding them, so we thought of trying this idea out.
The basic outline of the story;
A cardinal is killing according to the ten commandments.
People come into church to confess their sins and he sets about killing them for what they have done.
He keeps track of what he has done because he is an organised person.
He is planning on killing the pope because he feel's the pope has sinned.
The pope was formally in the Nazi youth and in the Cardinal's eyes, this breaks commandment number 10 (You shall not murder).
So because of this, the Cardinal see's the pope of being impure and needs to be disposed of.
The cardinal doesn’t see that he is doing anything wrong by committing these murders as he is doing in the name of God.
There is a police team that investigate the murders in the area. At first they don't see a link between any of the murders, then Inspector Luciano notices a pattern. His brother is a Cardinal at the Vatican so he is familier with the 10 commandments and notices that the murders are following them number by number. But number 6 (Thou shalt not murder) has been skipped. They have no idea who the killer is, or who is going to be the next victim. They order the surrounding areas where most of the murders have been committed, to be searched. They come across a small strange house and they break in and search it. Astonished they find Cardinal Villairs notes and what he is planning to do. They rush to the Vatican and burst into the popes chambers just as Cardinal Villiars is trying to kill him him. They arrest Cardinal Villairs and the pope is now safe.

Idea 2


Our second idea was about a16 year old teenage boy called Jeff.
Jeff is what some people would describe as being "nerdy" and a "pushover" and is usually bullied although he has a couple of close friends. He is seen to be a bit strange and have a "darkness" about him.
He gets invited to a typical high school party and the girl that he has had a crush on for years (Tiffany) is there.
Tiffany gets drunk and ends up kissing Jeff, who takes this as a sign that she likes him.
Jeff leaves the party feeling really happy that the love of his life loves him back.
The following day at school he tries to talk to Tiffany and she completely ignores him.
He feels upset and rejected but his friends tell him to come to another party with them that night to forget about it.
It is a big mistake because Tiffany is at the party and Jeff see's her kissing somebody else.
Jeff cannot contain himself and rushes home. He sits and home, stewing in the hate he has for that guy that he feels has "taken Tiffany away from him".
He thinks that if he kills that guy that Tiffany was kissing, she will want to be with Jeff because he doesn’t look like a pushover anymore.
Jeff has a social worker because his family think that he is unstable. He starts to tell his social worker his plans because committing this murder will make him feel better.
His social worker advises him not to because if he does she will have to turn him not the police. Jeff commits the murder and his social worker see's it on the news. She is about to ring the police when Jeff brakes in and kidnaps her. The police are then trying to track Chris down and don't know what has happened to the social worker. They eventually track


Idea 3


Our third idea was about a 18 year old teenage boy called Chris. It's a typical American college that has different sororities and Chris is desperate to be part of this one sorority.
He applies to become part of the sorority but there is a member who remembered Chris from school. This guy's name is Ted and he used to Bully Chris calling him "pathetic" and "weedy". Ted said that there is no way that Chris can join because he is such a "Loser" and goes about telling the rest of the member's stories about what he used to do to Chris. Things like wedgies and pushing him into things and cramming him into lockers. All of the members are laughing at Chris and he feels very hurt and upset. Chris thinks that the sorority group shouldn't get away with what they have done. Chris wanted a new start at college, away from the bullying at school, and Ted has just ruined all this for him. The new start that he wanted so bad is now ruined and he is so angry, especially at Ted. The only friend Chris has is his brother (Matt) which he confides in. Matt notices Chris acting strange and not like himself. Chris rings Matt and tells him that he is going to do some things that he is not proud of and Ted deserves it. Matt drives over to the college to try and stop Chris.
Weird things start happening around the Sororities building, like things moving and strange noises. Then people start going missing and are found dead. Matt sits in his car astonished at what’s happening and rings the police. They start getting scared and are just counting down the time until it is there turn. In the end only Ted is left and he is alone and petrified. Chris drags out the torment and soon it gets to daylight. All of a sudden Ted see's Chris hiding in a corner ready to attack him and he manages to fight him off. The police then arrive because they heard the commotion. Chris gets taken to jail and Ted is so traumatised he kills himself. There is a moral added to the story saying that "bullying never achieves anything".


idea 4


Our fourth idea was about a creepy old lady that lives on her own. Her name is Mary and she is 59. She has a large collection of pet cats, which the surrounding neighbours find to be a nuisance.
The old Lady get's ridiculed for being strange and people arent pleasant to her cats. Because her cats are the only family she has she is very protective over them.
The children living around Mary Bully her and abuse her cats. When a child leaves one of cats dead on her doorstop she is uncontrollably hurt and upset and she sets out to get revenge by taking away something them people hold dear to them...their lives.
so first Mary targets her next door neighbours The Johnsons, first she kills their pet dog Rocky, then she leaves the remains on the famlies doorstep leaving them wondering who world do such a thing as to kill their dog.
Then Mary moves on to them an leaves pictures of her dead cat in the post box and she also sticks them on their windows with the words "murderer" on the door. She then plans on how she is going to kill the family she starts to stalk the family and then starts to kidnap them one by one.
Mary then kills the father by torturing him until he was dead, she then kills the oldest son Ryan who tormented her when her beloved cat was killed also by torturing him. then it
comes down to just the mother and the youngest son, an just as she goes to kill the mother a hugh noise is herd and Mary turns around, the other next door neighbour had herd what had been going on and called someone to help.
at the end Mary is dragged off to a nuthouse and she stays there for the rest of he life.and the family sh tried to ekill move away and try to start a new life.








Our chosen idea in more detail


The Cardinals name is "Cardinal Villiars", he is 50 years old and was born in Italy.
Cardinal Villiars wears traditional red robes worn by all the senior Cardinals, although they do add different garments throughout the year.
When Cardinal Villiar went to school, the Mother Superior was obsessed with sinning and repenting and he got regularly beaten. This has been accumulating inside of him for his whole life and now he is a position where he can do something about it.
He has decided to start killing according to who is breaking the 10 commandments. These are;
1. Thou shalt not worship any other God
2. Thou shalt not make a graven image
3. Thou shalt not take God's name in vein
4. Thou Shalt not break the sabbath
5. Thou shalt not dishonour your parents
6. Thou shalt not murder
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery
8. Thou shalt not steal
9. Thou shalt not commit perjury
10. Thou shalt not covet

After finding out the Pope used to be part of the Nazi youth, Cardinal Villiars see's that he is unfit to be a pope as he is not pure and free from sin. Cardinal Villiars see's that the pope has broken the 6th commandment (Thou shalt not murder) seen as the Nazi's were guilty of committing so many murders. Therefore Cardinal Villiars thinks that the Pope should be removed from his place as the most Holy man in world.
Cardinal Villairs doesn’t see himself guilty of breaking the 10th commandment because he thinks that he is carrying out God's work for him.

We storyboarded our ideas...








. The Killer (Cardinal Villiars) turns the light on in a room (establishing shot) to reveal pictures of victims and plans all over the walls and his desk.
. The Killers hand can be seen on his bible (close up shot), and copying something down into his notebook
. (close up shot) You see him Sticking the commandments onto his wall with pictures of the victims.
(Through out the scene each commandment appears on a blank screen written in red. Then theres a (medium shot of polariod pictures of the victim stuck on the wall which had broken the commandment)
.(close up shot) You see the killer attatch a photo of a victim to the notebook next to written prayers and written commandments.
(There are shots of of televised footage of the pope throughout the film to hint at who the nest victim might be)
.There are Televised new's reports stating deaths of people who has committed "adultery" and "stealing" (medium long shot).
(There will also be footage of the Vaticans halls if we can obtain it. This will show walking through the Vatican to the Pope's chambers through the Killers eyes.)
. (medium long shot)The television that had been showing footage of the pope and the news reports has now going blank and has the "snowy effect" when the television cant pick up signal. This will symbolise that the Pope is the next person on the list to be killed because there is no longer any footage of the Pope showing. So this will show that the Pope's life will be coming to an end,
.There is then a black screen.
The words "He who has not sinned, may cast the first stone" appear on the screen. This is relevant to how the Killer is feeling and wh he is justified in committing his murders.
.The last shot of the killer is (extreme close up) of his shadowy figure, and his arm hanging down by side, his hand cluthching a knife.
Then the title of the movie appears "The commandments".

The rating of what we film has been classifed as an "18" movie according to the BBFC.
accroding to them "
this is because f the content in which we are using the theme and as our piece is classed as a physcological thriller it deals with issues and stories which younger people may not understand yet because of their age.

continuity piece

we have now finished filming the continuity peice. in the end we had to film it twice as the first time it went very wrong but the second time round we got it.we also had help from someone else as there was only to of us in the group, having that extra person helped us alot as we were able to film it all in under an hour without a hitch.it also follows the storyboard alot more than i thought as we had to change it a little bit in order to film it but it follows the same story which is good and in the end we got a good continuity piece. the story of the piece is: a girl is walking down the corridoor by herself when she finds herself being stalked by this boy, she carrieson walking through the corridoor and each time she walks past her stalker appears to also be there.
she then walks into a classroom and sits down at this moment the stalker appears behind her in the classroom and puts his hand on her shoulder which scars her as she now doesn't know what to do.
he then hands her a note which she takes and opens, the stalker then leaves the room just before the girl opens it and when she opens it we don't see what it says and then it ends with the girls reaction to what the note says.
this is what the final peice looks like:

Audience research and questionaire

As a group we compiled a questionaire and gave it out to numerus people and then collected the results and came to this conclusion: this is what the questionaire looked like :

The research that we did into this genre shows that it is a very popular genre. According to"www.the-numbers.com", which is a website that gives daily account's of the top grossing movies showing at the box office. The information shows that out of the top 18 movies showing at the box office on the 16th November 2009, 5 were of the Thriller genre. these movies were. Law Abiding Citizen (which was the 6th highest grossing movie of the day). The Fourth Kind (which was the 7th highest grossing movie of the day). Paranormal Activity (which was the 9th highest grossing movie of the day). The Box (which was the10th highest grossing movie of the day). The Informant (which was the18th highest grossing movie of the day).This is significant evidence in showing my chosen genres' popularity.Out of all the many different genre's in the world, Thriller movies are the 5th most popular grossing genre of movie between the years of 1995-2009. (www.the-numbers.com/market/genres/).To find out why this is, my group handed out questionnaires which asked a wide range of questions like;. Age. Gender. How often you go to the cinema. Favourite Genre of movieand more specialised questions to help my group find out what people like in a Thriller movie and what makes them so popular.We handed out our questionnaire to 27 people in total.There were11 (15-17 year olds)9 (18-21 year olds)1 (22-30 year olds)1 (31-40 year olds)5 (41 years +), that answered our questionnaire.We asked the question "Which of these are your favourite genre of movie? Horror, Thriller or Romantic comedies?"Strangely, 11 people liked Thrillers and 11 people liked Horror movies as well. Out of the 11 people that answered to liking Thriller movies best, 7 were of the age (15-17) and 2 were between the ages of (18-21) and 2 people were (41+). This shows that according to our research, Thriller movies may appeal to a more younger audience.Only 5 people liked romantic comedies, showing that Thriller movies are still a popular choice. To get more information about why people like thrillers we asked "Which of these three do you consider to be the most important part of a Thriller movie? Suspense, Fear factor or murder?"All of the (15-17) year olds answered that they considered suspense to be the most important part of Thriller movies, along with 7 out of the 9 (18-21) year olds also agreeing that suspense is the most important part of a Thriller movie.The only (31-40) year old we questioned also agreed that suspense was the most important part of a Thriller movie along with 4 out of the 5 (41+) years agreeing with this.Overall 23 out the 27 people questioned stated that suspense was the most important part of a Thriller movie.We also asked: Why do you think Thriller movies are so popular at the box office?There was a large variety of answer's but overall it seemed that people like to be scared but don’t like the gore that comes with a Horror movie. They like the intriguing and twisted plots that come with Thriller movies and also the fact that there are lots of different varieties of Thrillers available. so chosing the genre of thriller is good as it is becoming very popoular with most age groups.

Research into the Thriller genre

Thillers are used to intise the audience and get them asking questions about what's happening during the film. this gives it a high level of excitement and anticipation, and this genre also delivers a high level of tension and anxiety. A true thriller is something which has a single goal in which it sets out to leave the audience sitting on the edge of their seats wanting more as the plot twists and turns to build up the climax of the film. Usually in these films a life is threatend because we as the audience know that the person in danger will be put into an extreme situatuion in which they have to save others and theirselves. They also have conflicted characters that have a dangerous past and who are unpredictable in the film. these following films follow these convention:
Red Dragon
Seven
Silence of the lambs
Physco
The 39 steps
The usual suspects
Speed
Strangers on a train

research into existing products

conventions of romcom:
humor
boy meets girl
boy loses girl
boy gets girl
also in most romcoms there are side stories aswell as the main plot.
also a sterotypical feature of romcoms is its star who is most of the time hugh grant and also it always has a cheesy love story in there for good measure.

when doing an analysis on the opening for a romcom i looked at love actually and how it follows the conventions of romcom

i noticed that when it os starting it has real footage in it which isn't typical in romcoms but it also had a voice over of hugh grant talking about people at the arrivals gaste at heathrow airport.
and also as it moves along it has the names of the actors who are in it and the first letter of either there first or second name turns red which is a typical colour for a romcom.
it then introduces all of it's most important storylines e.g. the prime minister falling in love with the maid and the singer and his manager.
all of these are relationships but are all told differently so it has the element of humor in it aswell.

conventions of thrillers:

there is a murder
the police investigate
they catch the killer.
and there are also many types of thriller:
romantic triller
physcological triller
comedy triller
murder triller
sci-fi triller
erotic triller

all thrillers do follow a pattern that can play with it's audiences mind for example:
seven is what we would call a physcological thriller in which it playwith the audiences mind to how the killer might be and why they are doing it. but it also plays around with the idea of not letting you see all of which is going on an lets us figure it out for ourselves.

conventions of horror:

kids go on a holiday
they feel that something is going on
they all get killed one by one
lots of blood and gore

usually in horror films there is no happy ending as we see in the saw films or in the nightmare on elm street films. but they do have a story behind them.
e.g.: in saw the killer ' jigsaw' plays games with his victims to see if they die or they live but most of the time they die coz thats the aim of the game.
or there is films like the blair witch project which has a cult following as it tells the story of three young people in the forest who disappear... for the films purpose the director chose to say that they found the footage some years after the kids disappreared which makes the film seem more real to the audience.





05/11/09

today me and my group filmed our idea which we crafted in our storyboard which we did in 22 different frames.
the story in this is that someone is been stalked by an obbessed person who is in love with them and it follows how the person been stalked finds out about the stalker loving them.

i also found out that one member of the group may have left so the group is now left with just two people so nw we have to share out the responsablities of filming the storyboarded idea aswell as acting in it.