Group Narrative and Narrative Theory - Miss Georgiou

My opening sequence group consists of myself, Kerry Boyne and Jessica Mccullagh.

My narrative idea - The idea I have for our narrative is to base the sequence on a chase scene in the forest. The start of the opening scene will be a zooming shot of the abandoned house in Buckhurst Hill. This will introduce the setting and highlight the fact that the house is abandoned and isolated, creating a feeling of vulnerability.
The inside of the house will then be introduced to the audience, panning around the interior and showing pictures on the wall that are marked as the psychopaths previous victims. The antagonists presence will be shown but his identity will be hidden to create a theme of enigma around the character. Instead of a clear view of the killers face, the camera will show shadows and silhouettes of him, shots that are too close up to see the man at detail and shots from the killers point of view. The audience will not know who the killer is, what they look like and therefore will question their reasons and purpose for carrying out the murderous acts.The antagonist may even be wearing a mask to hide his identity completely.
The protagonist will be locked in a room or tied up in the house. She will escape and begin to run away. The antagonist would be chasing the girl through the forest. He would be walking fairly steadily while the protagonist would be running quickly. Eerie music and various sound effects will be used to increase suspense.

I  have highlighted the advantages of my narrative in green and the disadvantages in red. A disadvantage would be that you cannot see the antagonists face at clear detail. This means you will not be able to see that he is masked and it may confuse the viewer about the character and who they are. You also do not know much about the killer and his victim. I should explain his purpose for carrying out these acts and elaborate on why he has chosen that girl. He could have stalked her. If so, I will prove this by using images of her that look like they have been taken from a distance without her knowing. i would use this iconography and pin it on the walls.
Advantages include that the different camera angles portray different effects like dominance and vulnerability. The identity of the killer is hidden which is conventional to a thriller because the audience questions who they are and what they're purpose is, creating enigma and suspense.  Another effect convention is that the walking speed of the victim and antagonist is different. He is walking slowly while she is running away quickly. This conveys that he is confident and knows he will eventually catch her. This tells the audience that he will inevitably catch up with her and increases suspense.                


Kerry's narrative idea - The narrative idea that Kerry is interested in focuses on having an abandoned house or building belonging to a psychopath. The protagonist would be a woman who gets split up from her friends and becomes isolated from her friendship group and becomes his next victim, who he has been spying on for a while. In the house there will be pictures and blood splatters on the walls. The antagonist will be presented as somebody who is psychologically damaged and therefore creepy and unpredictable. A low angle shot can present the antagonist as the dominate character. Other  iconography she suggested to use is a knife, broken glass, dusty old books and blood splatters on a work surface. This shows the antagonist has killed before and is conventional to a thriller film as it creates suspense.                                                                                                             We could create low-key lighting by filming at a certain time of the day, considering how the surroundings effect the appearance of the sequence.  Using different camera techniques and editing devices such as fading, zooming and point of view shots allow the sequence to appear realistic and create a sense of suspense and shock as these key thrillers make a thriller conventional. Sound she considered using included the blowing out of a candle, screaming, heavy footsteps and rain fall.
The female victim will be wearing a white dress.

Disadvantages of Kerry's narrative include certain aspects of the plot that could be changed to become more effective. Instead of the female victim being split up from her friendship group. She could already be in the house, tied up and trapped. This would mean the only two characters in the sequence are the protagonist and the antagonist, increasing the feeling of isolation and making the protagonist appear in more danger.
Her initial idea of a group of friends in the forest lacks detail as well because she has not explained why they are in the forest in the first place and this may confuse the viewer. It also makes the protagoist appear more safe because there is the chance that her friends could hear or see her and help her escape. This decreases the feeling of danger that creates suspense in the audience. Also it is too coincidental that the girl is his next victim that he has been spying on for a while and he suddenly comes across her in a forest.
Advantages of her narrative are that the location is an abandoned house which is a very isolated environment that creates tension because the audience knws there is nop one else around to help or hear the victim. The protagonist being a woman makes her appear more vulnerable because the anatgonist who is male is more dominate and strong. This increases suspense in the audience because furthermore they know that it would be very hard for her to escape. The white dress that the victim wears is a good representation of her character because it displays her innocence and would look effective as it would be slightly dirty showing how her vulnerability has been corrupted and as she runs from the man it would blow about in the wind which could be effective. Also the white would contrast well with the antagonist if he was wearing dark clothing.
In my History of Thrillers post, I discovered that an antagonist being creepy and unpredictable is effective to the audience because they do not know what they will do next and this creates suspense. Kerry's idea was to have the antagonist in our sequence be creepy and unpredictable so it would have the same effect.


Jessica's narrative idea - Jessica's idea is to have a couple who have gone camping in a deserted campsite for Halloween. The couple are then found by a mysterious masked killer who attempts to attack and then spends the night chasing them. The face of the antagonist would not be revealed until the end of the film so in the opening sequence his identity will remain hidden. He will be carrying a knife as it easily intimidates the victims and is a quick way to carry out an attack. There are two protagonist's in Jessica's idea; one is a male and one is female and they are both around the age of eighteen. They will be dressed in bright clothing to portray their innocence.The opening sequence begins with the couple sitting by their tent and the lighting is low key and pitch black. They are in a deserted campsite, around midnight.

Both mine and Jessica's narrative ideas feature a chase scene so that will probably be a main aspect of our opening sequence story line. Another convention we both decided on four our ideas was using a knife as an example of iconography. Jessica suggests that low-key lighting is used which will create a dramatic effect. However, she also suggests that at some point in the sequence the lighting should be pitch black. This will make it unclear for the audience to see what is happening in the sequence and so may confuse them about the narrative. A male protagonist was proven not to be as effective in our research because most people believed that a female victim appears more vulnerable and powerless so using a male as well would not be as threatening especially as their is an imbalance of more protagonists than antagonists.It will be difficult to locate our sequence in Jessica's desired setting because we will need to get permission to film at a campsite, especially at midnight. As well as the fact that there will be other family's around so they might portray a happy atmosphere and it would be hard to make the setting seem deserted. Like my narrative Jessica should elaborate on the killers background and why the victim is being chased.

As a group we have decided to use aspects of all of our narrative ideas to produce a final group narrative. Our story line is based on a psychotic serial killer who as a child was abused by his mother which has damaged him mentally. Because of this he captures and kills young innocent girls with dark hair that resembles his mother in a form of revenge.
The opening sequence begins with a high angle shot of an abandoned house showing the antagonists vulnerability as a child and also the vulnerability of his victims. Panning and Steadicam shots show the audience the interior of the house, focusing on iconography such as old photographs of his mother, blood splattered on work surfaces, religious objects and broken glass before the antagonist is introduced. He will be wearing dark scruffy clothes such as a black hooded jumper and dirty trainers. He will also be wearing a mask to conceal his identity.The mask will be plain white, which conveys he has no emotions and the white has connotations of his innocence as a child.
A mid shot will then show him looking at many polaroid photographs on the wall. These photographs are of previous or future victims.  The previous victims photographs have a cross marked on them in red. We will then focus in on one last photograph of his next victim. The antagonist will circle this picture and then the camera will zoom into the photograph suggesting she is going to be killed next.
After this the camera will change, there will be a close up of our victims face.After this the camera will suddenly change to a close up of the actual victim. This will help to emphasize her emotion. First the victim has her eyeas closed as she in unconcious and then whilst the camera is slowly zooming out the victim will wake up and look around at her surroundings and then start to panic. Following this, the camera will zoom out more rapidly so that the audience can see the situation that the girl in is (she will be tied up old rope in an empty room of the abanmdoned house).  She will be scared, crying and panicked. Following this, the camera will zoom out so that the audience can see the situation that the girl in is. She will be tied to a chair with rope. She will be wearing a white floaty dress to show her innocence. However it will be dirty due to the circumstances and surroundings. The dirty marks on the dress will show how the antagonist has corrupted the victims innocence and vulnerability. The room will be dark and we will use low key lighting. There will also be blood on the floor along with pieces of clothing from previous victims.
The victim will then struggle in the chair and eventually break free before running out of the house and through the forest. As she exits, the antagonists attention would be captured by a noise the victim makes as she escapes. A loud and sudden sound effect will accompany a fast zoom to provoke shock and suspense. A close-up of the victims face appears as she realises she has been too loud. The antagonist will sprint to the door and chase her out of the house. A frantic chase through the forest would then take place. The antagonist would walk steadily behind the victim as she runs quickly. The antagonist doesn’t run fast but instead has a more slow powerful walk with heart beat and footstep sound effects to increase tension. This will make the antagonist appear confident and as though he knows he will eventually capture her. This makes the audience believe there is no chance that she will escape.
Eerie music and various sound effects will be used to heighten the suspense. Another idea we have is to use happy hunting music as a contrapuntual sound.We have two possible endings for our sequence. The first idea ends the sequence as the victim finds herself at a dead end. The camera will cut to a low angle shot of the antagonist as he walks slowly towards the victim with his knife held above his head. The killer will keep walking and the sequence will fade to black. Then, as the title of the thriller film appears on the screen the audience will hear the scream of the victim, implying she has been killed by the antagonist.
Another way the sequence could end is by the victim tripping over something in the forest and not being able to physically move because of her pain so she would scream and struggle which gives the antagonist time to catch up with her. She tries to drag herself along the floor to get up but cannot. The camera will cut to a low angle shot of the antagonist as he walks slowly towards her. The scene goes completely silent and an extreme close up occurs of the victims face where she is breathing heavily. From this reaction shot the timing of the shots speeds up as the victim suddenly gets dragged backwards by the antagonist which is shown by an over the shoulder shot of the protagonist. The antagonist wont be putting much effort in to drag her back whilst she starts struggling. A zoom in shot will then occur showing the antagonists face and then short flash shots of the victims past will occur.
The narrative theory we have decided to follow is Aristotle's who states that a sequence should focus on themes which include an inciting incident, a dramatic question, a character goal, a protagonist and antagonist, stakes, a resolution and elemants of sympathy and empathy.Our sequence plans to entail of of these which is why we have chosen this theory. In our narrative the inciting incident is that the antagonist was abused because it shows the audience why he is mentally unstable. Dramatic questions include: will the victim escape and why is the antagonist doing what he is doing? Character goals vary for the different chracters; for the antagonist the character goal is to relive the anger and pain that his mother has caused for him bykilling victims that resemble her appearance. The victims goal is simply to escape.
The antagonist in the sequence is a psychological serial killer. Stakes that our sequence will explore are the young victims lives and how many he will kill before he gets caught. The audience feels sympathy and empathy for the victim because they know that they are innocent and doubt that they will escape. They are getting brutally forced to stay in a house and are likely to get painfully attacked and murdered. Sympathy is further felt but for the antagonist. As the audience discovers the reasons of his murders and the truth of his upbringing they begin to feel sorry for him. My group has decided to follow this theory because it is the most conventional to a thriller film and our opening sequence includes all of the points that the theory highlights.