Thriller Planning: Characters, Costumes and Props

Ideas and Details:

• Name: Detective Furnace.
• Nationality: British.
• Hat/Suit - Formal.
• Duffel Bag - Enigmatic/MacGuffin.
• Locket - Enigmatic/Chekhov's Gun - Picture of wife inside - tells audience about the past of the main character/gives hints about the past. 
• Wall of 'stuff' - tells the audience about the character being organised due to the amount of information and how he is keeping track of the possibilities about who murdered his wife.

Connotations and Effects:

• Enigmatic/Mysterious.
• Formal/Authoritative.

Suitability for the Genre:

• Suitable; suits the genre because it is enigmatic.
• Takes influences from Se7en, detective/enigmatic film with similar style to our film/characters.

Logistics:

• The character we have created is very accessible. Clothing is easy to get, only needs to wear a suit/shirt/hat. Personality is easy to achieve too.

The First Shot:

• The first shot we see of the character is an establishing shot of him walking towards his house and opening it. However we do not at any point see the main characters face in the opening shots. 

Pitch and Treatment:

P1 - Extreme close up of the key in the door (to his house) and (guys name) walks up the stairs. Goes into room with a wall which pitcures of suspects (mostly crossed off with red marker), newspaper cuttings/articles, maps etc with pins and string linking them. Whilst walking towards the wall he picks up a pen (red marker) and crosses off the last face. Looks at the wall and leaves to enter the bathroom, which has a cuboard (with a mirror on it) and opens it. He picks out some pills/medication and closes the cuboard. Then takes the pills with a glass of water. Stares into mirror/washes face. Gets angry and wipes desk clear/pulls down the wall. Walks down the stairs and leaves the house, when slams door shut, black screen fades to the shot of the outside. Walking down an alleyway with the locket in his hands/looking at it. He, whilst walking down an alleyway is bumped into by another man, and drops the locket. As the locket hits the floor it opens and the audience see the photo inside it for the first time (the mans wife). Shot reverse shot of the locket and the two characters faces. Main character flips and kills the other man. Camera follows the man down as he falls to the floor, and final shot becomes an over the shoulder from behind the man on the floor, with the main character walking away. Fades to black and Title is shown.
P2 - Taking influence from Se7en, we are using a duffel bag as our McGuffin by having it placed on the floor (closed) with blood seeping through onto the floor. We are seeking to establish the character of Detective Furnace, a man who lost his wife to a kidnapping and murder, along with his unborn baby dying in the process. And so vows to find his wifes murderer and bring them to justice by any means

Location Sheet & Location Photos:

Location Sheet: We chose these locations because they best fitted the area/surroundings that we had planned for the shooting of our thriller.


Alleyway: The alleyway we chose to look at for our thriller was chosen because it is practical, due to the fact it is rather wide and therefore is easier to shoot in than a smaller alleyway, as there is more potential for a larger variety of shots. Plus the area is relatively secluded and shouldn't be interrupted during filming. The area is also dimly lit and perfect for the lighting we want in this part of the thriller as the darkness would create connotations or enigma and mystery along with
potential for danger.
House: We had two potential locations for the house, both in which had elements we were looking for when it came to the house in which the main character would be spending the majority of his time in during the thriller, and where the audience finds out most about him.
In the house, we wanted stairs with a banister, such as in the picture below, which was provided through Jamie's house (the location we decided to film in), along with a landing at the top of the stairs, the front door at the bottom and a large wall and desk in the room upstairs which is important in the thriller, due to the fact it shows a lot about the character and the story.

All of these locations fit the suburbia environment that we were looking for, as this creates a familiar environment for the audience to relate to throughout the thriller, and have the stereotypes and familiar associations of this environment challenged and changed.

Thriller Planning: Prezi (Mood Board) (Group)

What do directors seek to establish in the openings of thrillers?