Iconography

Why iconography is important:

The physical attributions in a scene of a film give a lot of obvious indications to the audience and helps construct the plot line and creates the mood and atmosphere to make the audience feel a certain way. In a psychological thriller, the audience is meant to feel on edge, building up suspense and is very gripping.

Examples of iconography in a psychological thriller:

Small, confined spaces
Small. confined spaces create a feeling of being trapped and a sense of claustrophobia. This makes the audience feel uneasy and maybe even stressed whilst watching.

Shadows
Shadows make the audience feel like someone is always following and watching the 'victim'. Shadows also demonstrate how although there may be darkness, there must be a source of light, which could hint a possible escape.

Darkness
Darkness scares the audience as the feeling of the unknown is present. Darkness suggests that something bad may happen and it shows it is quite a sinister genre of film. When darkness is broken by a source of light this may portray a feeling of freedom.

Distinct sounds
An example of the generic sounds heard in a psychological thriller are diegetic conversations that suggest something bad may happen, also screaming and scratchings on the doors or walls of a location. Non-diegetic sound heard may be atmospheric music, that build up suspense and make the audience feel tense.

Very small amounts of light
Very small amounts of light can suggest a small chance of escaping or even survival. But could also suggest that wherever there is light there is hope. In a psychological thriller, there is normally minimal light to disturb the audience.

Objects in rooms that create thrill (sharp objects/ concealed objects)
Concealed objects create suspicion and a tense atmosphere as the 'villain' may be hiding something that could harm others. Sharp objects such a knives and axes also suggest harm and sometimes even murder.

Title ideas

After research, we have seen that 4 weeks is 672 hours. This is the amount of time that the character in our opening title sequence would have been locked away for so we feel that this would be an affective title and would keep our audience engaged as it will not give away a lot of information about the film plot.

Shooting script

We created a shooting script to keep us on track and keep us focused on what we need to achieve during our days of filming. We keep organised by having a folder which we will take with us whenever we are shooting.

 

 

Research on lighting

For part of our research, we looked into how we could create the best shots using lighting.

 

 

Risk Assessment

Actress profile

Our chosen actress for our opening scene is Ruby Foy, who is part of our media group.

Ruby is perfect for the role because of her image, her age and her ability to perform professionally in front of a camera.

 

In the above images, you can see that Ruby has hair that is suitable for our opening sequence. This is because she has long hair that we can style to create an unwashed, scruffy look to portray the harsh conditions she is being kept in.
Her defined jawline could illustrate the fact that her character has been starved and makes the harsh conditions more believable. Her small figure also demonstrates this.

It is also ideal that she is in our group, as she will be available when we need her for filming, instead of relying on a person who cannot always be available to film. This will speed up the process of filming.

Location recce

For our first location, we decided that my neighbours barn and surrounding woodland would be an ideal place to film, as the barn is quite run down and untidy. This suits our genre as a psychological thriller needs a location to create suspense and thrill. It is also ideal that this location is by my house and I know the owners of this private land, it will be easier to get in contact and use the land when we need to.

Our second location is at Ruby's plot of land as it is away from any other people and has a barn that has potential to fit the brief of our wanted location. An only downfall of this location is that it is used for storage and is next to other buildings so doesn't have a field or surrounding woodland.