My opening title sequence conforms to the genre of Thriller.
Thriller, as we all know, is a wide range of films and so I have put my film into the sub- genre of
Psychological thriller as it aims to effect to audience on two levels. To both Thrill the audience and to confuse their minds until the very end of the film. I wanted my film to conform to the genre and not challenge it’s conventions because
I wanted it to feel like a convincing classic Thriller.
Screen Shot from our opening title sequence .

Albert Hitchcock was a big inspiration to our Production. Being the master of the
Psychological thriller. His film ‘Vertigo’ gave us many shot ideas for example close ups of parts of the body and faces.
Films such as the Scream quadrilogy inspired us to use Voyeurism to represent more than one character watching the event. This helps confuse the audience and overall will help in the reveal at the end of
The complete film.
Scream 2 (1997) Wes Craven
Vertigo (1958) Albert Hitchcock
The Sixth Sense (1999) M. Night Shyamalan
‘Shutter Island’ and ‘The Sixth sense’ influenced the detective character in our piece, both character dress alike, and Bruce Willis’ character in the sixth sense is very child protective and a good guy. As well as this ‘Shutter island’ and
Shutter Island (2010) Martin Scorsese
‘Se7e influence our choices to introduce characters as both films show you the things about the character before revealing their identities.

A Clockwork Orange (1971) Stanley Kubrick
Brighton Rock (1947) John Boulting
House at the end of the Street (2012) Mark Tonderai
The character of Gavin Stephens (the child) was inspired by three films; ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (which stars Alex an ultra violent man),
‘Brighton Rock’ (which stars Pinkie who although he is ultra violent normally keeps a cool exterior and is presented as a normal character and ‘House at the end of the street’ (who stars Ryan who is not shown as the bad guy until the end). These characters and films influenced us because we want our character to be seen as innocent until the truth of his violent nature and true intentions is revealed at the end of the film when he has killed his kidnapper and his plan is revealed in full.
‘One Hour Photo’ Influenced our film as it shows the psychological effect on someone when they’re obsessed with something for a long time, this applied so all of our characters as they all have obsessions with different things.
One Hour Photo (2002) Mark Romanek
House at the end of the Street (2012) Mark Tonderai
‘House at the end of the street’ also helped to influence our story line as the real evil in revealed at the end. Making it a good
Psychological thriller, as well as this it uses a lot of red herrings and plot twists to confuse its audience which is what we aimed to do in our film.

Using White on Black is a common feature of Thriller films as they create the effect of eeriness and mystery. The black background makes the title seem more ominous and stand out. ‘The Sixth sense’ use this in their film however instead of their title moving a shadow moves over it.
This shot conforms to the
Thriller genre as they tend to use naturalistic and normal settings to have extraordinary events. This effect is used in a plethora of films including ‘One
Hour Photo’ and ‘Phone
Booth’. It helps the story line to be closer to home and therefore makes the characters more of a threat to the audience.
Using the Shaking effect helped us to make the Title stand out more and really grab attention. Other films that use this effect our ‘Se7en’ which uses shaking writing and ‘House at the end of the Street’ which uses title that change from a child's hand writing to a normal font.
This panning shot allows the camera to show the proximity of a large dark forest to the Park, giving a sense of danger to the shot. Films such as
‘House at the end of the Street’ use this as a forest provides a scary tall shadow over a light and happy place.
We used an open and empty park as a setting to give our film a lonely and eerie feel, we decided to film in the day time to give the feeling that the children where missing from the park and not just at home.

The only props we had were newspaper cuttings and note books, this was to identify with the crime aspect of our thriller and to add mystery to whose notes they were. However, we ended up only using one set of notes in the final cut.
Editing was a challenge in this piece as we didn’t want to give away the story obviously. When getting feed back on the piece we were told that we didn’t have a clear narrative. Which was great feedback as that is what we were aiming for.
During planning we tried to think of costumes that would represent our characters. I wore a Parka, the hood allowed me to hide my identity, this follows the conventions of thriller as characters are normally introduced through repeated shots of parts of them. With the parka on you cannot
Identify me as a boy or a girl and this helps the narrative as a girl is an unlikely choice as a kidnapper.
This shot is from the end of our piece and shows my characters face for the first time. The camera work put into this shot is one of my favourite shots, as we used our surroundings to help us film it, this shot is a 360 revolving shot and we used the roundabout to help us get a smooth line of movement, the only thing I would say is a flaw in this shot is the slight unintentional tracking of a car.

Our font was chosen to look like writing. We started by trying to find child's writing but we thought that would give away the twist of our story to much so we tried to find a more mature but still angry and spiteful type of font, which we found. We chose this font “Crazy Killer” to try and make it seems like it was the kidnapper writing the titles even though the film is based around the feelings and events in the boys life.
The opening title sequence sets up the story, by using shots like this one we introduce the crime element of the story as well as the kidnapping theme. We have used costume and props to show the crime element and the setting shows us the location which is a park, this misé en scene suggests child kidnapping as the park is empty. We got the ideas for the notes and note books from the opening title sequence of ‘Se7en’.

Genre is suggested through the use of hidden identity and props in our piece, the visuals are a big part of the genre. Using a variety of close and far shots allows the mystery to be set up in the genre as well as following conventions about character introductions such as introducing parts of the character before the actual character, these techniques are also used in ‘Se7en’ and ‘Shutter island’.
Characters are being introduced by hidden identity shots such as this one and through the use of police notes and newspaper cuttings. This allows our piece to conform to the thriller genre as this is a common technique used in thriller films.
Using a profile of Sam's face later on in this shot helps him to be seen as an authority figure such as the queen on coins or stamps. His coat a posture also allow us to see him as a detective figure although we have chosen a dark pallet for him to confuse the audience as to if he is the bad guy or not.

Throughout the piece we use various editing techniques and transitions. In this shot we use a fade in for the round about and a cross dissolve out of the complete shot.
Other films such as ‘Se7en’ and ‘Shutter island’ use this technique to show the crime element of their pieces.
This shot represents the editing used in our piece we used influences from opening title sequences such as ‘Fahrenheit 145’, using repeated zooming out/in shots as well as overlaying the notes on our work to give it a crime feel and connecting the two events.