Analysis of two thriller conventions we are going to use - Sophie O'Dell

Themes of seeing, reflection and mirroring

In our opening of a thriller we are going to use the convention of themes of seeing, reflection and mirroring to create the thriller theme. We are going to present this convention by using mirrors throughout the piece which will create a theme of uncertainty as you can always see what is behind the main character and enhances the element of surprise and drama.

The camera angles we are going to use show the antagonist appearing behind the ballet dancer and then disappearing in the mirror to trick the eye and to also build up the suspense of who this person is who keeps flashing in and out of view, here we will edit all of our clips together to they run smoothly from one another changing the contrast of light to give the effect of a flash signifying her disappearence. The camera angles we use allow the ballet dancer to be oblivious to the reflection of the antagonist and so does not fear their presence, apart from at the very end in the bathrooms when she feels a presence of someone behiund her buyt when she looks they're gone.  The antagonist will mirror the body movements and positions of the ballet dancer at various points to show a theme of the antagonist hiding from the ballet dancer, trying to stay unnoticed and secretive. The variety of camera angles we are going to use, such as over the shoulder shots and long shots, show both intense moments of the antagonist being secretive and an over view of the whole scene portraying a clear atmosphere to the audinece.

Elements of mise en scene which we will use are; we are going to use a dance studio with a wall of mirrors to create the effect we want with the reflections and mirroring. We are also going to use the toilet mirrors to show this same element of being able to see what is creeping up behind you, but we have changed the scene to show how this girl is clearly being followed. We chose two characters for the antagonist and the ballet dance who were similar iun size so the antagonist can easily be masked by the ballet dancer at certain points. We aren't going to use any "object" props in the thriller opening as the mirrors are the main focused on prop as they give us this thriller convention of seeing, reflection and mirroring. Because you can see our costumes from both sides, in the reflection as well as the side the camera captures, we made sure our outfits and hair were the same style etc.

We are going to use diegetic sounds such as music from a jewlery box as well as music we are going to create in garage band which relates ballet thriller theme. The non-diegtic sound will show the delicateness of ballet dancing but then also allow the scene to become a thriller as you can see this evil antagonist approaching the ballet dancer, but the music sounds peaceful and delicate.

We will edit the scenes in our thriller opening to show the sudden approaching of the antagonist behind the ballet dancer in the mirror. We intend to edit in special effects to put between this trasitions to make them smoother and also build up an intesity and highlight suddne movements. We also want to edit in clips of the poster, photographs of girls and the antagonists eyes to show the element of seeing these girls at this ballet class and the obsession the antagonist has over them.

Enigmas

For our thriller opening we are going to use a definite element of Enigmas. We are going to do this by having an ongoing enigma of who the antagonist is and why they have such an obsession over this one ballet dancer:

The use of camera angles and shots in the thriller opening, really show the element of enigmas as the camera never gets a close up shot of the antagonists face and keeps this ongoing enigmas throughout the opening. We also vary the shots of the antagonist and the ballet dancers, to show the obsession that the antagonist has over the dancers but never reveals why through shots. We keep the shots short and snappy of the antagonist ensuring not to reveal too much. 

The elements of mise en scene that we will use to keep the enigmas are to have the antagnoist all in black, not showing their identity and personality in anyway. We will also have them always looking down so when we shot them in the mirror you could never see the reflection of their face. We also are goin to show snappy shots of the ballet lesson poster and crossed out images of the girls photographs, these images will keeping appearing between scenes creating an enigma of why this person has crossed out photos of these girls and what really the ballet class is about for this teahcer.

The sound we are going to use will not reveal uncertainty as we are going to use light ballet music however, at some points this music will go be the oppisite of the action in the scene, but we feel this will also add the element of thriller because it is abnormal and will make the audience feel uncomfortable.

We are going to edit in the music (above) and also the extra images of the girls photos and the poster to ensure that the enigmas keep on building for the audience to figure out. We want to also add in special affects to increase the thriller theme and elements of enigmas because it will disjoint the images and the viewer will be intrigued into what these images mean.