Planning - Main AS Task Initial Idea

Hello readers,

 For my main AS task in media which requires the making of a two minute long opening sequence with the inclusion of credits, I will be working with two other people. We have chosen to create an opening sequence within a film that will be of the 'thriller' genre. This is because this enables us to make the most of creating an atmosphere, demonstrating a variety of shot types and exploring utilizing sound and lighting to the best ability.

 Our basic idea is to create an opening scene for a film called 'The Syndrome'; it is about a captive girl suffering from Stockholm Syndrome who consequently is in love with her capturer. The opening sequence will be before this scenario takes place and the girl first finds herself captured; she makes for escape but consequently cannot overpower her captor who takes her hostage again. Therefore, the opening sequence will focus on her escape and her inevitable second capture. I feel this will be a good opening sequence as it will be tense due to her pursuit to escape, and there will be the question of will she make it out, or will her captor pursue her?

 We have been inspired from various sources around this idea of escape and approaches that we may consider taking.
 Firstly, this music video by Written In Waters features a cannibal in pursuit of his 'dinner'. The captor is threatening, not only in his build and aesthetics but also his presence. This could inspire who we decide to cast for our captor. Also, the lighting used is quite atmospheric; a lot of the time making the best out of natural light, and others using artificial light to add effect. The shot types are also really influential and impressionable and editing is smooth and fluent, demonstrating good continuity editing. I feel that the way the captive has been tied up, with his wrist and feet and gagged, will probably be the way we approach tying our captor as she will still be able to make escape in comparison to if she was tied down with chains.

 Our next source of influence is the escape scene of a couple of boys in The Changeling; the boys manage to escape but are pursued by their captor. The lighting is dim and dark; we are thinking of filming ours at a time of day where light will be scarce in order to create atmosphere. This scene may also influence how we choreograph our escape scene, however, instead of the captor going crazy we want him to be calm and confident that he will catch the girl. The shots used in this scene are effective to evoke the feeling of a  quick pace however we plan not to use dialogue in our opening sequence as this will lose the effect of tension and questioning of what will happen.
 Another source which has influenced us in forming our idea is The Blair Witch Project. This is because it is filmed POV and this may be something we include in our shot types by perhaps showing the perspective of the girl once or twice to give the audience an idea of the feelings of fear she is undergoing. Also, location wise we considered the woods as the place for her to be imprisoned as woods can feel like mazes and are normally isolated areas emphasising the idea that there is no hope of escape for her. Woods are also eerie locations that people normally relate to thriller or horror films so this will suit our genre well. Especially when filming in dim light, this location will create the perfect atmosphere that we desire.

 Because we will be including credits we have been influenced by the opening credits in Sleepy Hollow as they are fairly subtle and this is how we desire ours to be so as not to interrupt the tense escape scene that the audience would prefer to follow without disturbance of text over the top.