Possible Locations

Cold Christmas

Areas of London

Double Media Lesson

During this double media lesson we all thought it would be a good experience aswell as a useful source, to practice certain shots we had considered using in our trailer aswell as visiting our chosen locations. We drove to the petrol station were we planned to shoot our actual kiddnaping scene, and took pictures of the area and surroundings, this was useful as we were able to have a feel of the enviorment and have an idea of what were working with. As we were in the car we asked Nick to record from outside the window this was to...
Overall this was a dynamic and creative lesson, we all enjoyed this experience and it has definately got us excited to start filming our trailer.

Film Noir

Film noir genres include mostly crime and gangster.
Crime genre - detective is the hero
Gangster genre - Criminal is the hero

Film noir films use chiaroscuro. Chiaroscuro is the technique of having a black screen with points of light. Film noir films use a lot of voice over’s and include bars and shadows which is an for entrapment. The narrative sense of voice-over is to understand the story and to be used as an Icon. Film Noir consist of Jazz music, guns, shadows, lipstick, darkness heavy rain etc...

German Expressionism
German expressionism brought the art of distortion. E.g. Angels and shadows being distorted to make them larger (more scary) this is part of a geometric pattern.

Extended information on our plot.

During our media lesson, we sat down and decided that we needed to elaborate in detail on the way we want to portray our characters and that we had to add to our plot and scene, so we had a discussion on the names of our characters, and some of their characteristics. Through much arguement and debate we came to an agreement with the characters name:

Girlfriend=Mia
Boyfriend=Brett
Mia's best friend= Elena
Villian (Ex boyfriend)= Dean

Additionally throughout this discussion we re-ran through the conventions of the thriller genre, which helped us decided on our scenery, considering the fact that during a kidnapping, it is somewhat a tradition that they are taken away to some were isolated. Holly suggested a place called 'Cold Christmas' and from the discription that Holly provided us with based on the area we decided that it was ideal for some shots of our trailer to be taken there, due to it being an old, wreched, abandoned chruch that people go to scare themseleves.

The 5 stage pattern structure of our plot will be:

1) A state of Equilibrium at the outset – Brett proposes to his girlfriend Mia at a party. Everyone is having a good time which sets a very blissful atmosphere.

2) A disruption of the Equilibrium by some action – The happy engaged couple pull into a gas station, when she goes to pay Brett gets kidnapped unexpectedly.

3)A recognition that there has been a disruption – Mia turns around seeing him be dragged into a car after Brett screams her same continuously.

4) An attempt to repair the disruption – Mia goes in search of her boyfriend and has to go through clues and obstacles in order to find him.

5) Reinstatement of the Equilibrium – When Brett is saved.

Plot 2

We made some alterations to our plot, after a long group discussion we decided that our plot needed some more work on it, so this is what we have come up with:
Holly was an ordinary 20 year old. Fresh out of the university of Greenwich. Holly's life was great she had a much desired job with times magazine and a handsome boyfriend who she adored. On the night of her 21st birthday she celebrated with all of her friends at a club, the night was young but mike holly's boyfriend could not contain himself, in the middle of this packed party he got onto one knee and proposed to his darling holly. The happy couple headed home but mike needed to fill the car with petrol, they stopped off at the nearest petrol station and filled up, she went in to pay. That was when holly's great night turned bad. She turned with a smile to her boyfriend but he didn't smile back. He was being dragged into a blacked out Mercedes and all holly could do was scream. Trying to find him brings up many obstacles which means every step that she takes, is another step towards never seeing him again. An epic love tale about a girls fight for true love!

Further information we came up with..

Alex suggested that we all buy folders to put any work that we do on paper or any work we want to keep document of we can put in them and be more neatly presented.



Shanyse came up with the idea that maybe we could add in a conspiracy theory as a twist to the story, that the boyfriend could possibly be apart of a gang that has connections and resources that are very important...therefore leading the other gang members to kidnap him and get rid of him, or that he is actually misleading his girlfriend into thinking that he has been kidnapped, due to his commitment to his job. Although these both would of been a unique selling point for our movie and deepen the plot, we had to take note of the time limit that we were limited with, and that this idea was to complex for us to be able to cope with in order to make a good trailer within our time limit.

Plot Summary

In our media lesson we decided to come up with a basic outline for what our plot could be, allude to the fact that we all enjoyed the storyline, plot and suspence that the movie 'Taken' had created , we came to an agreement that we would use the plot from 'Taken' as a foundation for our one, therefore we decided that we would use the theme of someone being kidnapped and someone going in search for them. We decided to break the usual convention of the girl being kidnapped, we believed that this would be our unique selling point, due to the fact that it is not stereotypical for a male protaganist to be kidnapped, this would interest the viewer, we also decided to apply Tzvtan Todorovs theory of distrupted equilibrium, which is the theory that most films follow.

Equilibrium: Is that there are two teenagers who are a perfect girlfriend and boyfirend

Disequilibrium: The boyfriend is expectedly kidnapped

Equilibrium: Through much research and many different clues and experience the girlfriend uses these as tools to find her boyfriend

In a the busy centre of London, 2 ordinary teenagers were going about there everyday lives. school, homework and tests were all a chore, everything was completely normal, but when one of them is invited to a party and over hears a conversation between some shady characters everything changed!
Natalie an ordinary schoolgirl finds herself fighting for her boyfriends life. The police won't help her because his existence has been wiped! all she has is word of mouth and having to overcome many obstacles means every step that she takes, is another step towards never seeing him again.
An epic love tale about a girls fight for true love!

Death Sentence Trailer

Perfect Stranger Trailer

88Minutes Trailer

Taken Trailer

This trailer is symbolic of a thriller genre, it uses fast paced effects and music to show that it is an exhilerating, fast paced movie, and at times slows down to keep us in suspence. The plot and story line is very realistic as it puts forward the fears of every parent, their child being kidnapped. The location and story of the film is based on social realism since the girl is kidnapped in a house after persuading her father to allow her to go on holiday with her friends. The actual context of this film is that one of the main protagonist (daughter) has a convoluted relationship with her father, they are unable to communicate and bond properly this could be due to him being divorced with her mother, this sets of a rockey relationship between the two characters, therefore the father is somewhat over protective over her and does not find it apporiate for her to go to Paris with her friend, the fact that he was a police officer before emphasizes his reasoning for her not to go alone with her friend, as he has experiences and heard of kiddnappings before, although this is the understated storyline it is not shown in the trailer as this would not portray a 'Thriller' genre, it would more or less deplict a 'Family drama' which is not what was intentioned. In a majority of film trailers the motive is to attract the audiences attention, and depending on the genre of film, the technique of doing this changes, in most Thriller genres it is most common that the trailers sequence is not in chronological order, the most significant parts and the best shots are invested in it, so that it attracts the audiences attention, therefore it is not in the sequential order. Within the film and as seen in the trailer there are many stereotypical characters, the male protagonist is exposed as being the hero, and the daughter as representing the convention of the damsel in distress. Their is a worried mother and a man who decides to literally ‘buy’ the female lead as our villain, as well as her friend who is the cause of their kidnapping.

In my opinion this trailer through many techniques and effects reflects the conventions of a thriller movie, in shot 0.20-0.22 their is an effect of flashing thunder this shows the change from their everyday environment of a normal life to a more energetic and stimulating one. Many of these flashing effects occur throughout the trailer, in one way or another this could be considered as perfetic fallacy, as it reflects the mood of the actual film that it is dangerous and exciting, in the shot 0.32-0.47 the flashing light represents this idea.

Mood Board

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, television, and gaming that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres. Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains. (Wikipedia)



I have created my own mood board (as seen above) from a combination of images that I believe convey the characteristics of the thriller genre. Most of the images are posters or DVD covers of thriller movies which are intertwined with images of shots that have been taken from within the films. I think that I already posses a good knowledge of what the conventions of thriller films consists of, however once I analyze a variety of thriller film trailers I will expand this knowledge, this mood board will also help me achieve this. The thriller genre has common characteristics with other genres, it can often reflect other genres within its own such as horror, action, drama and mystery.