Similar Media Products

While in the pre-production stage of our thriller, we drew inspiration from different media products within the film industry, to help give us ideas regarding which steps to take in our thriller. For example, our ideas were inspired by the claustrophobic nature of films such as 127 Hours and The Descent. 

We drew from the claustrophobic elements such as the arm trapped in the rock in 127 Hours, as we felt that this terrified the audience, while also thrilling them, by encouraging them to want the protagonist to escape.

However, instead of focusing on the escape of our character, we decided that we should show the audience her death, as all the emotion invested in her escape had gone to waste, which demonized the serial killer, as they feel a sense of personal vengeance towards the killer, which creates a more satisfying ending, when he is caught.

Our Four Thriller Ideas

LOL Mum (Freddy)
After a long discussion on which we thought would be easier to film and which was the idea that best fitted the genre, we decided to choose Freddy's idea: 'LOL Mum'. Although the title sounds comical, the reality was far more suited to a thriller. The idea was set to begin at a funeral, where we see three daughters mourning over their deceased mother. They discuss little things that remind them of their mother, between themselves, and all reminisce about how she used to write 'LOL Mum' at the end of her texts to the daughters, not realizing that LOL stands for 'Laugh Out Loud' and mistaking it for 'Lots Of Love'. However each of the sisters phones beep, and when they check them each text has a message from the mothers number, signed 'LOL Mum'.
We thought this idea was the most thrilling and would also be easier to film and create, we had also depicted the brief outline of the scene and how we could film each shot.


Our second idea was one of mine:
Penalties
We see an extreme close up of a man sweating, looking stressed and nervous, the background is entirely black, the camera switches and we see that he is taking a penalty, he shoots and scores the penalty, there is a fade to black, and cheering is heard, and is synchronous to the fading screen. There is a newspaper on a table with the front page being about the famous penalty shootout and how it won the mans team the cup. We see the player pack his bags, and leave his apartment, he arrives at training to find a figure in the goalposts, he walks up to the figure to find that it is his coach hanging by his neck, with white letters painted on him, saying 'You're Next'.
However, we decided that this idea would be far harder to film and the use of special effects at the beginning would be difficult to produce well.

Seeing Double (Claudia)

Man is leading a double life. He is a police officer but has also committed a lot of very bad and serious crimes. He has raped and murdered 3 women in his other life, but 5 years later he is at work and is now investigating the crime as one of the bodies has just been found. Will people find out it was him?

For the opening sequence, I would like to use several clips from different news channels about the 3 girls going missing. The clips would cut from one channel to the next and eventually the sound from the clips would play over each other and then it would cut to black. Next we would see the back of a man dragging some bodies, but we don’t ever see his face. Next it cuts to the policeman at work and we hear a voice over of a news presenter saying that a girl who went missing 5 years ago, body has been found. We see the man at work trying to investigate the incident. An image of a wrist tied to a bed flashes on the screen and then we cut back to the man talking at work. We then see another body revealed with a voice over, it quickly cuts to a woman with hands around her throat. The speed of the cuts get quicker and we see a lot more shots of violent things. Then it cuts straight to black and there is a big bang. Finally we see a man slowly walking towards the camera with his hood up but we cannot see his face.

The Hunt.

A woman has given birth to a baby girl and soon after it’s born, the baby gets stolen. The mother is an outcast and doesn’t really have many friends in the town. When she rings the police to report what has happened, they laugh and say she is still high off the drugs from labour so they ignore her. The woman decides to look for the baby on her own, but every time she gets close to finding it, something gets in the way or distracts her. Its as if someone is watching her and trying to stop her.

We see a row of babies all lying in their hospital cribs and one of them is empty. We hear a voice over of a phone call to the police of the mother reporting the baby missing and in reply we hear laughter. We then see the mother jump into a car and speed with the address of a nursery. We see a close up of the nursery’s sign, but no one to be seen. The journey continues and fades in and out of different stages. It fades to black and we hear a scream.