How these articles influenced/generated my film ideas

To begin brainstorming ideas, I had to look at different articles and other forms of media to help start generating something. I decided to create a psychological thriller film, therefore I had to look at horror/thriller articles. Horror because of their very keen engaging quality they can provide to an audience, I want to make my film very engaging too, therefore, i will occasionally use some tips from the horror genre. 

Article 1:

Naturally, I wanted my film to be the best, so I searched “The best horror movie opening sequence” on google, and found this article:

http://uproxx.com/hitfix/the-18-scariest-horror-movie-opening-scenes-ranked/

A video that really stood out to me was this one: The fact that you don't see what she is running away from really creates a tense effect and brings out a curiosity within the viewers. 

 

This is an article on a website about what the writer considers to be the best horror movie opening sequences, he goes through 18 different movies looking at what within them makes them scary. He ranks them from least scary (18) to Scariest (1).

I watched every single video at least twice, as I was watching I wrote down all the different aspects that I like about them, and what in them made me feel drawn to the story. A few points that stood out the most to me were:

•   How you don’t see the monster/evil character until the end, or ever. It helps keep the viewers in tension.
•  Many of the best films were based on physiological fear, they didn’t focus much on jump scares or visual fear, those were just additional features, physiological fear seems to last much longer and is a deeper fear than visual fear.
• They focused more on the story rather than too heavily on the aesthetics, and jump scares.

With these points, I filtered through, and chose all the points I found the most interesting. I will then take these points, develop and mould them to suite my pre-existing base idea. I will be mainly developing my idea through my thoughts, however, I will also be searching through my friends, family and even more media outputs to develop my idea even further.

Article 2:

I then searched another article about the best thrillers and wrote down my favourite aspects from each one:

http://www.film4.com/special-features/top-lists/top-30-thrillers

I went and read through every single segment of the article. Aspects of a few movies really captured my attention. For example:

In 'The Usual Suspects' there is a perspective deception. The movie is narrated through Verbal's perspective in the narration, he is describing someone else committing a crime, (SPOILERS) even though the twist in the end revels that he was talking about himself the whole time. He used objects clearly visible to the audience and inspector questioning him, to make up fake names and characters so his story sounds real.

I like this perceptive twist aspect to a film and clear use of inanimate objects to change the reality of a story. I will add these ideologies in some way to my film idea, this concept can be used to add tension and deeper meanings to the story.

Here is a clip of the ending to 'The Usual Suspect':

After noticing Alfred Hitchcock was featured twice on the list within the same article, I decided to do some investigation on his movies, and watched the opening sequences for Rear Window, North by Northwest, and Vertigo. Vertigo’s opening sequence really caught my attention because it focuses on an eye and other facial features in an extreme close-up. This viewpoint really drew in attention to the details of the actress’s emotions. She had not expressive emotion on her face but the music and red lighting gave off a feeling of fear, anger, and confusion. I love the combined use of these, especially the use of coloured light. The red coloured light is what defined the emotion in the scene, and I will definitely be developing on this idea in my film. I think I can use this idea with a range of different colours to project a range of different emotions into the scene.

The extreme close-up will also be developed on in the film, I will probably use it as an introduction just like Hitchcock (because why not be inspired by one of the best directors in history) to introduce my character. I want to draw in the attention of the viewers through the use of emotions, and this seems to be the best way.

Here is a clip of the opening sequence to ‘Vertigo’:

Article 3

This third article I found I about facts and scientific information on people who suffer from dual personality disorder. I will use information from this to develop my evil character (maybe even the female character) further, and the story too. I chose to research this because as I said in my 'about me' post, "I love keeping things original" and after looking through many thriller films in the lists above I noticed that there is an emotional trend, I saw that all the good top of the list movies tells the emotions in the story well, and that's how they keep the viewers engaged through the whole film. So, I thought why not play on this idea and make the plot point about emotions, the theory came to me that a person who is willing to do things that the evil character would do [kidnap a girl and force himself on her], surely means he will need some form of mental problem, but I wanted to keep the idea intense and a thriller, so that's were I stumbled upon this idea.

Here is a link to the article:

http://www.scienceclarified.com/Ma-Mu/Multiple-Personality-Disorder.html#ixzz4XRtrtdTB

There was a plethora of points that stood out and will definitely be used. Here is a list of the main points that will be used to build on my evil character:

• Multiple personality disorder (MPD) is a chronic (recurring frequently) emotional illness. A person with MPD plays host to two or more personalities (called alters). Each alter has its own unique style of viewing and understanding the world and may have its own name. These distinct personalities periodically control that person's behaviour as if several people were alternately sharing the same body. 

• Female MPD patients often have more identities than men, averaging 15 as opposed to 8 for males. 

• This self-hypnotic state, called disassociation, is a defence mechanism that protects the child from feeling overwhelmingly intense emotions. Disassociation blocks off these thoughts and emotions so that the child is unaware of them. In effect, they become secrets, even from the child. According to the American Psychiatric Association, many MPD patients cannot remember much of their childhoods. If the abuse is repeatedly extreme and the child does not have enough time to recover emotionally, the disassociated thoughts and feelings may begin to take on lives of their own. Each cluster of thoughts tends to have a common emotional theme such as anger, sadness, or fear. Eventually, these clusters develop into full-blown personalities, each with its own memory and characteristics.

• These different identities can resemble the normal personality of the person or they may take on that of a different age, sex, or race. Each alter can have its own posture, set of gestures, and hair-style, as well as a distinct way of dressing and talking. Some may speak in foreign languages or with an accent. 

• The process by which one of these personalities reveals itself and controls behaviour is called switching. Most of the time the change is sudden and takes only seconds.