Thursday 20 January 2011

Brainstorm - Thriller Opening Sequence

Idea 1: 
A child that went missing a long time ago, has been sighted in the playground of their old school. They were wearing the exact same clothes of the day they went missing, except holding a black umbrella to shield themselves. By the time anyone investigated, the child was gone again but the umbrella remained lying on the playground floor. More regular sightings, but each time the child disappears again. Suggestions of abuse in the child's costume, i.e. rips and blood etc. Also many ghost like qualities in the child's reappearance and disappearance.

No dialogue would be necessary, just a constant non-diagetic sound track, as well as the surrounding diagetic sounds of traffic, rain and animals etc.
An ending close up on a older male character with a sinister smile, would suggest the helplessness of the child (the protagonist).
A very dim mise-en-scene, mainly blacks and grey, with faded colours; minimal lighting but what is used should be all natural. Titles would appear each time the child appears, and fade out as the child disappears.
Varied and distorted shots would help to disorientate the viewer, and tie in with the confusion, manipulation and ideas about identity.
By doing so, it hints at the sub genres of murder mystery and fantasy with the possible ghost child.

Idea 2:  
People are falling fatally ill left, right and centre and the hospitals are over crowded. The staff can't cope and are at risk of catching it themselves. Doctors are working through the night to try and figure out what it is and what's causing it; so far no luck. The only correlation seems to be that they have all drunk water form the same water supplier. This company is unwillingly to comply with any investigations and stay behind locked doors. The disease continues to spread and it becomes increasingly clear it is in the water; there seems to be no way to stop the contamination and as the death rate rises the city enters a state of panic. Only when an insider of the company (protagonist) loses a family member do things start to come out in the open. This fits into the sub-genre of a conspiracy thriller.

This would need a much busier mise-en-scene, with bustling crowds and hospitals. A bigger industrial set, with all artificial lighting and uniform costumes. A voice over dialogue would introduce the narrative, as people explain their symptoms and what happened in the run up to it. Montage editing showing the victims/ patients, interrupted with prolonged close ups of flowing water.
Titles would appear in shots of flowing dirty water: flowing out of pipes, taps, into drains, dripping from showers and leaks. A non-diagetic soundtrack would build suspense, but be quite quiet, strings based and with a constant drip in the background.

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