Idea One (scrapped)
Our first idea featured the locations of Weybourne beach and Baconsthorpe Castle, both being sites in North Norfolk. We opted to use a beach setting very early on in the course, as we felt it was unconventional to some degree and not often a location seen in thrillers, at least not in the previous work our teacher showed to us. We liked the thought of utilising a castle setting as well because this would have provided us with many intertextual references to derive inspiration from and again, seems to be a rare location for a thriller opening (none of the previous work our teacher showed to us featured a castle or castle ruins).
The plot of our first idea looked like this:
1. Two girls are running, stranded on an empty beach.
2. One girl is chasing the other.
3. The girl being chased is considerably weaker than the other - she is perhaps a less able runner and gets out of breath quickly and trips on a rock, slowing her down.
4. As one girl flees, point of view shots or shots not including her follower are used. When the fleeing girl turns around to see her follower whilst still running, she is - and most importantly, the viewer is - shocked to not see her follower.
5. We had two possible endings.
-EITHER-
(1.) As the fleeing girl turns back to resume her running, having decided that danger was still present, she finds her follower standing - barely out of breath - in front of her.
-OR-
(2.) As the fleeing girl turns back, about to resume her running, her follower rises out of focus behind her.
Throughout the sequence, which would have been edited to a fast pace, we intended to include flashbacks of the girls at Baconsthorpe together. This would have further given our thriller a fast pace. In these flashbacks they would appear to be friends, laughing and walking the grounds, comfortable in each other's company.
We eventually concluded to scrap 'Idea One' when we encountered the problem of making the follower menacing. Unfortunately, having planned to dress both girls in pure white so as to suggest innocence in the victim character and deceiving qualities in the follower, a successful sense of evil and menace was not created. We further feared that the plot could come across on camera as a petty argument between two friends, which is not necessarily the most thrilling opening we knew we could construct. Also, the undecided cliffhanger (number 5. above) would probably not appear as threatening on film as it did in our minds and on paper.
Idea Two (scrapped)
Reluctant to change our locations of Weybourne beach and Baconsthorpe Castle, for reasons stated above, we set about simply altering our narrative.
The plot of our second idea looked like this:
1. Two girls are running, stranded on an empty beach.
2. Both girls appear to be fleeing from the same threat - one girl is no longer chasing the other.
3. The girls being chased are considerably weaker than the threat - who by now is revealed to be an older male - they are running from. They soon become out of breath and slow down, one of them perhaps tripping on a rock and the other stopping to wait with her.
4. As the girl who tripped rises to resume running with her friend, she is - and most importantly, the viewer is - shocked to see her follower smiling at her menacingly, with the older male threat just visible behind her. Low angle shots of the outnumbered girl against high angle shots of the deceitful girl and her male accomplice establish that they (the deceitful girl and the older male threat) are clearly working together.
5. Frozen, the outnumbered girl remains paralysed and cannot find her feet to turn and run back the way she came. The betraying best friend would, at this point, command her male accomplice to "Get her."
Once more, Baconsthorpe Castle would be featured in flashbacks. Images of the two girls talking and strolling the grounds together would allow an audience to gauge their friendship, or rather their apparent friendship. In the last flashback, as the pair leave the castle, the betraying best friend would signal to the older male threat, sat in his car watching them, to follow them to the beach.
The main reason for our scrapping this idea is the difficulty we came across when fitting in the flashbacks. Unlike the narrative of 'Idea One' requiring flashbacks to heighten the pace, 'Idea Two' would see anticipation of the viewer decrease, making the opening appear jumpy as opposed to non-linear. Again, our cliffhanger did not seem thrilling enough.
Idea Three (scrapped)
Our third idea was formulated in a hurry, as we began to panic that we did not have a sufficient thriller plot. Still determined to keep Weybourne and Baconsthorpe in our piece, we again looked to edit the narrative.
The plot of our third idea looked like this:
1. A girl and an older male, dressed casually and modernly, lurk around Baconsthorpe Castle.
2. They meet a girl, who is visibly challenged when interacting with them and could perhaps be described as autistic, and convince her to come with them to the beach.
3. Unsuspecting and unable to decline, the challenged girl follows them to the beach. Once there, the three characters walk to the cliff tops.
4. Again, one girl is outnumbered. The pair encourage the challenged girl to stand closer to the edge of the cliff.
5. The cliffhanger would be a literal cliffhanger and the autistic girl would have appeared weak as we filmed her facial expressions with the octocopter from over the cliff edge.
Yet again, we quickly picked flaws in our own plan. For a start, the depiction of a mentally handicapped individual could insult viewers, on top of which we felt still that our cliffhanger would fail to really grip an audience.
I know personally I was uncomfortable with this new narrative because we had at one point discussed filming the entirety of the opening at Baconsthorpe. If we had done this, our plan was to have the pair hang their oblivious victim. Again, this would definitely hold the potential to offend and looking back, it was highly unlikely that we would have been able to film such a fate and make it appear realistic. Baconsthorpe Castle is open to the public, so filming violence there would have been an unrealistic aim to achieve. I also disliked this plot because it seemed to be ripping off Dead Man's Shoes, a film from which we took a lot of inspiration from (similarly to 'Idea Three', a mentally retarded youth is hanged by a group of young men, seemingly for fun).
Idea Four (Scrapped)
Still wanting to film at both original locations, we decided that the antagonist, a female derivative of Richard in Dead Man's Shoes, would meet her female victim at the castle before progressing to stalking her to the cliff top.
The plot of our fourth idea looked like this:
1. The antagonist meets her victim at the castle. The victim is alone as is the antagonist, meaning neither are outnumbered.
2. The antagonist stalks her victim from the castle to a secondary setting (Weybourne beach).
3. Once at the edge of the cliff top, the victim becomes aware of another presence. She turns around to see the antagonist, holding a hockey stick in the place of a weapon, blocking her way back to safety.
4. Lots of close ups are employed to depict the terror filling the victim, as they know a choice has to be made (whether to jump or be pushed).
5. The cliffhanger, again, is rather literal. A close up of either the victim's face or eye, a facial feature capable of evoking extreme emotion, would act as our final shot.
Once again, we encountered the dilemma of making a female appear menacing. Despite a gas mask and hockey stick comprising the antagonist's costume, we still felt that she would not appear intimidating enough to be used in a final cut.
Furthermore, the cliffhanger felt weaker than ever.
Idea Five (Finalised Plot)
After plenty of trial and error, we finally decided upon an idea that seemed feasible. We switched from using the beach as a secondary location to using it as our primary one.
Our fifth plot is the plot featured in our final cut. Our final plot looks like this:
1. The antagonist is no longer female.
2. The antagonist finds the female victim in a desolate location, so she is stranded from any potential help (this saw us still able to employ Weybourne beach into our two minute opening).
3. The antagonist stalks his victim on the beach before following her to a secondary setting, which should be extremely dark and contained in comparison to the expansive beach with tall cliffs and a far off horizon.
4. A generic weapon should be adopted by the antagonist in order to reinforce male antagonistic convention of skilled weapon use.
5. The cliffhanger should include close ups so as to reinforce the claustrophobic setting of the ending. Viewers should be left wondering whether or not the victim survives.
My group and I instantly felt this plot was a good one to stick with. Although I consider not filming at Baconsthorpe to be a shame, I think Stuart's shed creates an appropriate contrast and probably better asserts the thriller genre.
Another aspect to our final plot I consider to be a shame is the fact that, all four prior plots shared a common theme, depicting the antagonist to be female. I think it would have been interesting to challenge the female stereotype in thrillers, but also do not regret the gender change, as it has made our media product far more thrilling. Besides, through the costume of our finalised characters we challenge gender stereotypes.
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