Group Narrative - Miss Georgiou

Group Narrative

Our group narrative is that a girl is kept hostage and she wakes up from being tied to a chair. The girl struggles to escape but she finally does. She see's a person lying on the floor next to her, covered in blood. She is covered in blood as well and suddenly see's a shadow in the curtain. She makes her way towards the curtain and as she opens it, a face and hand appears. The girl panics for a bit and as she turns around she see's the killer standing there with a blood covered knife. However, there will be a few short constant flashbacks from how she was kidnapped. The flashbacks contain her at home on Facebook and she see's an embarrassing video of herself and she suddenly gets a lot of messages from an anonymous person. The messages threaten her and say she is going to die. When the girl is in the room, held hostage she sees things on the floor which triggers memories and starts the flashback for instance ripped up photos of her on the floor and the phone with the messages on the screen. There is also a smashed up photo frame on the floor with a picture of the girl circled showing she is a target of the antagonist. 

Group member 1- Myself 

My idea for the narrative in my very own 2 minute thriller opening sequence is based on cyber-bullying. In the opening sequence it will show a young girl watching an embarrassing video of herself that has been posted on social media then she receives a disturbing anonymous message warning her about her death that is going to happen very soon. Later on in the film, other people die from being cyber bullied and the enigma is who is the killer. Discussing with my group we have established that the strengths of my narrative idea is good overall as it is unique and different from other thriller films. It isn't the typical psychological film but instead it is more about reality and so makes the sequence seem more realistic. Another strength is that it is fairly easy to do and so it means that it would be possible to film. The location and the plot is ideal as cyber bullying happens every fay and it happens on electronic device which means that it can be filmed anywhere. The plot isn't complicated either so it can be made easily. However, my idea doesn't create much of a mystery as a disequilibrium doesn't happen at the beginning of the film. This may not engage the audience as much and they may not be left in suspense as to what is going to happen next. A death doesn't take place at the beginning but instead the girl is getting warned about her death and this doesn't create much tension or build up suspense so the audience aren't intrigued to watch the rest of the film. It doesn't create that many thrilling scenes and so the target audience would range from 12 and over however the older years wouldn't become as thriller as the younger years and this could be seen as a bit boring to the older years. 

Group member 2 - Ciara

Ciaras idea for her narrative is about a young girl and her boyfriend who go on holiday to Russia but she soon realises that since she's been away everything is going wrong back at home. The girl is unaware that her boyfriend is part of the Russian Mafia and they want her, which is the reason why everything back home is going wrong. They're taking away all her family and everything she has so she decides t0 stay in Russia. The Russian Mafia take young innocent girls who are vulnerable and will believe in anything said to them. The strengths of this narrative would be creating suspense due to her not  knowing what's going on back at home, she is unaware that the person she trusts the most is the person ruining her life. Her thriller opening sequence is creating an enigma throughout which is another strength; by creating an enigma its showing the audience that something bad will eventually happen later on in the film. This is conventional to the thriller genre. Lastly, it will engage the audience as they start feeling sympathetic towards the young girl who's being persuaded into doing the wrong things. However, the weaknesses of her narrative is that it would be hard to create as you need a lot of people to stare in the film and the setting is not ideal and easy to get to and film on. Her plot isn't also that engaging as it doesn't contain any scenes that would intrigue the audience such as death or a jumpy scene. It doesn't intrigue the audience as they need to get enticed into the film and the opening sequence does not clearly set the plot of the film for the audience to understand clearly and understand what is going to happen after.

Group member 3- Sasha
Sasha's idea for the narrative is to have a hostage scene in which a young girl is kept hostage by someone. The scene starts off with her waking up and realising she has been kept in hostage. The girl see's someone lying on the floor next to her, dead and covered in blood. She soon realises that she is covered in blood as well and she panic and tries to escape. Eventually, she does escape however she finds a handprint and a face staring at her. The girl panics and as she turns around the killer is standing across the room with a knife covered in blood. Sasha's idea is good because it is set in a ideal location which can be easy to locate and film in. The opening sequence is set in a house and this is ideal as the scene can be filmed in any house. The plot is also fairly easy to do as there are no major faults which could stop the group from doing this narrative. The narrative also creates a suspense for the audience as automatically an enigma is created and this gets the audience intrigued into the film straight away and makes them want to ask questions about why the girl is there and why the killer wants to murder her. Sasha's idea also contains good conventions of a thriller film as death is involved and the scene uses conventional iconography such as a knife to set a sinister theme. Other conventions such as a female victim and a masked antagonist make the sequence seem thrilling and intrigued as the audience are engaged into watching the rest of the film more and want to find out who the killer is. There is elements of surprise, suspense and shock as unexpected clip take place which thrill the audience and tension is built up to keep the audience on edge. However, Sasha's idea is not as unique as it could be as typically in thriller films the female victim is shown as the target and there is always a hostage scene which makes the girl seem vulnerable and weak. The narrative follows an original baseline from other thriller films which also shows a girl being kept hostage and there is always someone out there wanting to kill her. This makes Sasha's idea not as good because it is not unique and original. Some scenes in the opening sequence could be hard to film for example point of view as that technique is hard to do and it could result in a camera shot that doesn't look very good and this wouldn't appeal to the audience and would not engage them into watching the rest of the film.

Group member 4- Luca
Luca's narrative is about a home invasion by a unknown man that is never seen while the man who owns the house definitely knows someone is there he is searching the whole of his house trying to find him and as the film goes on there are hints and his family is killed as the killer taunts him and makes him look all around his locked up house. Throughout the opening sequence the man is trying to find out who is inside his house and is not too afraid at the time, he keeps all his family with him and throughout the sequence the antagonist is making noise and putting signs around the house, the sequence ends with the antagonist still not revealed and given a sign to the victim as the antagonist locks the family in their own house with now way to escape. The strengths of Luca's idea is that it is set in an ideal location which means that it can get filmed easily. The location is in a house which is good because it means that it won't be hard to film in. Another strength is that his narrative is also fairly easy to do as it isn't impossible and it can be easily done. Luca's idea would also have good camera and sound techniques and his narrative is very conventional to a thriller genre. He has created an enigma as the audience constantly wonder what is going to happen to the victims and who is the killer. His narrative is also conventional to the thriller genre because it shows an isolated home and a killer is in the house trying to murder the victims, this is seen typically in a lot of thriller films and so it is a good narrative to have. Another strength is that it engages the audience and intrigues them to watch the rest of the film as an enigma is created which keeps the audience on edge and makes them want to find out what is going to happen next. However Luca's idea doesn't have a lot of thriller conventions which wouldn't intrigue the audience as much because thriller conventions are what engage the audience into watching the film. His narrative does contain an enigma however it doesn't entice the audience that much as his narrative is very repetitive and this could make the audience become bored. He also may not have enough narrative to fill the 2 minute sequence and so this could become a problem when filming and it would be difficult to add bits on.

We came out with a group narrative by sitting together and finding the strengths and weaknesses of each individual narrative and trying to incorporate all of them in one group narrative by adding together the positives from each of  them. In the end our group all decided to mix up my individual narrative with Sasha's one. We added my ideas of cyber bullying and the flashbacks within our group narrative. Adding both our ideas together will not only extend the length of our production but will also help the audience understand what is happening more and enticing them into wanting to watch the rest of the sequence and find out why the girls is kept hostage and what will happen to her.

Out of Vladimir Propp, Tzvetan Todorov and Aristoile our group narrative follows Aristoile's theory the most because his theme was narrative and included a protagonist and antagonist, a incident and sympathy and this relates to our one because the audience are constantly feeling sorry for the victim and there is a dramatic question which creates an enigma and engages them more. It does not follow Vladimir Propp's theory as his was based on characters including victim, hero, victims father and many other characters while our sequence only contains a victim and antagonist. Our thriller does not follow Propp's theory as the characters are not consisting of; princesses and false heroes as these types of characters are not conventional to the thriller genre. Our narrative does not follow Tzvetan Todorov's theory either as it is about narrative however is a fairy tale like because he thinks all narratives should start with an equilibrium then go into a disequilibrium and then finally back into a equilibrium. Our narrative is not fairly tale like and does not focus on loads of different characters to set the film therefore follows Aristoile's theory the most. Aristoile's theory is the most conventional theory for a thriller genre and also is the most relatable to thriller films as it contains certain elements and aspects to entice the audience and make them enjoy their experience of watching a thriller film. Therefore, this is the theory we decided to make our narrative mainly follow.