Our audience told us that they wanted action and mystery in
the thriller, they wanted to be engaged in the action whilst still not knowing
everything that is happening and having plot twists that kept them interested.
So we had to make sure that we added them into our opening along with some
other themes and ideas we thought of ourselves and that we thought our audience
would like. From our questionnaires, which we did in the form of a vox pop, we
learnt that our audience wanted action and mystery whilst not being too cliché.

A common convention of the action and thriller genre is cars
which are used for the soldiers to get to the location and find the man, masks
which hide the identity of the soldiers and they make it so that the man and
the audience don’t know who they are and guns which are used by the soldiers to
attack and kill the wanted man. The shot shows the group of hired men coming
into the area where the wanted man is. The all arrive wearing similar clothing
which is what the audience wanted, it gives them the impression that the men
are professional and know what they are doing. Also the car has blacked out
windows which hides the people in the car giving the audience something to
think about as they don’t know how many people are inside the car going after
the wanted man. Having the two people on the side of the car also tells the
audience that the car is full so it gives them a small idea about how many
people are coming after the man. Having a lot of people after the man makes the
audience wonder what he has done and how bad his crime is. The camera angle we
chose was a low angle shot, this means that you can see the entire car and it
makes the men on the side of the car look more powerful and it makes them look
like they are in control of the situation. Having the men look more powerful
gives the impression that there are more of them and that the wanted man is
outnumbered, this is common in the action thriller genre and it is what our
audience wanted us to include. The ligting is fairly
lit as there is a light directly on the front of the car so it gives the effect
that the car is bright and like a becaon for the men. The men on the side and
in the car however are dark as they arent meant to be seen and it lets the
audience know that they are evil and villains. The setting shows that they are
in some kind of construction yard and it is quite protected as you can see a
gate in the background of this shot.

The soldier has a small gun and he is wearing dark clothing,
black coloured clothing symbolises evil and death. He looks like a professional
killer as of the way that he moves and with the hand gestures that he uses, it
makes the audience think that the soldiers know what they are doing and that
they can do their job well. The lighting focuses on the soldier and the objects
around him are dark compared to him. The location is by some bags or blocks of
concrete, this shows that the location of the man is a construction yard. This
is a common location of thrillers and gun fights as there are a lot of places
in the yard that can be used to hide behind and fight from. The clothes that he
is wearing symbolise a villain as is wearing dark colours which shows the evil
and darkness of the character and of his intentions. The lighting is dark but there is a light
shining on the man which shows that he is the subject of the shot and it makes
it easier for the audience to identify what he is wearing.

In this shot it shows a silhouette of two of the soldiers
that are searching for the man, the shot is from inside of the hut looking
through a window, you can see the lights and the outline of some of the guns,
this shot shows that the men are still searching and they are looking
everywhere for the wanted man. The audience wanted us to add mystery into the
plot of the film so we did that in this shot. We framed the shot by making sure
that light was in the centre and not too high and not too low. Because the
light was in the middle of the shot it is the first thing that you see when the
shot comes on. It is a mid-shot of the doors on the hut and it shows the lights
on the guns. This shows the audience that the men are well trained as they have
good equipment and they search everything so they are well trained, however the
question of what the wanted man has done will still be in the audiences minds.
The lighting is dark apart from the big floodlight coming through on the left
of the shot and the flash light in the middle of the shot. The lighting
suggests that someone is searching the building without going into it, they are
shining the light into it to see if they can see the man inside of the
building. The location of this shot is by a shed, the camera is in the shed and
the men are on the outside.

This
shot is a close up of a gun. Guns are a common convention of the action and
thriller genre, they are often used and they symbolise action and violence
which is common for thrillers and action films. For the framing of this shot we
decide that the best place for the gun was in the very middle of the shot so
that it is the first thing that you see and it’s the thing that the audience
focus on the most. The audience wanted us to make sure we had some common
conventions of the genre to make sure that it was recognisable and that they
had definite something to look at and enjoy. They also told us to add our own
things into it and make it original. So we have used a mix of common items and
non-common items. We made sure that you
can only see the gun in this shot because it shows that that is the focus of
the shot and it makes you think about what the man who has the gun will do next
or to the other characters that you can see in the previous shots. This shot is
very light as this shot doesn’t contain any characters it is just a close up of
the gun, however it is very light as it is focused on the gun and it shows that
this gun is the hero’s as it is inside in the light whereas the villains are
outside and are in the dark. The lighting symbolises the different sides of the
characters and the roles that they play in the story.

This shot is similar to the previous shot however this time
the gun is being loaded by the wanted man, this symbolises that he will soon
have to use it. This shows the audience that a gun fight will happen in the
film somewhere, it symbolises that the man is ready to fight the men that are
coming to get him. It still keeps the question in the audience minds wondering
what the man has done, however it helps them to have a guess as they know it
must be something bad as he has to fight them off, it makes them think that he
has probably killed someone. For the framing of the shot we decided to frame it
in the centre of the shot again because that is the first thing that the
audience see so then they get to see what we wanted them to which keeps them
engaged in the action. Our audience asked us to include some action into it as
it keeps them on the edge of their seats wanting to know what will happen next.
We only made sure that you could see the gun and the bullets so that you know
exactly what is going on and you only have to focus on one thing. We also
included an element of mystery into the opening so that the audience are more
likely to want to watch it as that is what they asked for. This is another
close up of the gun and again it shows that the gun is in possession of a hero
as it is light throughout the shot and the gun is lit up which shows it is the
main focus of the shot. Once again the lighting symbolises what side the
character that has the gun is on.

This shot is a close up of one of the men that is coming
after the wanted man. He displays the common clothing and features of a bad guy
in action thriller films. The bad guys always seem to wear dark clothing and
masks to hide their appearance and to make sure that people don’t know who they
are. Our audience told us that they wanted to see villains that you don’t get
to see till the end of the film, we added this into four characters by hiding
the identity of the bad guys its adds the element of mystery that audience
asked for. We framed it so that the soldier was in the middle of the shot and
it is a close up so you can only see the front man and you can’t see the other
men coming from behind him. The lighting is quite dark however the main
lighting focus is around the character which gives the impression that the
light goes around him and he is the main villain. The lighting around the
character is very light and this shows that the location of the hero hiding
spot has been lit up by his era of good. The costume that the character wears
is a balaclava, a jumper and a vest, this is typical of a soldier and a villain
as he is prepared for battle but he is also hiding his identity. He is wearing
the clothing that symbolises he is a villain, he is wearing all dark clothing
and he is staring into the camera with an evil look in his eye. The setting is
in a construction yard, we picked this location as if a man was running away
from being chased he could go into a construction yard to hide easier. We took
the scene from the film Skyfall as our inspiration, in the opening scene of
this film James bond chases his target into a construction yard, and we chose
to have the wanted man hide in a construction yard so that it was similar to
Skyfall but no completely copying it.

This shot is a close up of one of the soldiers running
through a puddle, it shows that the weather has been raining and this
symbolises that having bad weather means that a bad event will occur, this
gives the audience the impression that the man, or one of the soldiers will
die. The lighting can affect the mood of the scene and in this shot the lighting
is dark to show the splash of the foot in the puddle and to show the flood
lights shining into the puddle. As the man runs through the puddle quickly you
can see that his is in a hurry to get somewhere which could mean that he has
spotted his target and is chasing him. The soldier is wearing boots which is
the conventional footwear for soldiers as it shows that they are ready for any
situation and they are ready for any ground and weather conditions. In the questionnaires the audience wanted us
to add different angle shots and unusual shots, so we decided to do a side
angle close up of the soldier running through the puddle as that isn’t a standard
shot in thriller films. You can’t see the location from this shot however the
audience are to presume that it is the same location as you can see a little
bit of the ground around the puddle which suggests that the location has not
changed.