My thriller ideas:

In my media lesson on Friday, I was put into my media group for our filming we do in January for part of our exam.

We had to come prepared to the lesson with a few, simple story ideas that we could film a possible opening sequence to. My ideas were:

1.  STORY: A high-up business man gets snatched when on the way back from work. He is taken to a secret location where he is told his wife is a highly wanted criminal and she is only with him for his money and his future weaponry ideas which she will steal for a highly wanted (criminal) company she is working for. The boss will take the stolen ideas to generate some dominating/over-ruling plan to take over New York.

OPENING SEQUENCE: The opening sequence will be the man walking back, in an evening, from work where he is snatched and driven away. It will then cut to him being revealed to a secret service company who tell him about his wife’s future plans. The character is at first confused, but is then shown evidence which draws his attention. The sequence is then left on a cliff-hanger when a document is handed to him and we want to know whether he takes a position in the service to help find the company.

 2.  STORY: A particular letter which is to be passed on. The letter holds a document which is signed by a very wealthy man. The letter is worth a lot of money and the idea is that a mother is to have it exchanged for a lot of money – her husband died from a nasty attack and she wants the money for her child and they rightfully own the money. A group of criminals are trying to get hold of the money for their boss who worked with the dead husband and supposedly killed him off. The Boss wants the money to pay off a debt in which he has been threatened with death if he does not pay it off by a particular date. The man who hides and aids the girl throughout the film also worked for the dead husband and he wants to help his family as the father was a good man and it was assigned to him by the mother to look after the daughter if anything happened to her.

OPENING SEQUENCE: The opening sequence will open on a mother who is killed in an attack in her own home by a group of criminals who are after a particular message which she is holding on to pass on to someone. The criminals who killed the mother are scurrying through the house to find this letter. The mothers daughter comes through the door calling for her mum, when the criminals realize someone has walked in… they go searching for the noise but then someone pulls back the girl and hides her in a closet. The criminals leave and we’re shown the man holding onto the girl in the closet and we’re left to wonder who this person is – good or bad?

 3.   STORY: A terrorist is set up in a work office building in New York which is big (as in size of place) but not well known enough to know much about the company. The place is patrolled by criminals who are working for the terrorist and they kill off, in their case, all the business men/women working there. The terrorist sends out random broadcasts with threats… but no one knows where he is actually located. However 3 office members manage to hide during the killing of their work mates and they need to try and get out of the office without being found so they can locate the terrorist and get him captured.  

OPENING SEQUENCE: The opening sequence will be a quiet office, with men and women working hard away. Suddenly a group of terrorists burst in and have a shoot down. We see lots of deaths and injuries and we are then shown the main terrorist being set up and sat down surrounded by death. We are then shown a brief glimpse of 3 office workers stuck in an air vent, panicking.

My favourite idea was number 2, but when sharing the idea with the class, we discussed and interpreted the opening sequence idea and different ways we could present it without giving to much away/or having to much going on. We decided, that if my group were to use my idea, the opening sequence would have to have less going on. It would simply be: the group of criminals scouring through the house, ripping apart pillows, pulling curtains, pushing over wardrobes... searching the entire house. This using lots of quick different angle shots of their boots, and their hands pulling things apart. The mother, later on in the sequence, would then be shown, dead, on the floor, but as it would be at the end, this would then allow the audience to start thinking what her importance might be - leaving them on a hanger.