Group Narrative - Miss Georgiou

My first idea is to create a story about a woman named Betty who was killed ten years ago and the murder investigation is still going on. The police interview the widowed man, Ronald, and his two children to see if they have any new information or if they have any new suspects in mind. The police believe that Ronald killed Betty but have no evidence to prove that he did it. The film then goes on to show Betty's life leading up to the death. We see her fall in love with Ronald and her fall pregnant with the twins. When she starts work again, she has a new secretary named James who is very flirtatious, not suspecting any flirting, Betty got on with her work. Later on in life, we see James slowly falling in love with Betty. Betty comes home one night, and the twins are fast asleep but Ronald is no where to be found. Betty begins to worry and calls Ronald who claims that he is still at work but hears a woman's voice in the background. Betty hangs up and suspects that Ronald is having an affair. The next day, Betty gets her own back by flirting with James. Things get serious very quickly and a love affair begins with James and Betty behind Ronald's back. Not wanting their secret to go on any further, Betty ends the affair but James becomes violent stating that he will tell Ronald everything. Ignoring James' claims she leaves his apartment and goes home. She arrives in her home but Ronald is standing in front of her with a furious look on his face. He knows. A lot of yelling goes on, and Ronald picks up a knife as the argument begins to get intense. Betty steps back slowly and grabs a knife herself. Ronald believes she is doing it to protect herself, but she grabs the knife and says 'I can't live like this anymore, my children don't deserve a mother like me'.  Tears come tumbling down her face and she picks the knife and stabs herself.

Strengths: I think this is a good narrative because it contains an original story and this will appeal as well as attract the audience that are viewing my opening thriller sequence because it will be something they have never seen before so it will be unexpected. Also, it contains many conventions such as death, a female victim and a knife. The audience want to watch more because they will understand the story as it develops because it is an easy story to follow. It provides the viewers with the element of shock, surprise, suspense, shock and tension.

Weaknesses: I think it is interesting in some ways, however, it needs something else in it to make the story more interesting and appeal to the audience. I think it lacks creativity as well as imagination because although it provides the viewers with an original story, it may not grip the audience as well as it could have.

Krista's idea was very different to mine as she is basing her story on the theme of kidnap. She has explained what features she would want to include when filming this such as low key lighting, sinister music as well as a female victim. Some camera angles that she wants to include are the canted angle and this is done to show the confusion of the girl, as well as using and close ups to show confusion and the emotions. This makes the audience engage with the characters on screen. Low key lighting would be used when the girl is trapped in the abandoned cabin to show that something dark is happening.

Strengths: This story is very good and krista has gone into detail about what cinematographic elements she wants to use. It is also a good story as it contains all the elements that the audience want to see when watching a thriller themed film.

Weaknesses: The story needs work to make it more interesting, I believe it is a common narrative and therefore, some viewers may have seen this story before. This will make them less interested and less eager to see it.

As a group, myself and Krista decided that out opening sequence will have the theme of a psychological thriller. The beginning of the narrative will show a man that wakes up in an unknown location, he is unaware where he is and who he is. The antagonist of the plot has captured the man to kill his wife, her lover and anyone who knows about the love affair. The antagonist gives pictures of his wife to the hitman aswell as money in which he will take in exchange for killing the woman. The hitman is released and kills the woman. He arrives at her home, and she is killed very quickly, oblivious that this was going to happen. The last scene will show the hitman calling the antagonist to tell him that the deed is done. The antagonist is shown looking down at the dead body of his wife and smiling.

Before we had chosen what our idea would be, we had to both think of ideas individually and try to bond both of them together in order for us to both be happy with our idea. My idea was that we should create the element of amnesia in the sequence. Krista's idea was to make the opening thriller sequence have a psychological theme as we know this is what the audience likes to see the most.

Strengths: I have included a variety of themes with help from the Aristotle theory, such as an inciting incident, i believe that this makes the story more interesting because the audience will want to see how the sequence finishes. It makes the audience want to watch on to see if the people involved in the incident survives. There is also a character goal, the goal of the antagonist is to have his wife dead, which soon takes place. This story will include a killing, a damsel in distress and a psychological theme, i think that this creates the element of shock, surprise, suspense and tension for the viewers because it will be unexpected. It also includes an antagonist and he will be obvious to the audience as the antagonist straight away. This will surprise the audience because they will not have expected the story to be so shocking and complex.

Weaknesses: One weakness of my idea are that it would take a long time to create this sequence and i will need to film at various locations. The idea of a psychological theme is hard to create, so i must make sure i use the right camera techniques and shots in order to portray the correct images for the viewers to understand correctly what is going on. We must also make sure that we display the relationships of the characters correctly in order to show the theme effectively and this will allow the audience to keep up with the story.

When constructing the group narrative, my partner mentioned that we should use a psychological theme, and i thought of the idea of 'amnesia' taking place. Therefore, we created the idea of this story together using different ideas around the theme so the narrative was creative and original. I believe that we worked well in creating a theme quickly and effectively, i also think it is a good narrative because of the fact that it contains so many themes which support Aristotle's theory. Other theories include Todarov and Propp's. Todarov believed that all fairy tales had equilibrium and disequilibrium. This means that in this type of film, the film would start as good, then it the story would go badly, an issue would come up, and at the film would end with all of the characters being happy. One thing to consider is that both equilibriums are not the same, they are transformed to make the story more interesting. The problem that occurs is not normally to do with the main story, it is usually someone trying to get in the way of the main character to avoid them getting to their goal in the film. Myself and Krista didn't use this to create our group narrative because thriller films do not usually end up with a good ending. They usually end with someone dying or with the family of the victim grieving over the death. For example, The Purge. The other theory was created by Vladamir Propp, he was only interested in the making of fairy tales and the characters in them and how they were similar in each one. He believed that there are 8 types of characters, The hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the fake hero, the helper, the princess and the father. These characters must be included in every film because thats what makes it the way it is. Myself and Krista couldn't use this theory within our group narrative due to the fact that Vladimir Propp based his theory mainly on fairy tales. As we are creating a thriller film, this theory cannot be used. We are also not using all of these types of characters, so Propp's theory is useless.

Therefore, my group and i have decided to use Aristotle's theory because in Aristotle's theory, there should be key themes within our piece; an inciting incident, a dramatic question, character goal, antagonist/protagonist, stakes, resolution and sympathy/empathy. Our film incorporates a character goal which is evident within our thriller opening sequence. We will use the character goal theme when showing the man held hostage unless he agrees to kill the wife of the man, when he takes the money, he is immediately classed as hitman. This will make the audience feel shocked, and surprised due to them not knowing that this was going to happen. It was unexpected and that's what makes thriller films so good, it is because no one ever expects to see what they do and when they do, they become scared and gripped to the edge of their seats. The next theme that myself and Krista have decided to use is the theme of antagonist/protagonist, the protagonist within this opening sequence is the person who paid the hit man to kill his wife. This creates shock for the audience because as previously stated, they will not have been expecting these events to be happening. This is common within the thriller genre, so it allows people to understand the story better. The last theme that i have chosen to do is the theme of an inciting incident taking place. This is used when the wife is killed by the hitman. The audience feel terrified towards the hitman because as he was given money, he was willing to kill the woman straight away, so the viewers don't know what he is truely capable of. Also, the audience feel slightly sorry for the female victim, although she was cheating on her husband. she didn't deserve to die for it. In some ways, the antagonist also deserves sympathy as he, deep down, is very upset and heartbroken about the situation, however, only the anger has come through. Now that the audience have seen that the hitman is capable of anything, they then think into the future about what could happen. This then allows them to create their ideas and theories about what will happen in the end.

Overall, i believe that our thriller sequence is conventional because it includes the main features that need to be in a thriller to make it a thriller. This means that the audience will be expecting some of what happens, but some of the features they will not expect, this makes it a good thriller because the elements of shock, surprise, suspense and tension will be in use.