Title of the film
We decided to name our film The Bloody Copycat. The main plot of the film is a female killer who is obsessed with other killers, murders and crime, hence the ‘copycat’ because this would be her inspiration and where she would get her ideas from.
Bloody as a denotation can mean:
-of, like, or containing blood
-covered or stained with blood; bleeding
-involving bloodshed; with much killing or wounding
-bloodthirsty; cruel
-having the red colour of blood
All of these meanings really relate to thrillers, for example killings and violence, blood, cruelty- they all suggest a thriller.
We thought that this really suited the whole idea of the film; it fits in with the plot, the character and most importantly the genre and conventions of a thriller.
Title font and style
The title in our film incorporate our consistent theme, relates to the meaning of the films name and fits in with the thriller genre. The titles used in our film are red with a dripping blood effect; we decided to find some titles like this of the internet as the Mac’s at school didn’t have any with the effect we wanted.
A film that uses a similar title font and style is Saw 2. By using these types of titles we set the film up as a thriller and the blood foreshadows death and violence. The use of red is also effective because it’s a typical genre convention and the background it is on it dull colours and the red stand’s out catching the audience’s attention.
Another film that is similar to the bloody copycats titles is Dawn of the dead:
Location
The location for the opening film is a small room and where it’s exact location is set is a mystery to the audience. This therefore creates a sense of suspicion to the audience. This is a very typical convention of the thriller genre. Because the room is very small and compact and the use of close ups generate a sense of claustrophobia and anxiety which is exactly how a thriller should make the audience feel. Another film where the use of close ups and small spaces is used is in the Panic Room. As the title of the film suggests some scenes are set in a small panic room and the use of close up’s and small spaces inevitably creates a fear of panic and anxiety.
Challenged convention
When deciding the characters we thought that this would be the best area to challenge a convention. We decided to use a female killer. Normally in a thriller a typical convention is to use a male antagonist who shows there power through murdering the less powerful people. Our female killer also kills a young female which is an unusual convention is a thriller because on the rare occasion a female killer is used they are normally the feminist types getting their revenge on men. An example of a female killer in another film is monster.
Sound
The use of sound in our film is very representative of the thriller genre. It’s slow and almost from the start it highlights the thriller genre. Throughout the opening film we have music the whole way through which creates the right sense of atmosphere and fits in with the transitions of each shot in the opening. A similar film that use’s sound to create the effect of the genre and is similar to our thriller opening is sixth sense:
Costumes and props
A way to incorporate our consistent theme into our film was to use characters costumes. For Kerri she was going to wear a lot of red and black, red being symbolic of blood and black being mourning, bereavement and death. We then wanted to make Imogene’s costume opposite to Imogene’s so we decided she would wear white. This resulted in binary opposition, common in thrillers.
An example of the victim in a thriller wearing white and the killer wearing red/ black is in saw 4 when ‘Amanda’ is the female killer, we wanted Kerri to come across a lot like Amanda from the Saw films.
A prop used was the scrapbook of the victims that Kerri murdered, once again red is used to incorporate the theme of red and it is a typical thriller convention. The knife is also a very important prop; it indicates after the white transition that Imogene is dead without having to actually see the body.
Camera work and editing
At the beginning of our film one of the first shots is of the ‘Imogene’s’ hands tied up this suggests to the audience immediately that the plot is based on kidnapping, which is uncommon in thrillers to give away a plot straight away. An example of a film that uses a similar shot of the tied up hands is in Taken.
In our film:
In the opening we made the decision to use a lot of close up shots. This is so we could make the room feel even smaller and create a sense of anticipation and anxiety.
We decided the tilt/ point of view shot of Kerri was really effective because it puts the audience in Imogene’s position and also creates a sense of intimidation and fear- common in the thriller genre.
Characters
Kerri is the antagonist in our opening. We wanted to portray her as very feminine by using the high heel shoes and jewellery. Also from researching Alfred Hitchcock I found out that he used a lot of blonde characters as it is less suspicious than using brunettes who are typically used in the thriller genre. So when finding someone to play Kerri we opted for a blonde. An example from another film that uses a blonde killer is The Hand That Rocks The Cradle 1992.
Special FX
There aren’t a lot of special effects in our film because it is very uncommon to use them in the thriller genre, for example Sci-fi’s are more likely to use them. Some effects we did use were the transitions from each picture from the start of the film to the live images and the dissolve on the titles; we used these so that we could create a seemingly smooth atmosphere to lead the audience into a false sense of security. It also makes the opening film look a lot more professional.
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