Opening Scenaration - Miss Miller

Opening Scene Narrative

This is the narrative that our opening scene follows.

A young girl has been abandoned and is walking along an industrial estate at night, the back story is the audiences individual idea, but the narrative implies that the young girl has been abandoned by her parents and left alone in the dark, this is shown with a panning shot, it just shows the girl walking down a path, at the same time the frame starts the soundtrack begins over the top, which is continued throughout the opening sequence. The girl is wearing a night dress and is messy and she is carrying and teddy bear. She is seen as a weak vunerable little girl in a dangerous setting on her own and is in danger. She walks along the path slowly and apperars fragile in the freezing cold, showing barely any emotions through her face or body language, this is her characteistics, the audience dont know what to think of her, which is creating some suspense as the anticipation builds to see what will happen, we decided to do this purposely as it make the suspense build as they are unsure if she is in danger or not. Her face is emotionless as she walks through the shadows, which still portrays this image of her. The girl decides to walks down a dark alley way, which has some light, this see the soundtrack build up. We made the high angle shot look like a CCTV camera tracking her. She walks for a small amount of time down the alley way and then is encountered by a tall, dark figure that walks up to her, the soundtrack is continung, the suspense is building and the anticipation of the audience is high. As the shot shows them standing in front of eachother the girl smiles, this is shown quickly, but is included to confuse the audience slightly but is also building suspense, the smile could be seen as scary, as the smile could indicate that she is in control of the situation, this adds some confusion. There is a scream coming from behind the male character, this scream happens as the girl character dissapears. This shocks the audience as they are confused and the shot is a POV of the Male turing around and looking for the girl. At this point the male is confused, and is trying to look for the girl he walks down the alley way this is shown by another high angle shot, in the same style of a CCTV camera. This is suspenseful for the audience as they are unsure about whats happening. The next shot is an eye level shot to show the male figure walking down the alley way, while the suspense is building and the soundtrack is still going. As the man walks past the camera, the young female character is seen behind him, she was hiding in the shadows, this is shown in  a mid shot. We decided to inculde this as it builds the suspense as the audience now know that she is the antagonist in the situation and the male is going to be her victim this is shocking to the audience, the sound track is also building. The next shot shots the girl leave the shadow, we decided to slow this shot down as it empasises how the character looks, which builds the relationship between the audience and the characters. As the male POV is shown he turns into the direction the girl is in, the girlis in the middle of the shot, standing still for a couple of seconds, this is when the suspense is at its higest becaise the narrative has come together to this point, the soundtrack is also continuing and ads to the atomosphere. Then she runs, with her knife in her hand. The attack on thye male isnt shown but it is clear that he has been killed. The next show is a shot that pans in on the girls face, the soundtrack is still continuing. This is the end of the opening sequence.

Summary

There are a few elements which will make our sequence better/coventional such as..

Scream - at first we was going to include a brief conversation between the two characters in the scene. It would be a conversation about the injures to the girl and how he was going to help her. This is slightly unconventional to a thriller opening scene as opening scenes to not generally contain dialogue. To overcome this we decided to use a Scream insteate of a conversation. As it would take less time in the film length and also would also be conventional to the thriller genre.

Removal of the phone - In the original narrative we had included a phone at which a sub-narrative between the girl and someone was taking place. Although this would make the opening scene more relateable to the target audience, it would also draw there attention away from the scene and what is taking place. So we decided to take this element out as it would take to much time up in the opening scene and would distracting for the audience.

Teddy Bear - With the removal of the phone we decided to add an the teddy bear into the scene as the teddy bear make the girl appear to be less mature and younger, also it add the snese that she is an innocent. Which is conventional to the thriller genre.