Opening Scenaration - Miss Miller

Opening Scene Narrative

Our opening scene follows the plot of......

A young girl has been abandoned and is walking along an industrial estate at night. The girl is wearing a nighty, with her treasured teddy bear. She is seen as a victim of some kind as she is a little girl in a dangerous setting on her own and is therefore completely vulnerable. She walks along the estate lonely and fragile in the freezing cold, showing barely any emotions through her face or body language as if she is being secretive concealing something unknown to the viewer. She walks under very dim light, through deep, dark shadows cast by the lampposts, with the natural elements passing by her, like the wind and rain again showing no emotion. She is really pale from the cold and has really black eyes to make the assumption that she has been beaten. She decides to walk down and alley way on a diversion from her course that she has been walking on. 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. He looks and stars at her drawing to his attention that she is injured and obviously fragile. As he becomes more draw to her, a large and deathly scream is heard in the background. The man turns around to try and locate the source of the sound. He turns back to find the little girl has disappeared. In shock he stands and tries to justify what has just happened. He goes deeper into the alleyway retracing his steps and going further into the dark in search of the little girl. As he is walking down the alleyway one of the lights turns off leaving him blind as he cannot see a large part of the sections he was search. Nonetheless he decide to continue his search into the dark and find the girl. He turns his light on his phone on which gives him a very dim light so he can see where he is walking barely. Little does he know the little girl appears behind him in the distance out of hiding with her teddy bear which is concealing a knife. As he has reached the end of the alley he turns around to see the girl running towards him with her knife up in the air. She receptively stabs the man until he is dead. She stands there over the body reflecting on what she has done. She suddenly turns around and walks off into the distance to never be seen again.

Each Frame of the Narrative

The narrative starts of as a panning shot of the scene so the setting is established to the audience and then they are familiar with the setting then they are introduced to the small girl walking on her own down the street into the alley way. They will see the girl walking down the setting as a surprise as they will only see her for a couple of seconds and as she is in the corner of the shot. This will be accompanied by the use of the soundtrack to build up tension for the audience.

Then the audience will then be suddenly moved into various such as the mid-shot and long shot,  surrounding the girl concentrating on her as the main focus so they become more engaged and bonded with the character. The camera angles are Long Shots from the front and back. Again the use of the soundtrack.

Then the audience see the setting through the eyes of the character in a point of view shot that they have been introduced to this will make the audience feel as if they are in the characters shoes (empathy)  and will begin to sympathize with the character. At this point the soundtrack will peak an have a mystery feeling as the audience has now been tricked into thinking that the girl is the victim. Again the use of the soundtrack.

The girl then turns off course and begins to walk down a path into the alley way on the side of the street this is seen through the use of the high angle this intends to show the audience the vulnerability of the character. This camera angle is filtered to look like a security camera, this is in attempt to make the audience engage more as cctv is a normally of everyday life. The soundtrack will peak at this point as it is now the audience have an understanding that this character is a victim.

Then the audience is introduced to the second character in the scene walking out of a boxing club this is just a Mid - Shot simply showing to the audience that this is another character that is within the scene.

The next series of shots are Reaction Shots, they are not used to show a conversation but, a encounter between the two characters showing there emotions this is quite a long part of the scene relating to the content, but is used to engage the audience and make them feel uneasy as they would be if they were to encounter a small girl and not have any conversation with them and just complete silence.

After this a scream is herd in the background and the teenage male turns around and back in a Point of View Shot of the character reacting to the scream. He turns around to face the general direction of it and then reverses back to see the character gone. At this point there is a high pitched sound as it is used to create an sense of uneasiness in the audience.

After this there is a High Angle through the use of another cctv camera to show to the audience that the balance of power and vulnerability has shifted to the teenage male as he is been place in venerable position. This is where the soundtrack will continue throughout the scene.

 The character continues to walk down the route into the dead end of the alley way in search of the girl. This become more tense for the audience as they know it is likely at any moment that something is going to happen to this character given the current events. This is displayed by various camera angles such as panning shot and Mid-Shots and Panning as he is walking further into the darkness of the setting. This again where the soundtrack peaks to give the audience an indicator that something is going to happen to the character in the scene.

He then comes to the end of the alley way to find he cannot go any further shown by a Mid- Shot. This is only after a mid shot and a zooming in shot are used to display to the audience the reappearance of  the small girl that he is in search for. Again another eerie sound will be used to further the shock that the audience will feel.

Once he comes to a standstill another Point of View shot is used to show to the audience him turning around to face the girl with a knife in her hand rapidly running towards him.

One of the final shots used again is a zooming in shot of her face to show her facial expressions of the events that she has just committed. This shot is used to again make the audience feel uneasy as they are starring into her dark face striped of her emotions. There will be no sound used in this particular shot as the silence will be used to create further tension for the audience as they will begin to doubt whether this is the end of the killing of the little girl.

Finally she is seen walking off into the distance in a long shot, I feel this is a good ending to the opening scene as it leave the audience pondering what the event of the future of the film will be.         

Summary

There are a few elements which will make our sequence better/conventional 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 instead 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 my original idea I 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 because it would make it easier for the audience to be able to relate to the events of the scene. As everybody has a childhood experience of having a teddy bear and can relate to it.