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Task: Initial Ideas
1. Create a mind map of initial ideas
for your thriller opening with your group.
2. You need to take pictures of this
mind map and upload it to your blog.
3. You then need to use a camera to record yourselves talking through your initial ideas as a group. Upload this
video into the same blog post.
4. Finally, write a short paragraph
explaining what your overall initial ideas are, and your top three ideas that
you are going to choose from. You will write more about these three ideas later.
Due Date: Monday 28th November 2016
Examples of mind maps:
Some guidance on initial
ideas
Here are a few pointers as to
what does and doesn’t make a successful opening…
• You are only producing an
opening to a film. In the past, many groups have spent a long time thinking
about plot twists and turns that would make a good film, but that are too
complex to be used in a two minute opening.
• Keep ideas simple. Someone
once said that ‘less is more’ and this is certainly true in terms of your
thriller opening – the more successful openings are ones based on a simple
narrative structure. Remember: it’s not necessarily the story that provides
suspense but the way this story is filmed.
• Think about using everyday
locations/characters/events. Audiences are far more affected by something
happening in scenarios and with characters they can recognise than something
they have no experience of.
• DON’T use ANY of these
props/storylines in your opening:
Hoodies
Knives, guns,
blood
Mobile phones
‘Stalking’
storylines (i.e. no dark figures following people through parks/shopping
centres/along canals)
We have decided to ‘ban’
these things because they are not only overused but also tend to make for a
predictable (and quite boring) opening. Bear in mind how many other colleges
and schools there are across Britain that are making an opening – we want your
work to stand out!
