Inspiration: Scream

As a group we found that 'Scream's' opening sequence is really successsful. We are all really inspired by the twist on Propp's theory of character roles and the adaptation of Todorov's narrative structure.

• The opening sets up expectation that the victim character in the opening is going to be the heroine of the film as a convention of openings is to introduce main characters. As a result of this expectation the audience is therefore really shocked when she dies. She in fact takes the role of a false hero. This enables sooooo much suspense to be formed in the opening with many action and enigma codes such as the telephone conversation, and is a really successful technique which we all would love to incorporate into our own opening.

• The opening also changes the conventional narrative structure of introducing a state of equilibrium before a disequilibrium, followed by a new equilibrium. Although there is a momentary state of equilibrium the purpose of the opening and in context with the whole film, the disequilibrium is shown. This allows a greater use of Barthes' action and enigma codes through aspects of mise-en-scene, characters, and camera work. Therefore the opening is more suspenseful and helps to set up expectations and themes of the film quickly. We all love this idea and are planning to start at this stage in Todorov's theory.

'Scream's' opening sequence highlights themes similar to ours such as...kidnap, murder, obsession, isolation, and serial killing.

On the whole Scream has a great opening sequence and and in relation to iconography, the fact it is in a domestic setting adds to the realism of the opening which allows it to directly appeal to the current audience-before it plays on their fears.

As we are producing a 'psychological thriller' this is a technique we are going to use. We plan to subvert some of teh classic thriller theroies in a similar way that 'Scream' has hopefully making ours just as successful or possibly even more so!

The hysterical acting nearer the end was also extremely successful in showing character emotion and very inspirational. I truly think that this would work fantastically for our opening thriller sequence and I think this could be adapted to show even greater isolation and fear by muting her screams- i.e the audience only watches the visuals. This would take the audience momentarily out of the action but they would actually want to be involved and want to help the victim. A technique i personally think is fantastic.

Matt