BBFC Rating

We have decided that our psychological thriller will be rated a 15, meaning is suitable only for 15 years and over. We have decided this because our primary target audience age range is 16 to 21. It also fits into the criteria of a 15 rated film (using the BBFC website) this includes:

Another reason why we chose to rate our film a 15 is because most of the psychological thrillers we have studied, and reached have been rated a 15 or 18, and rarely are below this rating (12/12A for example). Due to this we decided that our film would not be suitable for persons under the age of 15, primarily due to the psychological damage of the protagonist that the audience is exposed to. As I mentioned, there are hardly any psychological thrillers that are rated PG our film also reflects this and would not be rated a 12 due to the following reasons:

•  Our film may include some strong language (this is no aloud in a 12 rated film as stated by the BBFC)


•  We may be using some scenes blood and and self harm during the film.

We believe that a 15 is the most suitable rating for our film 'Hightail' and we have decided not to rate our film an 18 due to the absence of sexual scenes - which is present may have meant we must higher the rating.

Our Target Audience

Primary Audience

Our primary target audience would be specifically aimed at:

Age - our primary target audience age would range from 16 to 21, which we decided after we had completed our audience polling (which can be seen in a separate post). This is because, as we found, this age range would be ones to typically watch and also enjoy a psychological thriller.

Gender - The specific gender for our primary audience would be a female as there is a female protagonist.

Sexuality - There is no romance in our film and the female protagonist is heterosexual therefore we will not appeal to any specific sexuality

Ethnicity - We will focus mainly on the ethnicity of white British as our protagonist is white British.

Secondary Audience 

Our secondary target audience would be specifically aimed at:

Age - our target audience age would be 21-35 as this is the same age range as the primary target audience. This is because this age range would be ones to typically watch a psychological thriller.

Gender - The specific gender for our secondary audience would be male as our primary gender is female as there is a female protagonist.

Sexuality - There is no romance in our film and the female protagonist is heterosexual therefore we will not appeal to any specific sexuality

Ethnicity - We will focus mainly on the ethnicity of white British as our protagonist is white British.

Appealing to our Target Audience 

Age- We have appealed to our target age by having our protagonist to be a 16-year-old girl which will appeal to younger ages as there is someone they can relate to.

Gender-We have appealed to our target genders by having our protagonist to be a female. This is because when girls tend to watch films they watch films with female protagonists as they are “girly films”.

Sexuality- We won’t specifically try and appeal to any one on a sexual level as there will be no sexual tension between any 2 people throughout our film as it is focused on an individual mental journey.

Character types- We appeal to our audience as we only have one protagonist meaning the story will not be difficult to understand from the audience point of view. Our film will not have an antagonist during its screen time so we will not need to worry about that. Our protagonist will be in 2 character types as they will embark on a journey which will change them mentally. We will have a few people that will be static that will help to make the plot easier to understand to the audience.

Narrative enigma- We will have a few mild narrative enigmas throughout the film to keep the audience involved with the plot. In our poll, we have results that show people have an interest in that part of thrillers.

Pace of editing- Our pace of editing will be at a normal pace with no quick jump-cuts which will appeal to the age we are focusing on as they can keep up with what is happening with the motion of the film.

Locations- The location will appeal to the audience watching as they will be looking at modern places and current times which they can relate to as it is in the present.

Commercial Success

Comercial Success

Both 38. The Girl on the Train, and 40. 10 Cloverfield Lane fall under the Psychological Thriller genre. Although most of the top grossing films of 2016 were of the Adventure, Action or Comedy Genre, these films still had a lot of success - their 2016 total gross both being over 70 million dollars.
With both of these films appearing in the top 40, shows that this type of film (with the storylines and conventions of psychological thrillers) have been both popular and successful in 2016.

On a bigger time scale, from 1995-2017, there is surprising many films in the top 25 movies that fall under the psychological thriller genre. Arguably within this list there are at least 5 films that would be considered a psychological thriller, however some of the films have more prominent conventions of more popular genres. For example the movie 'The Sixth Sense' , that impressively holds the 2nd spot, is a psychological thriller but is more known as a horror film, as its conventions fit also with this genre (e.g. ghost-story).

Target Audience Research

By using both BFI Exit Polls and the website 'YouGov' we are researching our target audience. We will look at the audience of films that we think are similar to our film (due to its genre, characters and storyline) and from that we will find out who's attention we should be aiming our film at.

BFI Exit Polls

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest.

Similar to our film, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest is a Crime Thriller with aspects of the Psychological Thriller Genre. It contains a female protagonist which could be the reason that there were slightly more Women who were surveyed than men. In terms of Target audience for our film, this could suggest that we also will have a mainly female target audience. The age of the people surveyed are mostly Over 35, with the 'Under 35' category being only 33%. Initially we thought for our film the Target audience would be early 20s however this has shown that it would be the incorrect decision to aim our film at this age group - as it seems to be slightly older people who are most involved in the viewing of Psychological Thrillers.

YouGov

Gone Girl

The website YouGov gives you an average profile of the people who like and have watched Gone Girl. In this case, it is a 25-39 year old female or a high social grade. This female is left wing in terms of politics.

Momento

For the film, Momento, it mainly has a Male audience, but still with the age of 25-39. Again they are left wing, but more so than the audience of Gone Girl.

Donnie Darko

The audience of Donnie Darko has a very similar audience to that of Momento, we can guess this is due to the similaritly of male protagonists.

Looking at all of the profiles we have researched, we have come to the conclusion that most of the audience of psychological thrillers are of the age of 25-39. They are all also Left Wing and of a relatively high social class and wealth. Another similarity that we noticed is that many of their professions are revolved around entertainment and media.

Detailed Synopsis

Start
Our Film opening will begin with a flashback. This Flashback will first contain a point of view shot from 'Molly' in the back of her parents car. We see the two parents (without sound) shouting at each other, distracted from the road. The next shot will be from a camera on the road, moving forwards, asif it were the car. This camera will be met with the blinding lights of another car. We see another shot from the inside of the car, of the parents panicking and braking (with the sound of screeching brakes). There will then be a sound of a crash, as the screen goes Black.
Close up, overhead shot of 'Molly' waking up suddenly from her flashback/nightmare.
There is another overhead shot of 'Molly packing her suitcase which is laid on the bed. The last thing she packs is her parents funeral leaflet, which me see close up (allowing the audience to know what has happened). From overhead again, 'Molly' closes her suitcase, revealing the edited title of the film, on top of the case - 'Hightail'.
From when 'Molly' starts to pack her suitcase, we hear various different voice mails from family and friends:
Example
"Hey Molly, hope your okay, where were you last week? I didn't see you at school, ring me when you can"
"Molly, Ive tried to phone you, but you won't answer, you can't hide forever, you can speak to me, it will be okay"
"Good Afternoon Molly, its Mr Stott, I hope you are well. We are concerned of your attendance in he past week, would you kindly have your guardian call us back, to discuss the reason for this. Thank you"
GAP
"Hi darling its Grandma, hope your up and packed, let me know when you are safely on the train, me and Grandpa are excited to see you, we have everything sorted for your new school. See you soon"

Flashbacks - Go pro
Younger brother shouting, crying, "Why did you have to live and not them?!"
Walking through hospital (MAYBE)
Shots back to original crash (heavy breathing, blurred)
Shots in cemetery, Molly at grave placing down flowers.

The journey
First there will be a shot of 'Molly' walking from the platform of Leeds station, onto the Ilkley train, with her suitcase.
On the train there will be multiple shots from out of the window, at scenic views, with 'Mollys' reflection in the window - developing from the city into the countryside.
There also will be shots from outside of the train, watching the train pass through the countryside.
She will then get off the train, at Burley in Wharfdale (there is nothing around except the station).
The train doors close.

Psychological Thriller History and Conventions

History

The film that started off the Physcological Thriller genre was the 3rd silent movie made which was called The Lodger (1926), which was a Jack the Ripper story. The director of this film was Alfred Hitchcock who also produced films such as Blackmail (1929). 

Technical Codes

- A very important aspect of the genre

Many psychological thrillers have emerged over the past years, all in various media (film, literature, radio, etc.). Despite these very different forms of representation, general trends have appeared throughout the narratives. Some of these consistent themes include:

•         Reality

•         Perception

•         Mind

•         Existence/Purpose

•         Identity

•         Death

Music - is used to create a mood of suspense throughout a psychological thiller. Most of which will be purely instruments rather than including a singer.

Shadows and Low Light - are used as a convention of all thrillers, to again create tension. Low lights limits what the audience can see and therefore brings a sense of mystery. In a psychological thriller low light can be linked to the dark thoughts that the character is experiencing in the deterioration of their mental state

Quick Cuts, Obtrusive and Montage Editing - are used mainly in important scenes of psycnlogicical thrillers. The condense time and information given in these short editing techniques helps to build suspension.

Flashbacks - this convention is particularly useful in this genre as it helps give the audience an insight in the characters past without it having to be directly said. It ca also help to portray the mental state of the character.

Mirrors - and their reflections are used to allow a character to reflect on their 'inner self' and also portray and 'dark side' i which they may posses.

Mis-en-scene

- Majority of scenes set in busy places (citys etc)
- Country side not used as often

In our film opening we will be incorporating most of the conventions used in a psychological thriller, however it is difficult to fully portray the genre with only the opening (of a couple of minutes). This is because most psychological thrillers show a steady deterioration of a characters mental state, such as a development of a haunting memory, therefore showing this journey of the mind within the opening would be impossible. However we will still be able to portray the genre particularly through our use of Flashbacks. We are also defying the genre by using the country side for the vast majority of the film opening (scenic shots), an example of another psychological thriller that defies the genre in this way is 'The Shining'.

Genre Openings

Psychological Thriller Film Openings

Our chosen Genre for our film opening is 'Psychological Thriller', which is a genre that focuses on emphasizing the psychological journey of a character. Allowing the audience to measure the characters mental state as the film develops. It is a Sub Genre of 'Thriller" that tends to overlap with mystery, drama and action, incorporating similar elements of these genres.

Movie Inspirations

Gone Girl 2014

Gone Girl is a film about the surrounding events of  Nick Dunne, who becomes the primary suspect in the sudden disappearance of his wife, Amy. In this film Nick must fight off the accusations that he had killed his wife, and figure out her mystery disappearance. Similar to our film idea, our protagonist also wishes to 'disappear' from her home town and all the memories that is holds and take a journey to an unknown destination (to everyone else).

This film includes an opening close up shot of a woman - we were hoping that our opening shot would be similar to the one of Gone Girl, primarily focusing on the characters eyes and face. In our film opening she will be waking up from a flashback. Also similar to this films opening we wish to use voice overs to develop narrative enigma and allow the audience to start questioning. In our case, we will use voice mails of the characters family and friends, addressed to our protagonists phone.

Inception 2010

Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible with careful planning - inception. 

This film relates to ours because the protagonist has lost his family and as they both are physiological thrillers they both contain the genres of action, drama and mystery whilst staying predominantly in the thriller genre.

We are hoping that our film is similar to this film in the opening shots. This is because the opening shots of this is very scenic of a beach with the waves and the sky. This is the type of camera work we are looking for. Very scenic shots.

Jacobs Ladders 1998

This film is about a character who was wounded in the Vietnam war and consequently returned to his home in New York. Jacob slowly starts to loose grip on reality, as his memories of his son and his traumatic time in the war begin to haunt him more and more. This is the idea that we wish to take from this film as inspiration for our film opening - as it will contain flashbacks. 

Using this film as one of our models, we wish our opening to contain realistic flashbacks, using varied shot lengths (mainly short), and discontinuity editing. We also have to ensure that our flashbacks look realistic and the haunting of our characters mind is portrayed correctly.

Fight Club 1999

A nameless first person narrator (Edward Norton) attends support groups in attempt to subdue his emotional state and relieve his insomniac state. When he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), another fake attendee of support groups, his life seems to become a little more bearable. However when he associates himself with Tyler (Brad Pitt) he is dragged into an underground fight club and soap making scheme. Together the two men spiral out of control and engage in competitive rivalry for love and power. When the narrator is exposed to the hidden agenda of Tyler's fight club, he must accept the awful truth that Tyler may not be who he says he is.

This film is similar to ours because they're both psychological thrillers and have very similar sub-genres, these being thrillers and dramas. As well as this both of the protagonists are all alone with no family etc. As well as this both protagonists are in a rough emotional state.

What our film opening will take from this is to have a very down and very self-absorbed/reserved protagonist. There won't be many other things we will take from this film.

The Machinist 2004

Factory worker Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) suffers from insomnia so severe that his condition has taken its toll on his weight and his mental health. When Trevor unintentionally causes an on-the-job accident that horribly injures a coworker (Michael Ironside), he begins to become even more troubled. Despite a relationship with Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a pretty prostitute, Trevor descends further into paranoia, blaming his problems on an enigmatic figure named Ivan (John Sharian).

This film is similar to ours because they are both psychological thrillers whilst both have a sub-genre of drama. This film is also similar to ours because the protagonist in both is in a rough emotional state and self absorbed. It's protagonist has no family and also doesn't let anyone into his life which is similar to our film idea.

What we are going to take from this film is that the protagonist is very self absorbed and stays to himself. We also will take that the protagonist will have insomnia which will not allow her to sleep.

Silence of the lambs 1991

Silence of the lambs is a psychological thriller made in 1991 about a young FBI cadet who must confide in a manipulative killer to receive his help in catching another serial killer who skins his victims. This film opening uses a lot of close up shots showing the action that is taking place. It is filmed in a dark location in the woods making it harder of the view to see the actor there are sounds of heavy breathing and also other things like birds and animals setting the scene of where it is based. 

We can take ideas from this film opening and use them in ours such as at the start where it says where abouts the place in which this is being filmed is for example in this film opening it says "Woods near Quantico, VA". It also uses establishing shots at to show the view where the scene is set we can also use this in our opening for example when the girl is traveling along the country road to the farm house we can include some scenic establishing shots. 

The Shining 1980

The film, The Shining, is the developing story of 'Jack' becomes winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado. In doing so he hopes to cure his writing block, with peace and quiet - which is difficult whist his son 'Danny' is is haunted by psychic premonitions. As 'Danny's' visions become more and more disturbing, 'Jack' also discovers the hotels mystery that consequently changes him into a homicidal maniac.

As a classic psychological thriller, we see the deterioration of 'Jack's' mental state, which we which to show the beginnings of (with our character), within our film opening. However a more specific inspiration that has come from this film, is the beautiful, scenic way in which this film opening is presented. There are varied establishing, birds eye view shots, of a car travelling through the countryside which we hope to successfully replicate on a smaller scale using a drone. The locations that are used are also similar to what we wish our film opening to look like - country roads surrounded by nature.

 Momento 2000

A memory inside a memory, Memento is a complicated head spinning adventure. Leonard is determined to avenge his wife's murder. However, unable to remember anything that happens day-to-day due to a condition he sustained, short term memory loss, he has to write himself note after note that still don't mean anything after he falls asleep. The film goes back in time to reveal each little bit of the puzzle as he tries to find out the person who killed his wife and makes the audience feel just as confused as he is. The narrative closely follows a phone call Pearce has in which he talks about Sammy Jankis a former client of his who he believed had the same condition. The film takes an unexpected twist as the two characters have a lot more in common than is initially put across.

This film is similar to ours because they are both physiological thrillers with sub genres being drama and thriller. Its also similar because both of the films protagonists have problems with their head. In ours its insomnia and emotional issues. And in Momento its that he has short term memory loss.

What our film is going to take from this is the same genre and sub genres and the protagonist having a mental problem. Also rather than the wife being murdered, the parents were killed.

Vanilla Sky 2001

Vanilla sky is an American psychological thriller romance film made in 2001. Its the story of a young New York City publishing magnate who finds himself on an unexpected roller-coaster ride of romance, comedy, suspicion, love, sex and dreams in a mind-bending search for his soul.its a remake of the 1997 Spanish film open your eyes. I think this film opening is really good as it relates to a lot of things that are going to take place in our film opening such as the actor getting out of bed the voicemail's and the scenic shots. 

There are a lot of things that we can take as ideas from this film opening such as, i think our opening would look better if we filmed on a drone so maybe we may have to look into how to do so. I also like the way is sort of uses flashbacks as they flash up quickly on the screen.

Donnie Darko 2001

A troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes, after he narrowly escapes a bizarre accident. Then opening starts off very dark as the camera pans around and down a road peaceful piano music plays as the actor lays on the floor. This film opening is similar to ours as the opening just has one actor in. 

The thing that i like most about this opening is the way the scene switches so suddenly there is a massive flash of light and it switches from a peaceful scene to a quite upbeat scene this is something we could potentially use in our opening. when we are showing our flashbacks. Tracking shots are also used in this scene when the boy is riding his bike along the road we could also uses this when filming the scene of the girl walking down the country road.