Predicted Target Audience

The target audience for our film, a foreign crime thriller, is from older teenagers (young adults) to almost the senior audiences, as it is fairly intellectually involved (as it is in another language with subtitles) and would probably not appeal to a younger audience than that.  The gender would be primarily male, as the crime/gunfight theme appeals much more to a male audience.  The characters in the thriller are also male, and not relatable to the female audience. The education of most of the target audience would either be university educated or multi-cultural/bilingual people with an interest in the Eastern European culture, which is a much more specific audience, however the age and gender define our target audience more generally.

This would help when promoting the film. It also influences the way that the posters would look, in order to appeal to a mature male audience.  We could advertise it in universities or schools and around cultural centres such as Easter European (mainly Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox) and neighbourhoods.

The Back Story of Our Thriller

Siberia. Modern day.  We follow a Latvian detective as he makes his way to the scene of the crime.  He speaks quietly in an Eastern-European language, translated by subtitles.  The sounds on the scene are over-exaggerated, adding to the tension of the situation.  His assistant takes him into the shack, where a dead body sits, eyes open.  He shows the detective around the crime scene, though the detective barely looks at it.  He makes his way towards the door and leaves, as he says, "on business", demonstrating that he already knows what has happened and what has caused it.

The detective is much like a Sherlock Holmes in the way that his powers of deduction are incredible, however he is much more elegant and confident.  The rest of the film follows him as he busts the biggest Eastern-European drug cartel in history, aided by his faithful assistant. 

New Thriller Changes

After numerous meetings with our teacher and in our group, we found that our initial thriller idea would be too complex due to logistics and had a lot of potential for failure.  The logistics issue was that we would have to film it in many different locations (the street, the supermarket) and it would be difficult to acquire filming permission for them.  Also, we had a lot of trouble in creating a backstory and motive for our character and finding out why the audience would "care" about the story.  Additionally, it would be difficult to find an actress who would be up to the standard that we need to act the role of the mother.

We still wanted to have the idea of a dead body, however we need to change the story that goes with it.

We have decided to have a murder scene, the cause of the murder (as we find out in the end)  being drug-dealing-fueled.  It will open with a wideshot of the detective driving to the scene of the murder. 
Our protagonist is a detective, about to bust a drug cartel.  We know he is the protagonist because he has the majority of the screen time, as well as the way he is conveyed through the miss-en-scène.  He is almost like a Sherlock Holmes character, as he is able to deduce the cause and crack the mystery of why the man is dead in a matter of seconds.  He knows that the case is bigger than this small murder, that it is the work of a cartel.  He leaves the scene saying something such as "I must depart on business," establishing his strong attitude (almost arrogance) and leave the audience in a state of suspense.

Research: European Detectives

Eastern Europe?

Here's some research I conducted on the setting of our thriller.
Since I lived in Eastern Europe for four years of my life (Romania and Lithuania), I already had a good idea of the region, but here are some more detailed facts!

Eastern Europe by maggiecampbell72

More Thriller Work

After much more discussion, we decided that we need to change our idea from our first "psychopathic boy walking down street reflecting on his crimes" idea.

Taking inspiration from "Trans-Siberian Express" we want to create a detective-style sequence, with the detective arriving on the scene.  The victim would be in a warehouse (which we would create in the studio) sitting up in a chair, a knife in the back of his head.   It is not obvious that the victim is dead at first, which makes for an interesting camera effect and adding a twist for a thriller effect.  We might have a simple non-diegetic soundtrack of just slow beats.  From the film, we were mainly inspired by the actual setting as well as the incredible detective.

Narrative Plot of Our Thriller

We have decided to go with a very contrapuntal theme, having everything very fake and unsuspecting, releasing a quaint atmosphere. It will be filmed in a hyper-real way.

We will have a very symmetrical shot of an innocent looking teenage boy walking down a long street or driveway, a fair distance away. We might include overlapping flashing clips of the street when it is empty and when he was present.

A voice over will begin of him casually talking, almost humorous, about is average day. For instance it may begin like this “I had wheetabix for breakfast"; this will continue and will be told in a sinister way portraying his psychotic personality.

As he gets closer and closer, dark contrasting distorted images with pop up of dead bodies and guns and things to do with his murders.

An occasional slow one with an abstract spooky background will come up with some subtitles, then will snap back quickly to the fakery. this contrast will make his world seem even more unrealistic, highlighting his strange mental state.

Subtitles will also appear as he walks down the path in the corners.

Eventually he will come close up to the camera and say, "so i killed her/him/them. Now they want to catch me. So I'm on the run. They won't catch me. And I won't stop". He will start to run off. This will leave enough suspense for a good storyline.