The document provides details about the film pitch for a thriller film called "Nina". The protagonist Nina has undergone a medical experiment that has given her superhuman strength. People are now after her and she must train to fight back. The film takes inspiration from HANNA. Locations would include wooded areas and abandoned buildings nearby. Friends of the filmmaker would star and the film aims to subvert expectations of female protagonists in thrillers. The summary discusses conventions like shots, sounds and narrative devices that would be used.

1. My film pitch
Olivia Calleja

2. My synopsis
In my story I want the protagonist: Nina ( which means
strong) to be a young teenage girl fighting for survival
against people/ a mafia sort of organisation. They will be
going after her as she has a secret- She’s been the subject
to a medical experiment- unknowingly. This experiment
has not caused her to change physically but she has
turned almost robot like strength. But she does know that
people are coming for her so she needs to be trained to
retaliate their attack. She is trained by her friend/sibling
(undecided) but they get murdered in the process so she
attacks them first trying to find out the truth about what
is happening.
Based on HANNA.

3. Genre and location ideas:
My genre: Thriller, this is because I think that you can create a successful
thriller with a low budget yet it still be very effective with the use of some
horror film tricks like handheld camera shots as this creates a shaky feel
which adds to the tension and almost speeds up the scene.
I am very interested in adding an action feel to my film but I lack the
equipment/ budget to produce special effects, so it might not be very
effective.
I intend on showing the genre in the trailer by having lots of shots very
fast paced, shadows, tense music with some breathing layered over the
top.
Location: I could use the wooded areas in my hometown, the
underground car parks or abandoned buildings- these would be the
typical places to shoot a horror. I could even use a normal building but
alter the light intensity.

4. Stars:
I would use some of my friends to star in my film. I
would use the ones that take A level drama, or have
previous experience in acting. This is because I want
to make it as realistic as possible. I want the female
protagonist to be of the age of 12-15. This is
because I want her to give the appearance of an
innocent, weak girl but actually be very strong.
I want my film to have a female protagonist. This is
a key point for me in whatever genre I choose.

5. Stars- cont.
The reason that I am not using famous actors is
because I want them to be unknown to my
audience for example if I used Daniel Radcliffe
my audience would just see him as Harry Potter
not the character that I would have cast him as.
I also do not have the funds to hire out
professional actors.

6. Sound:
I want to create a tense atmosphere. Sort of eerie piano,
electronic synth sounds- Not going into sci-fi though! I
want diegetic sounds of breathing for example if running.
I don’t want any words in it only instrumental as I think if
I were to have words, they would have to be meaningful
to the story I’m creating and I think that it’s very difficult
to find something like that unless you create it yourself.
Non- diegetic sounds imported in to create a sound
bridge to create a tense atmosphere is a very strong
convention with thrillers.

7. Narrative:
• BINARY OPPOSITES: the girl and the organisation
she is hiding from then later attacking..
• I am trying to steer away from using the generic
stereotype characters.
Emotional content- sinister
- suspense.

8. • Todorov’s equilibrium theory:
• Equilibrium: her living/practising in the woods-
training, running etc.
• Disruption: they kill her friend so she is now at
risk of being found, but she goes on the attack
instead of going on the run so she has to
overcome the challenges they face her with.
• New equilibrium: She conquers them so all is
good, but, I do want to leave it on a sort of cliff
hanger as to if there is more threat or not.

9. Conventions of a thriller:
I have noticed that all thrillers that I have seen
often use tracking and pan shots- Mainly in the
opening of the film, this builds up suspense and
mystery intriguing the audience with the lack of
identity. Thrillers often use close ups to draw the
audience into feeling as if they are in the scene.
They also tend to use long shots to show the
audience of the action that is about to occur.

10. Thrillers often use high and low angle shots: The high angle shots
indicate the power of the character, if the angle is high the audience
are instantly aware of the rank of the character it is often used for the
villain.
Jump cuts are very common in thrillers.
’This type of edit causes the subject of the shots to appear to "jump" position in a
discontinuous way. For this reason, jump cuts are considered a violation of classical
continuity editing, which aims to give the appearance of continuous time and space in
the story-world by de-emphasizing editing. Jump cuts, in contrast, draw attention to
the constructed nature of the film’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_cut
I think that jump cuts tend to speed up the pace of the film increasing
the tension.

11. With their credits most films introduce the most
well known/ most admired production company or
actor. I think that this just increases the publicity of
that person/company even more, but I think not
naming a actor can alienate the audience therefore
possibly making the story seem more realistic.
Thrillers often put their credits onto a black screen
with non-diegetic music playing in the background
which really sets up the mood and atmosphere for
the rest of the film.

12. Director/My inspiration:
• Director: I will take inspiration from directors
such as Joe Wright who directed the action
thriller ‘HANNA’. I like the shots that he uses
especially in the opening sequence and the ‘fairy
land bit’.
• I want to use HANNA as my main source of
inspiration due to the female protagonist. I think
it’s something that the mainstream audience isn’t
really used to. This gives an interesting twist to
the female role which I’m really interested to
work on.

13. I really like this shot as the camera is on the ground with the character, this really puts
the audience in the shot with her, adding to the tension in the scene.
I also like the lighting in this shot, the darkness in the top right corner coming down
shadowing on her face really adds to the mystery and just this shot alone tells the story
of what’s happening in the scene, you can tell that she’s hiding from something. You can
tell this by her eye-line and also the low angle close up shot adds to the image of her
hiding.

14. This shot is from the opening sequence where she shoots the animal. I really like the depth
of field in this image, the way she’s completely in focus but her surroundings are blurred
really gives the feel that she’s completely in control. Her physicality with the strong stance
with her arms fully extended outwards with the gun with no emotion in her facial
expressions really shows to me as an audience that she is in control and isn’t the typical
female figure. This is something I would really like to touch on with my film possible by
using a shot like this.

15. Target audience:
• As I would like my film to focus on the female role
and different ways it can be interpreted I would
aim my film at the female gender.
• Using teenage actors my film will relate to the
teenage age group/ young adult: 15-25.
• I would say that it will be mainly aimed at the
females this would be the preferred audience but I
think that males would be interested in watching
as it’s an action/ thriller /horror. Which is
stereotypically aimed at the `male gender and it
will star some attractive females. Men would be
the oppositional audience.

16. Poster examples:

17. HANNA poster:
What I like about this poster is the simple
lettering it’s bold and plain white yet still give a
very strong effect by the shape of the letters, it
looks like very long strong strokes of a
pen/whatever to create it giving a feel of
strength.
I like the tag line ‘ADAPT OR DIE’. This really
gives a feel for the film and sets the audience up
for what they’re about to watch.

19. SALT poster:
I think that this poster really does portray the mystery element of
the film as it has the black back ground in which you see nothing,
all that this image is, is Angelina Jolie. This is something that
obviously immensely helped to promote the film. I unfortunately
will not have the luxury of having a well known actor, so I think
that I would still have my protagonist as the main image taking up
the foreground but I would probably have a few props or location
hints in there to give some more story to my poster than just ‘hey
look at my actor’.
I really like the way that ‘SALT’ has been written twice, once in
bold white but pretty standard lettering but also, it has been
layered on at a low opacity a lot larger this I think looks really
effective as a film poster and it also gets the title through to the
audience twice in one image so will possibly stick in their minds
more.

21. White Out poster:
I like the ice like colouration of this poster. It gives a
cold fearless image. The ice colour also gives the
audience an indication to the location of this film-
Antarctica.
This poster has a scratched effect over-layed onto it.
I really like the fact the image fades down into plain
white and the writing is on top of that instead of
covering up the image, I think that this makes it a
lot easier to read and so the readers will focus on it
more.

23. THE THING poster:
I think that it lacks a lot of the detail that the others I like
it because it doesn’t name the actors or the director,
which makes it seem more real and almost mysterious.
This film poster is very simplistic. It lacks in text and detail
yet still gets an eerie, mysterious and quite scary feel
across.
I think that mystery is a big thing for this poster as it only
show one single image which is almost distorted in the
title. Although my film isn’t necessarily going to be a
mystery I think it’s very important that you don’t give too
much away in the poster, trailer or magazine, so this is
something I will have to look at in a lot greater detail.

24. What I’ve taken from these posters.
• I think that I will stick with the mysterious element by
having either shadowed pictures or low intensity
lighting or even just a plain black background.
• One thing all of the poster have in common is the
capital lettered title, this to me really makes me take
notice as something important and is something that I
definitely would use.
• These posters all have a tag line that increases the
interest in the film for me personally, I will think of one
for mine once I have my final film idea down.

25. MAGAZINE
My magazine will be of the film genre type. It
will be specifically aimed at new upcoming films,
new film festivals/ film festival awards that
recognise new directors etc. The edition of the
magazine that I will create will specify in
Thrillers for example Looper, Taken 2 and Argo.
the cover will feature my star. It will include a
section on me as a director also as indicated by
one of the cover lines.

26. The Magazine cover

27. EMPIRE

28. I found it very hard to find many images of a
woman on the cover of the film magazine
‘EMPIRE’. This might be because the magazine is
mainly aimed at males, and the masculinity of
men. Which is highlighted by the colour scheme
throughout the magazine- very dark. There is no
fashion things on the women, no gossip, as it’s a
film magazine so maybe they feel like they don’t
need to include women as much? Or that men
are generally the main characters therefore the
centre of attention hence a lot more male cover
photos than there is of women.

29. MAGAZINE COVERS

30. Vanity Fair
What I don’t like about this image is the fact she
is so sexualised. Her breasts are the focus of the
image. I do not want my magazine cover to be
sexualised in any way, this is because I want to
show the strength of my character and I also
want her to be young around 12-15 years of age
so sexualisation is out of the question.

32. Interview
What I really like about this image is the tones in the photo, it
feels a lot more natural than all the clearly studio airbrushed
shots.
I like the way the mast head is very large and almost takes up
a third of the entire cover. I also like the font chosen I think it
really complements the feminine side as it looks like it’s been
written in lipstick.
I like the fact her make-up is done in a very natural way. She is
wearing stylish clothing but not sexual this gives her a strong
but still feminine feel which is something I will look to
replicate for my magazine cover.
I think that I will use the colours of this magazine, the simple
white writing with the natural light in the photo.

33. Name for my magazine
Bellatrix- female warrior
Virtue- something good within
Neoteric- new, modern

34. Genre shown:
I am showing my chosen genre which is a thriller in my
magazine/poster by:
- Scratchy writing
- The language used in the tag line
- Showing the girl holding a weapon
- Not overly expressing her femininity
- Having her with a sinister facial expression
The colour scheme chosen for my house style which is:
- Dark colours
- Reds to signify danger and action.

35. • I will be showing the setting in my magazine
cover- I will probably be using the same image
for both so that the chosen image is more
memorable.
• For my magazine I will include a free poster
and a perfume sample to make the magazine
seem more appealing for the female gender