Our synopsis and opening sequence

Before we planned our opening sequence we thought of ideas for a synopsis, so our opening sequence can be part of a bigger storyline. We knew it had to follow the conventions of a thriller film and create tension, suspense, excitement and anticipation and we wanted it to be a psychological/horror thriller. It was also important we had a synopsis so our opening sequence can create enigmas that would lead on to the rest of the film. We knew we had to be realistic when planning our opening sequence because we have to film it ourselves so we can't include ideas such as falling off a cliff because we wouldn't be able to film that. Also locations such as a remote Mexican village or on a ship would not be possible for us so we tried to make our ideas as practical as we could.

Our main idea for the synopsis is as follows:

A university professor is having disturbing nightmares and visions of his estranged wife plotting to killing him. He begins to become suspicious that she knows about his affair with one of his students but is unsure what to do as she hasn't mentioned it to him. Meanwhile as he becomes more and more paranoid the nightmares become more common and increasingly disturbing until he fears his life and the life of his secret lover are in danger. The line between reality and his imagination becomes distorted and in a desperate attempt to escape his raging wife he runs out of the house, where he eventually ends up in a graveyard.  He sees a tombstone with his wife's name on it and looks back to see his wife is no longer chasing him. He then  realises his wife is actually a projection of the guilt he feels for moving on as he was widowed several months ago after his wife died from a terminal illness.

I think this idea is suitable because it uses the technique of having many scenes as hallucinations of the protagonist, which is used in many psychological thrillers such as Black Swan and Shutter Island. It is effective in creating suspense and tension because it confuses the audience and leaves them unsure what to believe. Our idea also includes the theme of a mentally unstable character which is typical of psychological thrillers. There are many opportunities to build tension, suspense and anticipation during the film in the man's visions and through his paranoia. The plot twist at the end will shock the audience as it is very unexpected, this is also the typical ending to a thriller because the audience thinks they have an idea of what is going on and then it is revealed they are wrong and it was something else the whole time. This idea includes the theme of being trapped or confined, which is a common theme in thrillers. Although he is not physically trapped his marriage is restricting him because morally he should not be having a relationship with his student. Also the loss of his wife traps him in a psychological state where he cannot move on or forget his wife.

The opening sequence to this film would go like this:

It would begin with a man walking his dog through a graveyard at night. He places some flowers down on a relatively new headstone and goes home to his wife. There is a classical score playing which acts as a sound bridge connecting the scenes and forming a montage. When he returns home there are a few shots of him having dinner and going to bed as part of the montage. During these scenes it is clear that there is something wrong with the marriage. The couple are not very affectionate to one another and they don't even speak much. It seems the wife is making more effort than the husband, he doesn't look her in the eye. After the montage showing the daily routine of going to bed the score changes, becoming slower and more high pitched. The wife leaps on her husband and draws a knife. She tries to stab him but he gets the knife off her so she puts her hands around his neck and strangles him. The scores becomes more upbeat, building tension and making the scene more dramatic. Just as he takes his last breaths he wakes up and realises it was just a dream and his wife is in bed asleep beside him. He reaches into his drawers and gets out a piece of paper with a phone number on it. Cross cutting is used to show he is careful not to wake her. The piece of paper acts as a graphic match and leads to a flashback of one of his students, an attractive, young blonde, giving him the piece of paper. She winks at him seductively and says "Call me". It ends with a shot of the sleeping wife next to the man who looks rather shifty. Low key lighting is used to make the husband appear more shadowy, making the mood more tense.

This opening sequence would only require three actors, so it will be easy to film. Also we know someone who has a dog we could borrow for our beginning scene. The grave stone creates an enigma because the film would end with a shot of the grave stone, revealing it belongs to the dead wife. We have a local graveyard we could use to film in and we also have house we can use to film the home scenes in. The opening sequence will have lots of suspense and tension during the montage because the audience will be anticipating something bad to happen. Also when the wife tries to kill him it will be very unexpected so the audience will be shocked and disturbed. The sequence ends with a lot of tension because the audience are still in shock and worrying in case the wife wakes up.

The other ideas we had were as follows:

• A woman suffers from a miscarriage and is left devastated. Years later she falls pregnant again and gives birth to a perfect baby boy. He is her world and she adores him. When he is a few weeks old she meets a young girl who doesn't have any family. She welcomes her into her life and just when the woman becomes quite fond of the girl she realises the baby son has bruises and signs of violence. The woman becomes paranoid it is the little girl abusing her baby and she believes her baby is in danger. Later it is revealed the little girl is not real, just a hallucination of how the woman imagines her baby would have grown up to be if it had no been miscarried. She thinks the little girl would be jealous that she didn't get to be born and the boy did so she wants to kill him. This idea is similar to our final idea of revealing at the end the antagonist isn't real just a projection of guilt from the protagonist. This is because during our planning process we merged together some ideas as we wanted to keep the same themes. Also it took a while to develop and refine our ideas because originally they weren't very clear or specific. We thought this idea had flaws because it would be difficult to find a young girl to play the antagonist and we don't know anyone who would be willing to let us film their baby. Also miscarriage is quite a touchy subject and we didn't want to mess around with it as some people can get quite upset.
• Another idea we had was a university drop out who turns to drugs and alcohol to drown his sorrows. As his life spirals out of control he starts having graphic visions and hallucinations of a boy similar to his age haunting him. As these visions become more common the boy realises they are memories and towards the end of the film he finds out the dead boy he is seeing is actually his brother who he killed. His brother was a good role model and he couldn't live up to his standards so one night jealousy overtook him and he killed him. Then as an act of denial he pretended it didn't happen but eventually the guilt got too much for him. This idea wasn't very practical because it would be difficult to film the graphic hallucinations of the dead boy. Also we thought compared to our other ideas there aren't as many opportunities to build tension and suspense.
• A young man goes off to university, leaving his mother missing him like crazy. She feels like she has lost her purpose as a mother and finds herself struggling to fill the gap in her life without her son. In her spare time she begins babysitting a young boy and this helps her cope with the loss of her son. Soon she becomes overly attached to the boy and she wants to babysit him more and more. She encourages his parents to go out so she can look after him and eventually she believes he is her son. She refuses to part with him and ends up being removed by the police and put in a mental asylum. This idea would also be impractical as we would have to find a young boy to play the part of the boy getting babysat. Also this idea is a bit slow to develop and a thriller should grip  the audience from the beginning.