Inspirations - Miss Miller

We need inspirations for many different things. An inspiration helps us to create different ideas and take different ideas from other films and make them into our own. We can take inspiration from anything that will help us to create different ideas. We can take it from similar films, other people and individual experiences, anything that will inspire you to make your film more engaging for the audience. In my group thriller, we have taken inspiration from different thriller films from over the years. We have taken inspiration from films like Paranormal Activity and Scream, to try and ensure that our thriller comes across as realistic as possible in order to make the audience relate to the characters and the plot of the film. We took inspirations from these films as we feel that the plot is relatable and the audience can relate to it the most with the characters and the setting being in a normal neighbourhood and house.

We have looked at sequences such as Insidious, Scream, Saw V (survival of the fittest), Open Water, Halloween and paranormal activity. These were excellent films to anaylyse as they had most of the conventions of a thriller which made it easier for us to take inspiratios from those particular films to help with the research and ideas of our group narrative. When looking at Paranormal Activity we had taken the ideas of recordings to make our victim seem more vulnerable and innocent. The 'filming' makes it seem as if the victim is being watch which then can relate to the audience as they start to empathise and sympathise with the characters as they know their is a bad outcome. This was inspiring as it made us look deeper into the vulnerablity of a victim and made us conclude that we need the audience to sympathise for the victim in order to get them more engaged and scared when they are watching our opening sequence. When incorperating this into our opening scequence, we will make this idea our own as we will use high angle shots to make everything more effective, and use different elements from other films to make it our own.

Another film we got inspiration from was Scream. The idea of using a masked villian and innocent blonde victim captured us as we thought of the hidden identity and the conventions of a thriller when watching this. We have included the masked villian in our thriller opening sequence as it the identity of the killer is always hidden until they are revealed or killed in the end. We took this inspiration from Scream as it will create suspense tension and shock in the opening sequence which is what we want the audience to feel when watching it. We have incorperated this into our thriller, as the ex boyfriend of our victim (Olivia) is going to be the masked villin, this is becuse he wants revenge and wants her to suffer for breaking up with him. This was make the audience more engaged to find out who the murderer is as all they will find out is the fact that somebody doesn't like the fact they are in a relationship together. We will make this our own as the costume of the killer and the mask will not be what you will be expecting. They both have a twist and will shock the audience therefore giving them a hatred relationship towards the villian.

Another inspiration we took was from Halloween. This was youur typical spooky halloween film, and we took inspirtion of their camera angles. For example the handheld camera angle when walking towards the house was inspirational because as the audience you felt like you were in that characters shoes, like you were the character yourself. It made a jerked movement to suggest an unstable accountance about to happen and this made us as the adueince feel on edge and scared to continue watching the film. We have decided to include this in our thriller as we believe it makes the audience feel suspense and tension rising. Also panning camera angles were used in this film which made the jerky movement when walking towards the house. Again, this made us feel uneasy which is what we have taken inspiration from and would like to use in our own opening sequence. To make this our own we have included different camera angles suh as close up to emphasise the charcters emotions which will create relationships with the audience to sympathise and emphasise.

Finally, we have taken inspiration from Saw films, as the low-key lighting and the murders created suspense tension and gore. We have included the low-key lighting when in the garden to emphasise on the darkness and death that is going to happen. This makes the audience in suspense as wthey cannot see much going on around them apart from the murder that will take place. The low-key lighting is conventional to a thriller as it makes everything more suspcious and people start to think that something bad is going to happen which is waht is needed in a thriller film. We have also taken ispiration from the games they have to go through in saw. When they are chanied to the chairs and cannot do much to escape. We have taken this inspiration to use in our own thriller as we have tied the boyfriend up with rope and sitting on just a normalm garden chair. This obviously makes everything alot more relatistic in order to make the audience relate to the sequence more and engage the into watching it into further detail. B it being more real, they will be able to create a better realtionship with the characters and they will begin to empahasise with what is going on.


The research was very useful as we gathered many ideas and inspirations for our opening scene and this enabled us to make our thriller more effective and enaging for the audience. By researching other thrillers, we were able to gather ideas on what makes the audience more scared and which specifc things made them relate to the characters more. This helped us make our group narrative more realistic therefore making the audience more sympathetic for the victims and more hatred towards the villian. We are going to takes these ideas and develop opur narrative in more detail to enbale us to make our thriller more engaging, shocking and scary for the audience.