Narrative Progress

When comparing our original story arc to our final draft of our opening, many changes are recognisable. As time has gone on , we have each gained more experience and knowledge on film, from methods such as research and practise. Scenes that we first believed would appear effective, were reviewed, and we realised that we could create more effective scenes, that abide by the codes an conventions of thriller openings.

Here is our original story arc.

1. Exposition Director- Claudia

The background artist, who plays a dog walker is strolling through the woods. There is close up shots of the woods.

2. Rising Action Director- Jordan
There is a male character running away from an unknown figure, he continuously turns to look behind him. Whilst looking behind , not focusing ahead, he misses the broken branch in front of him, leading him to fall and hit his head on a rock.


3. Exposition Director- Cailin 
The male character is unconscious laying on the floor in the woods, music continues to play from his fallen earphone.

4. Rising Action Director- Cailin
The mysterious figure's silhouette casts over the male characters body whilst he still lays unconscious.


5. Falling Action Director- Jordan
The male character snaps out of a daydream, finding himself in a psychiatrist's office. The psychiatrist asks if he is okay, how he is feeling, and repeatedly refers to him as "Sid", to which he does respond.


6. Exposition Director - Mia 
Male character is sleeping in a plain white bed. The audience is unsure of to where he is.

7. Rising Action Director - Claudia 
The psychiatrist walks up to the bed, appearing to check on him . She then puts powder into his glass of water on his bedside table next to his bed.

8. Rising Action Director - Cailin 
The male character wakes up startled and covered in sweat. He sees two figures flash next to him and assumes he is going mad. He then takes a large gulp from his glass of water, stands up and tries to work out where he is. It then cuts to an over shoulder shot from outside in the garden looking up on him in the window.

9. Rising Action Director - Mia 
The male character is sitting on the bed, putting his head into his hands. The two figures from before appear again beginning to flicker next to him. They both begin to whisper in his ear. One telling him that he is crazy and the other telling him that it isn't his fault. The character tries to convince himself that he is sane.

10. Exposition Director- Jordan 
The shot cuts back to the scene in the psychiatrist's office, where the psychiatrist continues to prod the male character with questions whilst his temper begins to build up


11. Rising Action Director - Mia 
The male character stands, looking at himself in a mirror , he is standing alone in the shot. The shot then positions from his perspective where voices are heard talking to him. As the short turns back to face the male character , the two figures appear again standing next to him. This is when the volume of the whispering voices increase.


12. Climax Director - Claudia 
The  voices get louder as the male character attempts to ignore them. The psychiatrist then asks one final question, leading the character to breakdown. As he is screaming, the shots jump from different perspectives of the scene.

We changed the start of our opening, completely cutting out our exposition and jumping straight to the rising action, where Sid is running in the woods. We decided that this would have a great effect on the audience, as most film opening begin with a sense of normality, and calm. We also cut out the second rising action where there is a silhouette over Sid's body. We thought it was too early to include another character, and decided to keep the audience's full attention on Sid.

Before our third exposition, where Sid lays sleeping in a plain white bed, we added the title 'SKITZ'. We though that this would be an appropriate place to put the title as it doesn't interrupt any rising action, being between falling action and exposition. By interrupting rising action it would remove the tense effect and destroy the intense climax.




We made a small alteration to third rising action, where the antagonist drugs the protagonist. We changed the drug from a powder to a pill substance, in order for health and safety reasons. We used a vitamin d pill that doesn't dissolve in water within our opening, in order to ensure that there would be no real effect on our actor.



Within our fourth rising action where Sid wakes up in the middle of night sweating, taking a gulp of his water, we cut out the flickering of the good and bad conscious, as they are seen flickering in the next scene, and we believed that the repetition of the flickering characters would remove the intended effect.


At the very end of our title sequence we added a completely new scene, where Sid sneaks into the psychiatrist's office and discovers his file on her desk, with a photograph of him attached.
He then opens up her laptop and finds his file, he clicks it and is waiting for it to load, as it is slowly loading, the psychiatrist is walking up the stairs.
We edited the footage so that it cuts from her feet, to the loading bar. This scene is where most tension is created, where the audience sit on the edge of their seats wondering if it will load before she gets there. She then turns the handle of the door and the footage cuts. We aimed not to give too much detail away in the opening, as we wanted the audience to remain interested throughout the entirety of our film, wondering what might happen.