Thriller Opening- Synopsis

I have made a synopsis for our group's project to get across the main story of our thriller opening. It begins with the girl playing in the garden with her father, with an old fashioned footage effect showing that it was in the past. Then it skips to the present time with a pizza delivery boy cycling up the drive of the father's house, as he approaches the house he notices a girl's body floating on the swimming pool, but when he runs closer to investigate there is no body in the pool. He then notices the same girl standing in a top window of the house with a teddy bear, wearing a night gown. He knocks on the door and whilst making the delivery to the man who lives there he mentions that he saw his daughter in the window. The man's response then shows the audience that the girl has in fact been dead for a long time. The girl is then seen behind her father, the film then ends leaving it open to many possible storylines.

Analysis:
The old footage effect not only shows that it was in the past, but also implies many other things. Maybe for the father, the happy and carefree times such as that are sorely missed by him and they are playing over and over in his mind. It also suggests to the audience that something has happened since then, to completely change the lives of the people involved, urging them to keep watching and find out.

By there being a body in the pool, it shows that this place may be dangerous and something is going to happen, but also because the body is then gone, many questions are asked by the audience, and the thing behind all of this is completely unknown, possibly supernatural, this creates suspense and tension.

By having the girl standing behind her father and out of sight of the pizza delivery boy, she is under the radar and is, in a sense, in control of the situation, with the ability to cause harm to these characters, well that is what is implied by the recent events. Also with the experience of media exposure the audience will have, this type of character features quite a lot in films and can be quite vicious. And, as we assume she is dead, she seems even more powerful in that how could she be harmed by anybody??


In the making of the plot, we tried to involve conventions of a thriller, for example, death, victims, criminals, being watched, running water and shadows, For greater detail, see the conventions post.