Thriller - Rough Cut

Above is the first rough-cut of my thriller opening 'Scarlett'.
Improvements to be made

• The entire piece needs to be edited in black and white as it appears much more stylistic and helps to create a vintafe 1930's atmosphere. 
• The sound effect of the jewelry box slamming is slightly out of sync with the shot, therefore that needs to be edited to a second earlier as it is quite obvious it's out of time. 
• There are a couple of incidents where the jewelry box sound effects jolts and the audience are able to hear where the clips of the sound effects over lap, this needs to be edited by a fade or perhaps cutting the sound clips more appropriately. 
• The beginning titles need to be adapted time-wise so they are on-screen for equal amounts of time because in this cut it varies slighty.

Pleased with

• The beginning sequence in the dressing room - flows reasonably well. 
• The titles appear to work quite well, and they are very simplistic therefore do not look tacky or ruin the vintage eeriness. 
• The shot where Scarlett glances over her shoulder - enigmatic, vaguely resembles the shot of Harry looking over his shoulder in 'The Third Man' 
• Symbolism of the lioness - the Femme Fatale running into the night under a big powerful lioness, symbolises her strength of character and her danger yet the paw upwards as if pleading for help is almost a hint to the audience that she may be in desperate need of help.
• Shadow along the step - creates tension and looks very Film Noir. 
• The shot of the picturesque alleyway with the two lamposts - inspired by the scene in The Third Man when the lead character is waiting under the lampost surrounded by the darkness.

Sound necessities of our thriller

At the beginning of the thriller it will open with the sound of a slow sickening jewellry box tune, repeated as the character of Scarlett prepares for her venture out into the world of the 1930's. Any non-diagetic sound will be silenced to emphasise this tune, which will bring a larger effect when the jewellry box is slammed and there is silence for about five seconds. We have recorded an old jewellry box sound which we will loop round continuously, it sounds more effective and realistic.
As Scarlett is shown leaving the building (her house) the second piece of music will begin, this will be a classical piano or violinist piece which is simple yet builds up therefore gaining tension throughout the remainder of the into.
We recorded the sound effect of an old tower chiming, since it sounds so definite and classic therefore may merge into our opening well. Therefore we're experimenting now with whether that sound effect could be used to provide a sense of location or emphasise the time zone.

We will add the sound effect of a gun, though a gun is not shown in the clip (due to the likelihood at it looking tacky, from an incorrect time and the difficulties of carrying around a pretend gun in a busy city) the sound effect should make it more enigmatic and more of a shock to the audience. This will be used after a shot of the male character smiling slightly, to make it reasonably easy to follow that the gun shot is most likely from him. Even though a gun will not be featured it's such a stereotypical prop used in Film Noir therefore will only put further emphasis on the genre, we took this inspiration of a gun as an important prop from 'The Third Man' in the sewers when the guards were searching for Harry and the scene came to a conclusion by the shooting of him. This was appropriately dramatic and intense, it built up well and worked with the enigmatic music filled with tension - so this brought us inspiration.

We used a diagetic sound track of a jewelry box similar to that featured in the youtube clip above, yet slightly more sinister, we looped this to create an on-going sinister atmosphere.