Pre-Production Research Film 1 - 'Seek' - Kat Smith via Virgin Media Shorts - By Joe Blissett

'Seek' - katsmith84
Virgin Media Shorts
"A peaceful sunny day in the forest is interrupted by a small boy. Where is he going and who is he running from?"
Genre: Thriller 
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 The sequence begins with a panning shot of a field going from right to left with a low toned non-diegetic soundtrack playing alongside this. This can immediately connote to the audience that the short film could follow the steps of the thriller genre as so far in the opening couple of seconds in the film, the soundtrack connotes some sort of gloomy feel to it, something that is commonly associated with the thriller genre. However the audience is still not quite sure of the correct genre because of the way two non-diegetic bell sounds are heard when the title appears and disappears. This doesn't typically follow the conventions of the thriller genre as it comes across to the audience as perhaps toning down the initial suspense factor which is introduced early on with the eerie soundtrack. The following shot shows a close up view of what appears to be a dogs snout panting in what appears to be wooded area, however the shot could be argued to be from a worms-eye-view as it is facing directly upwards at the end of the dogs snout, displaying the dog's tongue hanging out. This particular camera shot can justify the type of codes or conventions of the thriller genre as the audience cannot figure of what is going on at this moment and not enough has been revealed about the story or overall plot yet. However this is then revealed soon after in the following shot; a mid shot of a young blonde boy running through a wooded forest. Like the synopsis asks, the audience does not know at this point why he is running, who from, or where he is running to. All three questions, the audience are eager to discover, and so this is what inevitably keeps them watching, hooking them into the possibilities of what could happen next. As the audience soon discovers from the next couple of quick paced shots, the predominant character in this short film is this young blonde boy, and so the audience can make assumptions of what might happen to the boy, raising questions about his vulnerability, especially due to his young age and his isolation in the forest, leading to assumptions of potentially negative representations of the boy's situation. However because the scene is set during the day, it may not typically be associated with a thriller genre, as thriller can tend to follow the path of creating or causing suspense during the night, and not in pure daylight. 
Using the repetition of chimes that continues to play more frequently, it sets up a eerie montage of suspense that the audience begins to feel. This, alongside blurred shots of the forest, confuse us as the audience as we find it hard to figure out whether or not a character is in the frame or not, however as the shot goes on, it reveals some sort of figure emerging from the trees, dressed in black, and it's this colour of black, which perhaps suggests to the audience that this character is possibly a antagonist, something which again associates this to the thriller genre. Using shot-reverse-shots between the young male character and the dog creates the idea of perhaps an oncoming collision, keeping the audience pegged back on deciding whether the dog is seen as a threat or potential hero for the young child. Then by using a long shot showing the child enclosed inside the ruins of a building, the audience gets the idea that perhaps the child is trapped with nowhere to hide. However by adapting Buckingham's idea of children or young people having no 'child-identity', it could perhaps suggest that this child is exploring and finding out more about the outdoors by himself without the need of parent supervision, something that is widely regarded as a potential negative aspect of living in the 21st century due to the vulnerability of children and increase of child abducting, causing outrage and controversy across the globe. 
From the way the non-diegetic (wind instrument) sound is used alongside a sequence of shots of the boy searching from inside the ruins looking out into the forest, it gives the suggestion that perhaps the boy is lost and is unsure in what to do. As well as this, by having restricted narration, again it creates the idea that no one else is around to help the boy and that he is alone out of reach from anywhere local nearby in search of help. But at this moment we are unaware whether or not the boy is scared and lost, or just adventuring the woods on his own with the aspect of freedom being attached to him.
But, however, the film takes a eerie, sickening twist when a close up shot is seen displaying a hand with a black gardening glove on, as the person passes a tree. Suddenly the audience recognises that the child is in potential danger and is not alone in the forest, and that it seems the child was being chased through the forest by this unknown body. Notice how at this point the non-diegetic sound changes to one of a more spooky, gloomy, deeper sound, again adding to the suspense. Then a close up shot of two pairs of boots walking through the forest is seen, adding to the suspected idea that now there is more than one person heading towards the boy; soon after a long shot is seen showing the boy sat against a wall with his head in his hands looking to the floor, creating the idea that he is now scared. A partly obstructed shot then reveals the antagonist to be a male character, linking stereotypically with the typical semantic codes of Altman's theory of a thriller genre.Then the build up of the non-diegetic sounds increase in volume and the original chimes are heard again, before we see the climax of the sequence, revealing two hands reach down to grab the boy; the audience fearing the worst, before the non-diegetic sound reaches its most climatic, before abruptly coming to a stop, as the boy is grabbed, and the shot goes to a black screen.
However the audience then discovers the irony of the film and the cleverness of how the director has shot it, by having the male character (who the audience first believed to be the antagonist) using the dialogue 'Found ya!', immediately revealing the idea behind the film being a game of hide and seek, hence the title 'Seek', and not a killer on the look for a young child; as well as revealing the idea that the mum and dad has found the child, showing them now as protagonists.