Scipt

For Dialogue;
We didn't particularly use a script for the dialogue in the beginning for our thriller. For example, the scene where the family are getting ready, we chose not to have dialogue as we wanted it to be realistic and as they are a family in real life anyway, we decided they would act more naturally and come across as more believable if they just talked as they would normally. For other parts however, we used small sentences with a bigger meaning for the script, such as when the child says "It hurt me a bit" at the breakfast scene flashback, enigma is evoked as to why he's hurt, and what hurt him. This may foreshadow her childs mysterious death which the audience do not yet know how it occured, or the danger she puts the other child in. The sentence could also reflect her feelings of hurt and loss over her deceased child, and in any case, certainly cause the audience to consider the words.

Another sentence which we scripted was in the flashback where the kidnapper is reading her child a story. The words are actually from a real book; The Gruffalo, but we found the words reflected our storyline in a creepy, innocent, unsuspecting way that subtly foreshadows the rest of the film, "A mouse took a stroll in the deep dark woods, a fox saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good". The mouse represents the child she kidnaps; a small, blond, vunerable little thing, and the fox represents the kidnapper; more powerful, red haired and cunning. It suggests that taking the child seemed like a good idea to the kidnapper; she was lonely, and obviously in a mental state of confusion. The 'deep dark woods' represent the danger the child was placed in by being left alone, even for a while, whilst 'stroll' implies the innocence of the child.

The only other 'script' we used for dialogue was when the child was counting from the numbers one to ten. This was going to be significant in an early idea that he was going to be the 10th child she had kidnapped, celebrating the anniversary of the death of her child. However, we decided to go for a different angle with the film and wanted to make the audience share more empathy with the kidnapper through the sub genre of her phsycological problems, so when the child counts 1-10, this doesn't have as much meaning, apart from perhaps symbolising a ticking bomb about to explode mirroring the volatility of the kidnapper.

Voiceover;
We didn't have a voiceover in our thriller as we felt there was already too much going on to include a voiceover additionally. We did wonder about using a voiceover of counting through the numbers 1-10 during each flashback as the film was going to be called Number Game (relating to the paragraph above), but after discussed above decisions, we didn't. However, we learnt the skills of how to make a voiceover whilst deciding on this, which may become useful later on.

Why during filming process;

I can understand why you may need a script in films as otherwise your actors will not know what they are doing, or what they are meant to say and the storyboard will go completely out the window. However, 2 minutes is extremely short and as most openings of thrillers are either silent or have minor dialogue of seemingly little importance, we opted to do this. However if we were to continue making the rest of the film a more detailed script would of course be vital. It was easy for the actors to learn their lines because the child actor can count to 1-10, so we just turned the camera on, told him to do it and then could edit afterwards which was fine, and it seemed easy enough for him to remember to say "it hurt me a bit" when we told him to as well, which is good because usually working with children on films can be quite hard (we've heard). The actress who plays the kidnappers' lines were also easy; she was reading from a book!