Initial thoughts/ideas

Being set the task to film an opening "thriller" sequence and document the process, it took several false starts before the pair of us began to connect on ideas, eventually devising a short plot with which to base our ideas on, which we have included below:

   "Following opening credits, the camera shows us an opening overhead shot of a family stood around a shallow grave. It is only a small grave in their back garden which is meant for the family pet, Randal. We see a close up of a man holding a box containing the dead pet: he is the oldest character in the scene and is giving a speech about the passing of their pet being unexpected and too soon. We see directly opposite this character the other three characters in the scene, a mother, brother and sister. The brother has distinctly red eyes and seems the most shaken up about the death. Everybody except him is dressed in casual clothes, but he looks decidedly more professional, as though he had lost a dear friend and is greatly affected by the loss. We follow his eyes focus on the box and he begins to whimper (like a dog). His sister - noticing this - brushes her hand against his and this makes him break down and cry. From over the dad's shoulder, we switch focus from him watching his son cry to movement in the window of the house behind. The dad does not react to this as though he has not noticed. We switch to a POV shot from the figure inside the house staring out at the family, who begin the burial of Randal. The shot tilts down and we see - through this person's POV - a girl's notepad on a messy desk. We see the name 'Lacey' on top of the pad and see half a page has been torn out.
   In our second opening scene, we open with flashes of the box intersected with a 'Raimi cam' shot of something quickly moving along the garden in the dark, highlighting the feral, animal style movement of the person. We see this is from the boy's point of view, who - using his bare hands - digs up the box. As he lifts it up, the camera goes around the side of the box and into the hole on the side and we see from this perspective the inside of the box when the boy opens it. The boy immediate reaches into the dog's mouth and pulls out a small plastic bag (which he obviously knew was there, but is still distressed by). Opening the bag and unfolding a small note written on the half-page missing from the notepad, we see it reads: 'I still love you.'"

Although we tossed and turned over particular aspects - before we even began to consider the actual logistics in what was (and would soon turn out not to be) possible - we used this as our basic idea and began to naively celebrate our newfound success as visionary screenwriters.

The self-dubbed 'Raimi cam' shot described in our treatment was based on a long tracking shot found in 'Raising Arizona' where the camera itself acts like a monster dashing up a ladder into a bedroom where a mother has just found her baby is missing. After doing some research into this, we found that Joel and Ethan Coen had 'borrowed' this technique from a film-directing friend of theirs named Sam Raimi, who famously used this technique in a chase scene from Evil Dead 2, and it's one of the most ridiculous looking things ever:

- Breaking doors, cracking bones, inventing comror (comedy-horror).

(or hilariorror if you prefer.)

We both struggled to come up with an idea we considered to be typical of the thriller genre while simultaneously not including so many of the codes and conventions that it became derivative of other works. Having said that we did take inspiration from some well known and influential opening sequences...