Research into Similar Media Products

'Taken' is a 2008 thriller directed by Pierre Morel and produced by Luc Besson. It stars Liam Neeson as a former CIA agent whose teenage daughter is kidnapped by an Albanian gang working on prostitution rings and they give him a deadline of  96 hours to rescue her.

The film bears lots of similarities with our thriller, but the most striking ones are probably the genre, the overall story line, involving an unexpected situation in which someone is killed or kidnapped and also the pursue of revenge as an underlying theme, as well as the type of characters —young people as the vulnerable—, the use of under-the-bed angles in the key kidnapping scene, and the way of creating tension —focusing only in a repeated shot while an unknown danger is approaching—.

'Homeland' is a 2011 TV show developed by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa. The production companies behind it are Teakwood Lane, Cherry Pie, Keshet Broadcasting and Fox 21. Claire Danes plays a CIA operations officer who works in the Counter terrorism centre. She is constantly involved in suspenseful situations and finds herself in a complex conspiracy in which she doesn't know who to trust.

It can be compared to our thriller due to the choice of a female heroine as the main character, the genre and the themes related to terrorism, secrecy, and the need to solve a riddle.

'24' is an action-based TV show which was released in the year 2001. Its creators are Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow, and it was produced by 20th Century Fox TV, Imagine Entertainment, Real Time Productions and Teakwood Lane. The narrative is quite similar as it focuses on terrorism as the main threat. It is also quite a blockbuster full of action and fighting scenes, which fits with our approach when filming the confrontation between the terrorists and David and Ella.

'The Disappearance of Alice Creed' is a 2009 film directed by J Blakeson and produced by Adrian Sturges. It tells the story of a young woman (Gemma Arterton) who gets kidnapped by an extremely organised duo who keeps her tied up in a room. There are lots of plot twists and nothing is what it seems to be. It is a neo-noir thriller which shares resemblance with ours due to, again, its independent female lead, as well as the parallelism between the two kidnappers and our two terrorists, as well as their initial attitude towards Alice Creed.

'Toy Story 2' is a 1999 Pixar animation film which does not have anything to do with our thriller except for the fact that they used a sequence in which there is a camera angle taken from under a bed which shows time progression. It is really cleverly filmed, especially because of their choice of props in the frame. I believe that it had a massive influence on me when thinking about how to approach Myles' idea in the beginning of the process, unconsciously, because I have watched it so many times. It is undoubtedly a sequence that can be learnt from. Here's the clip of the song "When She Loved Me", with the ending part being the one that stands out in terms of camerawork.

                                                                          (TubeChop)

'The Call' is a 2013 crime thriller film about a kidnapping investigation triggered by a call that Jordan (Halle Berry) from Los Angeles Police Dpt, receives one night. She is guided through a horrible experience by the victim while her captors search for her. It is directed by Brad Anderson, produced by Stage 6 Films and distributed by TriSar. Once again, its key scene involves having the victim under the bed. The choice of angles and how the tension is built up is similar in some details to our original idea.

The last film I'm going to mention is a classic, 'Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark' (1981), created by Spielberg and Lucas. As a whole product, it bears little resemblance with our thriller. However, the way in which the Nazis, as antagonists, are portrayed, is almost identical to our choice with the Russian extremists. It is a relationship of antagonism based in ignorance and fear, with the enemies talking in their own language throughout except for the moments in which they direct their speech to the rest of the characters. They are treated as a collective rather than as individuals, as our terrorists.