Shanice Evaluation

Ashley Henry Evaluation

Ashley Henry Evaluation from Ashley Henry on Vimeo.

Shanice Evaluation

Bradley Evaluation

Evaluation

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The Music For Our Thriller

For a Psychological thriller opening, we need the music to go with it. I felt that I was responsible for putting together the music for our thriller because I'm also a music student and playing an instrument gives me an advantage.
I started to watch thriller movies and listen out for the music. All the films that I watched had background music that sunk in with the frilm. Sometimes you don't notice the music until you decide to listen out for it.
The music for the thriller needed to sound slow mysterious to have more of an effect on the audience. This method will keep the audience guessing. Alos, because the music for our thriller souinds orchestral and classical, I believe that the film will be for a more sophisticated audience and will broaden the age range for viewers. During the editing stage, we needed to use dynamics for our music, especially when our characters start to speak we needed to gradually drop the volume then slowly back up. We couldn't suddenly change the volume because the audience would notice, and sudden dynamics are not used in thriller movies, only graduall.

Ashley

Editing Stage- What We Did

The next stage after uploading our film was to make a start on the editing. I thought that this was the most important part because we can make our film turn out the way we want it to.
After shooting our preliminary task and editing it, we only knew the very basics of editing. We managed to get more used to final cut pro during our preliminary task so we managed to work alot quicker with our thriller opening.
First of all, we started to choose shots that we were sure of using for our opening and getting rid of the ones that we don't want. Afterwards, we had to cut down certain shots so that the shot will flow with the next. This makes the film look more professional, as you can see we used that method alot for our film.
We also had to make sure that certain shots were put together made sense because certain objects would be in a different position, and we wanted the film to run smoothly rather than the film being really jumpy when it came to the editing.
We also had to make some scenes darker by messing around with the contrast. By making the screen darker, it gives more of an effect on the audience.

Ashley

Pre-production: The means and ways

naturally for our idea that was chosen it would take quit a bit of organization. First of all we need a nice big house to set the scene. We where struggling to think of a place to set it in, but shanice came the rescue asd her aunt lioved in a nice big house which was perfect for what we needed. also we need our actors tpo star in our opening. For that we manged to get my dad david hinds and Tia simon-cambell to act in it we glad they where the prime chioce for actors. Also my dad had the car we needed to to see in the beginning. Finally we need the pictures of the girls and for asecond time Shanice came up withthe idea of using polaroids getting girls to pose in college to have there photos used in the film especilly as thyey would be stalker type photots.


Josh

How we organised ourselves and what we did

Before we filmed our thriller, we didn't know much about filming, we only knew the basics of shots and editing. So we knew as a group we had to make sure we were organised so we managed to stay ontop of things.
In order to organise ourselves for filming our thriller, we set out a list of what we needed(including props and equipment) for our shoot. All we were given for our shooting was a hd camera and a tripod, the rest we had to organise for ourselves. We knew we only had a certain amount of time to complete shooting our thriller so we tried to make a start straight away.
To play our teenage girl for our Thriller, we managed to find an actress from our school(Tia Simon- Campbell). She gave up her free time to come to our location and shoot for the day which was much appreciated. We thgen also managed to find Josh's dad to play our teenage girl's father.
When we managed to find our actors, we then had to look for a suitable location in the Croydon area close to our school so everyone will be able to make it. We managed to find a location to shoot our thriller which was at a house in Surrey because our main idea was for the film to be shot inside in a normal family home. During filming, we had to make sure that the filming was done witin a certain amount of time because our thriller idea is that the daylight is dusk, so we had to make sure our shooting outside was completed befor it got dark outside. We chose the daylight to be dusk because it gives the audience a more dark thriller feeling and this would make opur film seem more interesting than broad daylight. Not many other thrillers are shot when outside is completely bright, there is always a slight shade. Before filming, we had to make sure we had the correct props for our thriller. We had sto make sure for certain that we had the pictures of random teenage girls because it was going to be in the shot. So a few days before shooting our thriller, we walked around school asking for girls permission if we could take a photo of them for our thriller, then the pictures would be threw away afterwards. We also had to make sure that the father was dressed smart(suit and tie) like he has just got home from work. The teenage daughter also had to make sure she was wearing normal clothes that she would wear when shes in the house.

Ashley

Why we chose this idea for our thriller

Our thriller opening is called "Taken". The thriller is all about a teenage girl aged 15-17 years of age that realises that her father has been taking pictures of other girls her age. The teenage girl goes into her fathers room thinking that she will find her birth certificate for her homework project but then finds disturbing photos of teenage girls. She then searches one of these girls on google, and thats when the film ends. The idea for our thriller was to make it a psychological thriller and make the audience think about it afterwards instead of just watching it. Also we chose this idea because othis was the idea that everyone agreed on without any dissagreements or anyone feeling unsure.
Our group decided to choose this specific idea because we believed that this idea made us think of so many ideas to have for this opening. All other ideas we came up with were typical thriller/scary ideas that other groups were thinking of shooting. I also believe that our group idea is different from every over groups ideas. By doing a film that is more scary, there is a specific system you have to follow in order for it to work. So therefore this didn't really make us come up with any origional ideas.

Ashley

Was up people its Josh, here i know its a bit late but this is my pre-production blog. 1 how did our idea come about.

In the early week me and my group where brainstorming ideas every lesson, we had one idea of a girl runing through a forest/woodland while being chased by a man reach a clearing then shes caught. I like this idea it buit suuspense and was very fast paced and would have made an audience think and question.who is this girl? why is she bieng chased? Who is the person chasing her? This has all the elements of a thriller. Personally i liked the idea but i thought this rasises issuses of representation because it is a generalization, that it would be a women runnning away in fear or painc, as opposed to a man.

2 Another idea was. That the character wakes up to a wrecked house detroyed furnitiure smashed glass and blood stained walls. As the character walks throughthe house the opening shows flashes of the house being ransaked by unknown people. Finally the character reaches a room witht the door closed but bloody hand prints on the door, the charcter opens it looks in closes it in disgust then goes to leave but there is a mysterious tall figure standing behind him. I felt this idea of seeing a "after the storm past" type scene would have been effective to see how a character would react would fill the audience with huge tension, wondering hat sort of force it would have taken to wreck a house like that or how much pian must a person be in to bleed that badly (yes its morbid)but they are all ideas and thoughts that would manifest in the audiences mind.

3 This was our final idea for the thriller opening. It is set at twilight the opening is man in a nice car pulling up in his drive way in front of a nice house gets out and enters, then says a few lines dialogue to his daughter then as he leave the daughter asks him for her birth certificate but he dosent hear her as he slams the door as he leaves again. So the daughter goes off and looks for the birth certificate on her own, goes into his wardrobe sercing and finds a box of photos of girls but one sticks out as if it has some meaning to her. so she types it ito the computer but then the scene would cut out then. We thought this one would be best becuase it starts of innocent enough with a fasther coming home, and being caring and what-not but when the audience see our charcter find all thses ppicture the audience will be woundering if this man is truly as wonderful as they where lead to beleive. So this is how the idea for our performance came aroundWe all like and we thin k it will make a great opening.

Josh

Thriller Directors and Actors

Alfred Hitchcock is said to be the master of the Thriller. Hitchcock was born in 1899 in Leytonstone. He was known for his fusions of suspense and humour and virtually invented the thriller genre. Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. Director of such works as Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds and The 39 steps, Hitchcock told his stories through intelligent plots witty dialogue and a spoonful of mystery and murder. In doing so, he inspired a new generation of filmmakers and revolutionized the thriller genre, making him a legend around the world. Other popular thriller directors are Michael Mann, Wolfgang Peterson, Stephen Hopkins and Martin Scorsese. Scorsese was born in November 1942 and is an award winning director. Scorsese's work addresses themes such as Italian American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption,[1] machismo, and violence. Scorsese is widely considered to be one of the most significant and influential American filmmakers of his era. Some of his most famous works were Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas. Thrillers also have a set type of actor that is always used. Popular thriller actors include:
• Al pacino
• Matt Damon
• Morgan Freeman
• Barbara Stanwyck
• Denzel Washington
• Jodie Foster

Shanice x

Editing Stages

Once we had reviewed all the footage it was time to edit and put it all together. We knew that we all had to edit at least one section of the opening and tried to do this effectively. I was able to take part in a lot of the editing myself and overlooked most of the editing process. I found that most of my group also did this which was a good way of working as we were able to give opinions on all the different shots so that we were all happy with the finished product. However, some members of the group did not do as much or chip in as much with the editing as others. The editing process on the whole took quite a while. This was because we had filmed a lot of footage for example different angles and shot types. Therefore we had to sort through them all and decide which ones to use and how to use them. This takes time to make sure it is all fluid. We also needed time sort out our match on action shots as they take quite a lot of time to get completely right. I found the most difficult part was keeping continuity between shots. Also making sure that the story was portrayed clearly and effectively. The match on action was also very hard to get correct however, once done it really complemented the piece. Something that we did during the editing stages was the soundtrack for the opening. Me and Ashley focused on this as we have experience working with sequencing programs and making music on the computer. We wanted the music to create a mood of mystery and unease. We also wanted something that we could fade in and out of the piece so that you could hear the dialogue clearly. We feel that the soundtrack created does this well and it added an extra touch that realy made it feel like a thriller. Overall the editing process went very smoothly and we feel that we were able to produce an effective thriller.

Shanice x

Uploading and Reviewing Footage

Once we had finished filming it was time to upload our footage onto the computer and begin the editing stages, however before you edit you footage you must review it all, name each shot and discuss which ones are god and could be used and which ones can be deleted. We uploaded our footage off our tape onto final cut pro and started reviewing. As we went through each shot we named them to make it more practical when it came to the editing stage. We also colour coded them for the beginnng of our piece, middle section and ending. As we were looking through the shots I found that we had little continuity issues, something that it was very important we addressed and made sure we did not include them in the final piece. I began to take notes of small things like this that I noticed to make sure that we remembered to rectify issues similar to this. Also our fears were confirmed when we watched the shots from the bedroom as some were just to dark and were not able to be used in the piece at all. This was a real disappointment, however gave us something to think about for next time. Once we had watched all the footage and organized it accordingly it was time to start the editing stage.

Shanice x

Diary of Filming Day

We all arrived at our location on the day of filming. We had previously decided that we were going to try and film everything on one day so had created a schedule to follow. This schedule stated in what order we were going to film our shots which would give us some stability and help us with our time management. The first thing we did was split into two groups to get things done more quickly and efficiently. Two people were in charge or organizing the set and preparing the pros and two people were in charge of setting up the camera and talking to out actors about what they would have to do in each scene. This really helped us as a group and I feel was a time when we shoed good teamwork. If I were to do this project again I would definitely use this method again. Once we had fully set up we started filming our first shots of the outside scenes. Unfortunately our male actor had to leave by a certain time so we were unable to shoot the outside scenes later on in the day when it was dark, however we pulled through and filmed some good shots from different angles. We then moved onto the inside shots and the dialogue between the father and daughter. This was filmed in the dining room to make it look like she had been doing her homework before he walked in. After these were complete we started to work on the door slam scene. This caused us some difficulties as we found it hard to get the timing perfect. We ended up having to keep doing shot after shot to keep it continuous. Once we had mastered that we started to focus on the upstairs scenes. This is when we encountered our biggest problem, the lighting. We found that in our main bedroom where the most important scenes were going to be filmed, the light was incredibly dim. We tried every avenue we could think of to try and generate some more light in the shots. After lots of effort and little change, we decided we going to have to just film the shots and hopefully change the lighting during the editing stages. Another problem we faced was filming the close up of the pictures. This was because we were either zooming in too fast too quickly or not zooming in enough. We found a way to sort this out was to do a couple of practice shots until we got a feel for the camera and how fast and far we wanted to zoom in. This really helped us and in the end we were able to get some good shots. Finally we moved onto our last shot in the computer room where the daughter is typing the name into google. I decided to add an extra touch by putting the chosen picture next to the screen and we felt like this really added to the shot.

When decided who did what shot we decided to play to each others strengths and make sure it was even so that one person was not doing all the filming and the others were just standing around. I also came up with the idea that if u were not filming a shot you would go set up and think about the next shot to save time and make sure we were working efficiently. This worked very well as we ended up finishing on time and we could move from shot to shot fluidly. Overall the filming day went very well and I feel that we worked well as a team. However, if I did the project again I would check the location for vital factors like lighting to make sure that we come prepared for all problems that we could face.

Shanice x

Production Schedule

Production Schedule

12:oopm- Arrive at location and begin setting up the set and camera

12:30pm-Have group discussion and finalize what different shots we want to include in our piece.

12:45pm- Start by filming the outside shots of car pulling in drive and father getting out of car. Also do shots of father coming into the front door. Take all these shots from various angles and views to create variety.

1:15pm-Start the dialogue shots between father and daughter in dining area. Take from different angles around the room and test different lighting. Once finished male actor can leave.

1:45pm-Do solo shots of daughter doing her homework to use as filler between shots.

2:00pm-Door slam shots from different angles

2:40pm-Do stair shots of daughter walking up the stairs

3:00pm- Bedroom scene of daughter looking through the wardrobe. Take from different angles. High and low shots. Close ups on pictures as she finds them.

4:00pm- Closing scenes of daughter in the computer room on google. One close-up shot of her typing the name and one ambient shot to add diversity and contrast.

4:30pm- Pack up equipment and leave location.

Shanice x

Actors and Costume

Actors

When choosing our actors we considered 4 main things:

Do they suit the story/ brief?
Could they pass for father and daughter?
Do they act?
Will they be willing to give up their time?

All of these were very important factors in getting the correct actors for out thriller. After watching and researching Thrillers I noticed the the actors play a big part in how the film makes you feel and react. IT a part is cast badly you tend to focus on that and not on the film and story itself, a mistake we did not want to make with out Thriller. The brief was an older man, preferably between 35-50years old who looked and came across like a typical, respectable father in suburbier. We also wanted a 14-16year old girl who looks like your average teenager. One of our friends steped in to play the daughter and fit the brief perfectly and now we were faced with the challenge of finding a suitable man to play her father. Luckily on of out group members actual fathers agreed to play the part for us.

Costume

Father- The father should be dressed in a suit with smart shoes and preferably have a suitcase or briefcase. He should look like he has just arrived home from work.

Daughter- The daughter can either be wearing her school uniform or comfortable house clothing like tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt so that it looks like she has been at school that day.

Shanice x

Location and Props

Location:

When looking for a location I had a very specific image in mind. I pictured a big house with a large drive and lots of different rooms to film in. The house also had to look like it was in a respectable area and preferably has lots of space so we could film from different angles and get a wide variety of shots. The perfect house I knew of that fit this brief perfectly was my uncle’s house. He agreed to let us use his house, which was one major battle over with. We discussed what days we preferred to film on and then discussed it further with my uncle until we found a day that worked well for us as a whole team.

Props:

After looking into our idea and finding our location it was time to decide what props we would use in our thriller. Although we did not need any big props we did need lots of smaller ones that added extra touches and pieced the story together these included:
1. Homework books and a pencil case for when the daughter is doing her homework in the opening shots.
2. A small box for the pictures at the back of the wardrobe.
3. The actual Polaroid pictures of the girls, at least 7 different girls.
4. Computer for her to use google in the closing shots.
5. Dining room tables and chairs
6. Car for the father to pull up outside the house in the opening shot
Most of these props were easy to come across and I was able to make sure they were at the location before filming day. However, the Polaroid pictures caused a problem, as we could not get hold of a Polaroid camera. We discussed just using a digital camera however felt like the use of this particular type of picture would add something to the piece and did not want to leave it out. Finally I was able to track down an old Polaroid camera from a family member and we could go ahead with the idea. After i had found the camera i went out with ashley and we took pictures of the girls for the project. This was the only time I felt like we did not necessarily work well together as a team as I felt like it was put on me to get a camera and pay for the film. This is something I would reconsider if I were to do this project again.


Shanice x

Idea Development

After many long discussions we were able to come up with 3 main ideas for our thriller. These were:

• Stalker and psychological themed thriller where a young girl is sifting through her fathers things and comes across pictures of girls with their names and addresses on the back. She then types the names into google and is shown missing person reports connected with these women. 
  

• Horror and Mystery Thriller where a daughter of a middle class family is home alone and puts on her old family videos, however during one of the videos it cuts out and shows a horrific murder involving a family member.
  
• Drama and Action Thriller where an ex cop wakes up in a strange building that has been trashed, but all the windows and doors are locked. He has cuts and bruises all over him and he seems to be alone.
  

We considered the pros and cons of each idea and found that some routes we would want to take were just impossible in the time frame and budget we were working with. Also we considered what location we could use for our thriller as that was a main factor that affected which idea we chose. For example, for the third idea we needed full reign on an empty building our house to film in. This building would have to be completely trashed for it to be realistic and unfortunately this wasn’t viable. We also wanted to do something that had not necessarily been done many times before and felt that this was the case for the second Horror and Mystery idea. Therefore we decided to go for the first idea. We thought this was a very good idea as it has not been done too many times before and we thought we could really put our own spin on it. We also were able to think of possible props, actors and locations very quickly. We thought that this idea could be very interesting both for us to film and most importantly for the audience. Psychological Thrillers can be very gripping and full of mystery and suspense so we had to think of a way to incorporate these vital elements. As this was my idea I tried to think of different avenues we could take in order to make it believable and still include those thriller elements that were very important to the genre. We decided to set in a middle class family with a nice house, nice car possibly a dog to set the scene of a normal ‘happy’ family. We had to think of possible transitions to tell the story correctly and came up with the idea that the daughter is doing her homework when her father returns from work. We wanted there to be a very distinct divide between the authority of the parent and the respect given by the daughter because of this. We then came up with the idea that she needs to take her birth certificate into school the next day but before she knows it her father has popped out again. She decided to have a look around her parent’s room and whilst shuffling above the wardrobes a box falls down and out falls all the pictures of the girls. She then types one of the names into google to figure out what is going on. Once we were happy with this idea, we started thinking about props and possible locations and actors. We decided to give each other set roles and things to think about before filming day began. I focused on props and the location.

shanice x

Taken from BDC on Vimeo.

Shot Lists

Shot 1 - In our first shot we want the car to be driving onto the driveway. The car is nice, typical of a middle-class family with money.

Shot 2 - Our second shot is a shot of the car from behind which includes the outside of the house in the shot. Again the house is reasonably big typical of a middle-class family.

Shot 3 - Next we need a shot of the Father stepping out of the car. We don not see his face to create tension and suspense.

Shot 4 - Our next shot is of the Father opening the front door. His face is still concealed to uphold the suspense.

Shot 5 - Shot 5 is of the Father inside the house shutting the front door. Face is still not shown.

Shot 6 - Behind shot of daughter doing her homework.

Shot 7 - Shot of Father telling daughter he is going out.

Shot 8 - In this shot the daughter gets up from doing her homework and shouts out to her Father. Using a variety of shots from different angles to show different implications. For example shot from a high angle on the stairs makes the girl feel small, like a victim.

Shot 9 - Daughter gets up from doing her homework. Panning shot from living room to hallway.

Shot 10 - Daughter walks upstairs. Low angle shot to show her going into the dark. Implies something sinister is about to happen.

Shot 11 - Daughter turns on light upstairs and goes into Father's bedroom.

Shot 12 -  Daughter is in bedroom, begins searching through Father's cupboards. Panning shot from door to cupboards.

Shot 13 - Zoomed in shot of Daughter searching in cupboard. Box falls down.

Shot 14 - Zoomed out shot of Daughter picking up box and photos.

Shot 15 - Zoomed in on photos so we can see they are disturbing of stalked women.

Shot 16 - Zoomed in on computer where Daughter searches for the women in the photos.

Shot 17 - Zoomed out shot from behind Daughter, it leaves us wondering what she has found. Shot fades out.

Brad

Storyboard for Thriller Opening 2

1. Visual - Daughter goes upstairs to look for birth certificate.

    Audio - Going upstairs. Thriller music.

2. Visual - Daughter opens Father's bedroom.

    Audio - Sound of door opening. Thriller music.

3. Visual - Daughter knocks a box off of her Father's shelf.

    Audio - Thriller music fades out and we hear the box fall.

4. Visual - Daughter picks up photos and sees they are disturbing photos of women.

    Audio - Sound of daughter looking through photos. Music slowly increases in volume again.

5. Visual - Daughter types one of the girl's names on the picture into a search engine.

    Audio - Sound of typing and Thriller music.

6. Visual - Shot from behind the girl and computer, leaving us wondering what she has found. Scene fades to black.

    Audio - Thriller music fades out.

Brad

Storyboard for Thriller Opening

1. Visual - Car drives onto the driveway. (Father coming home from work.)

    Audio - Sound of the car driving onto the drive. Background thriller music.

2. Visual - Father steps out of car. We do not see his face only his foot step out the car.

    Audio - Sound of foot stepping out of car. Background thriller music.

3. Visual - Father opens door.

    Audio - Sound of keys opening the door. Background thriller music.

4. Visual - Father shuts door behind him.

    Audio - Sound of door shutting. Background thriller music.

5. Visual - Father walks in and daughter is doing homework.

    Audio - No thriller music so we can hear conversation. Father tells daughter he is going out.

6. Visual - Daughter rushes to catch her Father before he leaves.

    Audio - Daughter asks Father where her birth certificate is. Thriller music creeps in again.

Brad

Locations

Locations:

• Outside House on the drive as the car pulls up to the house
  
• Living room where daughter completes homework
  
• Hallway and staircase where daughter goes upstairs
  
• Father's bedroom for daughter to be searching in
  
• Daughter's bedroom where daughter types the girls names in the photographs into the computer.

Brad

Prop Lists

Prop Lists:

• Box to hold photographs
  
• Polaroid photographs of women with their names and addresses on them
  
• Homework for girl to be completing at the table
  
• Stationary for girl to be doing her homework with
• Lamp for the table where daughter is doing her homework
• Car for father to drive onto driveway with
• Keys for father
  
• Computer with internet for daughter to search for information about the girls in the photographs
  

Brad

Costume

Costume:

Father dressed in a smart black suit typical of someone who works in an office, complete with white shirt, black blazer, black tie, black trousers, black sock and black shoes. His clothes need to be sophisticated so that it is a shock when the photos that are amongst his things have been revealed. The use of black also suggests he is sinister.

Daughter is dressed casually in her tracksuit, typical of a school girl who has changed into something more comfortable after school, complete with grey jumper and grey tracksuit bottoms. She looks like the typical teenager, again which fools the audience into a false sense of security, because when she finds the photos in her father's things she realises they are not a normal father and daughter.

Brad

Actors

Talent:

Adult Black Male aged between 35 & 50. 

The person who plays the father needs to seem friendly at first, but could also suggest a sinister side. He needs to appear to the audience as a disturbing character who would stalk and photograph various women.

Teenage Black Female aged between 13 & 18

The person who plays the daughter should seem innocent and naive. She is an innocent schoolgirl who is having a normal night at home doing her homework, and has a casual relationship with her father as a normal, uninterested teenager would. However she needs to be vulnerable when she sees the photos as she becomes scared of her father.

Both characters should look like a standard father and daughter (therefore the father cannot look too young or the daughter too old). They also need to look somewhat similar to make the thriller opening seem as convincing as possible.

Brad

Budget, Staff & Equipment

Budget:

N/A

Production Staff:

4 Camera Operators

Equipment:

1 HD Camera

1 Tripod

1 External Battery

1 Battery Charger

1 Extension Cable

1 Video Tape

Brad

Script

Outline Script: 

There will be a few lines of dialogue shared between the father and daughter when he comes in and then exits again.

Father: Hello, darling doing your homework?

Daughter: (Unenthusiastically) Yeah.

Father: Alright, I've just got to pop out Ok?

Daughter: Yeah fine. (Father exits.) (Shouting) Dad! Where's my birth certificate I need it for school! (Door Slams.)

We chose to have a few lines of dialogue as they are key to the plot. We ensured the lines sounded natural rather than put on like in the student thriller opening 'Breathless'. We chose to keep the number of lines to a minimum as we wanted to focus on our visuals as they are most important. In addition sound can be added in afterwards therefore it is not key at this stage.

Brad

Contingency Plan

• Weather conditions - We will be filming most of our thriller inside the house therefore we had little concern regarding weather conditions. However we film our first few shots outside, when the car is pulling into the drive, therefore if it rains on the Saturday, when we are due to film, we will have to reschedule these scenes for either Sunday or Monday afternoon.
• Power - Again as we are filming inside we have no need to worry about an external power source if the battery runs out. However if the shots outside the house are too far away we can use an extension cable so that we can continue filming.
• Location - The house we have booked is one of our production teams and can be used on Saturday, Sunday and Monday therefore we don't need to worry about alternate locations. The house has been viewed and the layout is perfect for our thriller filming. There is a lot of space to work so we will not be restricted.
• Illness - If any of the production crew are ill on the day we are due to film we will either film on Sunday instead of Saturday or work with just 3 members of our team until they feel well enough to work. If any actors are ill again we can reschedule to the following day or in an emergency incident we have back-up actors.

Brad

Production Schedule

We were giving a week to film our thriller opening and we needed to create a production schedule to decide what days were to be filming.

We decided to film on a Saturday as this was a day when all members of the production team and our actors were free. It gave us the whole day for filming so we focus solely on the project at hand. Also if anything went wrong or any errors occured we had another full day on Sunday to film anything we may have got wrong or missed. As the cameras had to be returned Tuesday, we had Monday to recap our film with our teachers to ensure we hadn't filmed anything poorly or missed anything essential so that if we had, we could re-shoot that afternoon to make sure we had enough good footage to edit with. Using this production schedule we would keep to our deadline of handing the cameras in on Tuesday.

Brad

Synopsis of Final Idea

So after much deliberation here is our final idea!

Programme Title: 'Taken'

Client: AS Media Studies

The thriller opening will begin with a car pulling into a drive. The scene outside will be grey and dark to reflect a solum mood. A man will step out from the car although we will not be able to see his face, leaving him unidentified and mysterious which will create tension. 

The scene switches to one of a teenage girl doing her homework in the living room. We realise the mysterious character is her father and he needs to leave to run some errands. However the girl needs something for a school project and shouts out to him as he is about to leave, however she is too late and must search the house herself to find what she needs.

She goes upstairs where it is dark and a sense of tension is created as we do not know what could be in the dark. 

The girl begins to rummage through her father's things trying to find what she needs for her school project. As she searches, fast-paced, intense music plays to create suspense. She knocks a box off of a shelf whilst searching and photos are scattered all over the floor. She picks them up and there is a close-up of her hand on the photos, revealing stalker-like pictures taken of various girls. The photos are accompanied by names and addresses. 

The girl is in a panic after finding these disturbing photos amongst her father's things and goes to a computer to find out more about the girls in the photos. The scene cuts just as she presses enter so we are left wondering what she has found out.

We decided to incorporate the photographs from our first idea and the use of panic and searching through her father's things from our second idea to produce this final result. I feel that it will be effective as it uses the key features of a thriller and is different from things we have seen before. We discarded ideas like the chase through the woods and the murder video on the TV as we felt these were too cliche and copied other thrillers/horrors.

Brad

Idea Development

We had many ideas for a our thriller opening and we needed to refine them, and join our individual ideas together to come up with the best final outcome. Here are some of our initial ideas:

• Opens with a girl in a dream but we don't know it.
• Girl sees a box of photos on her bed and goes to put them away but then she sees the content of the photos inside.
• There is a close-up of her hand on the photos, they are of her as seen by a stalker.
• At this point her boyfriend comes in and she hides the photos from him.
• She runs out but he sees she's been looking through the photos and chases after her.
• She runs through the park into the woods. There is fast paced music.
• After being chased through the woods she comes into a clearing and there is a full circle shot of her. She has nowhere to hide.
• She suddenly wakes up with her boyfriend next to her asking her what's wrong. She sees the photos out of the corner of her eye.
• Dream in black and white and real-life in colour.

This was one of or first ideas. We liked it however we wanted to steer clear of the typical stalker and chase thrillers. Also the idea of having black an white for a dream and colour for real-life was slightly cliche. However the idea of using photos in a sinister way was good we incorporated that into our final idea.

Our idea then progressed:

• The thriller opening will feature a young girl who is home alone watching a video tape of when she was younger.
• Set at home at night to create suspense, only light is the blue light from the TV.
• After about 30 secs of the childhood video, it cuts to a murder scene, however it is not vivid and the camera angle is awkward and distorted although you can hear the screams from what is going on.
• The video suddenly ends and the girl searches for more clues.
• However as she is searching someone comes home and we hear them drive up to the house.
• The girl panics as she has to put everything back how it was before the person comes in and sees that she has watched the video tape.
• The person comes in and the girl acts oblivious although she is scared.

This was a good idea and we liked the idea of the girl searching for clues to solve something mysterious. However the idea of a videotape seems to similar to horror movie 'The Ring' therefore we are going to incorporate the photos from the previous idea instead.

Stay posted for our final thriller idea!

Brad

"Breathless"

The beginning of Breathless opens with titles that flicker in and out. The title is in black and white which gives a dark and eerie feel as there are no colours used to provide any sense of light. I felt the title was effective as it appeared on  the screen as if being typed on a type-writer like a police report which again gave a sense of suspense which is something I wish to re-create in our thriller opening.

There is a quick shot of someones eyes which is mysterious as their identity is concealed. Again this is a technique I could use in our thriller to create suspense about a mysterious or dangerous character. Another effective technique used is that there are also shots of objects on their own, which shows to an audience they are significant to the story. 

'Breathless', a detective thriller had an effective transition between shots to keep continuity throughout the opening. In addition the sound had good continuity. It was set in a dark setting, in a dark room where you never saw the detective's face. This created suspense and tension as I was waiting for his identity, and the room to be unveiled.

The use of a torch to light the room was effective as it allowed the showing of only certain objects that the director wanted you to see. . The candles looked eerie as the light created by them was flickering against the dark walls which looked very effective.

However the dialogue used in this film sounded unnatural and very staged. Also the speaking through a walkie-talkie was firstly overused, and secondly was off putting and sounded comical rather than scary. Therefore I have learnt in my Thriller to use little or no dialogue as firstly it can be distracting to the visuals and secondly if I do use dialogue, it will need to be natural.

Overall, 'Breathless' was a great thriller opening as it used some of the key features of thrillers such as dark lighting, concealed and mysterious characters and dark and spooky settings. However the issue which distracted from the great visuals was the unnecessary use of dialogue through the walkie-talkies.

Brad