Production Schedule: Sunday 15th January

Weather check

We will be filming Wednesday 11th January and Sunday 15th January.
We will be filming at two different locations, in Connie's Nan's bathroom and in public toilets in Dartford, here is the weather check for both days.

The weather is suitable for both days however we will be inside for most of the day at Connie's nan's house, so it would be as much of a problem, however we will be in Dartford, outside for most of the day on the Wednesday, therefore we need to be careful as we will have expensive equipment and we need to ensure our shots are in continuity.

Animatic Storyboard

Here is a link to our animatic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZIaWe5IEMY&feature=youtu.be

The storyboard has helped our group because it has shown us what our film will look like, what shot it where and how long the shots will be and if this looks ok.

Call Sheet

Se7en Interpretation

After watching the opening title sequence of Se7en, we used pictures we were given to make our own interpretation of the Se7en sequence, using surveillance. This is a practice as we used Final Cut Pro to put the pictures in order, get the timings how we wanted them so they fitted the sequence and we added the music from Se7en into our project. Also, we added effects to make our opening title as similar to the Se7en opening as possible.

Production Schedule

Vox Pops: Audience Expectations of a Thriller.

Here is my finished video of Vox Pops, the questions in which were asked were the following:
1) How old are you? I chose to ask 15 to 25 year olds as from researching thriller audiences in class, I found out the majority of people who watch thrillers fit this age range.

2) What are you expectations of a thriller film?
3) What is your favourite thriller film?

From my findings I found that most of the people I asked expected a thriller to have mystery, suspense and an enticing storyline. Plus, the majority preferred newer thriller films, which I believe is down to the updated, modern storylines and effects on the films.

Storyboard Animatic

We have created a storyboard animatic so that it gives us a clearer idea of how our film will look.

Titles Map:

To make sure that our filming goes productively we need to ensure we know exactly what we are doing. This is why we made a titles map which will show us how many seconds we need to film each shot for, where the shots will be edited to and to see how smoothly our story-line runs.

This is our Titles Map:

Vox Pops: Audience Expectations of a Thriller.

Tomorrow I plan to interview people between the ages of 15 to 25 as that is the target audience of my group's thriller. I shall be filming my interviews tomorrow between 12.15 until 2.15 in order to get a varied sample of answers. I am aiming to interview at least 5 people for this. I will be posting the video after I have completed my task.

Shot for shot: Final Opening Sequence.

To make filming a little easier i have made a shot for shot guide of what will happen in our sequence, This will make doing the storyboard and the titles map easier also:


Shot 1- Eye (ECU).
Shot 2-Washing Make-up off from eye (MS).
Shot 3- Pan camera to tag on arm (ECU).
Shot 4- Wipes lips (ECU).
Shot 5- Bathroom (ES).
Shot 6- Looks in mirror (OSS).
Shot 7- Girl plays with hair, looks down (OSS).
Shot 8- Sink, hair fall (CU).
Shot 9- Bending over sink, rises up (LS).
Shot 10- Girl plays with hair, Looks at ID (MS).
Shot 11- ID Close up pans until put in pocket (CU).
Shot 12- Girl smiles in  mirror, goes to hit mirror (MS).
Shot 13- Mirror breaks (CU).

Ident/logo is shown.

14: Top of ceiling (ECU).
15- Water dripping in bucket (CU).
16- Starts at body pans up (CU-LS) (Pull focus shot).
17- Toilets public (ES)
18- Girl kneeling over body, stands, walks (LS).
19. Feet walking (CU)
20- Sink (ES).
21- Blood washing off of hands (CU).
22- Looks in mirror, rubs face (MS).
23- Puts on lipstick (ECU).
24. Puts on mascara (ECU).
25- Takes top off (MCU).
26- See trousers go down (CU).
27- Put clothes in plastic bag (LS).
28- Puts weapon in plastic bag (CU).
29- Takes identity out of pocket (LS).
30- Identity (CU)
31- Puts identity in bag (MS).
32- Shoves bag in corner (LS)
33-Walks out, opens door (OSS)
34- Seen in doorway, camera follows backwards as girl is walking (MS).
35- From back, walks into distance (OSS) (LS).

CU= Close-up
ECU= Extreme close-up
MS= Mid-shot
MCU= Mid close-up
OSS= Over the shoulder shot.
LS= Long-shot
ES= Establishing-shot

Communications: Actors.

In order to film our sequence we have to find some actors. I asked my friend Ben King to play the detective by text.

This is the exact conversation:

Katie: ''Ben, will you act in our media Thriller opening sequence? We're filming over the 14th and 15th of January. You'd be needed for two days, a rehearsal day and a shooting day?"

Ben: "What do you need me to do?"

Katie: "I need you to act as a detective, who has been shot. The locations are in West hill and Central Dartford."

Ben: "Sure, of course i will"

Katie:"Thank you! I will inform you when I find out the times"

Permission for locations:

As part of planning we have to get permission to film in the locations we have chosen.

I have been given verbal permission by the owner of the bathroom to be able to shoot in it providing that we do no damage or stain any other the counters ect. Permission agreement given by Carole Veal on the 11th January 2012. Any damaged equipment must be replaced.

This is the bathroom:

Test shots:

When planning our final Thriller opening we needed to get photo's of the actors we will be using. In the opening scene we are introduced to two of the main characters. Here are the photo's of the actors: 


Actor 1- Detective:

Actor 2- Psycho Girl:

I choose Actor 1 to play the detective as he looks very business-like in a suit which suits the character. The actor's name is Ben and he also has a lot of previous acting experience.

I chose Actor 2 to play psycho-girl because she has scary eyes and in our sequence there is a emphasis on the eyes. She looks rather old which is bonus because the characters are in there mid 20's. I know that Actor 1 who's name is Connie has lots of previous acting experience which is important when making our sequence look professional.

Match On Action:

Match On Action:

As Group work we has to each take a task to write about. I chose to write about Match on action.

Match on action is vital to producing a great film. We learnt into todays lesson (26.09.11) that with out match on action, also know as ''Match Cutting'' or ''Graphic match'' our audience will grow frustrated and confused which will distracted them from the story behind the film.
    match on action is when two shots are cut to make sure that they ''flow''  together. this is linked to continuity because the idea is to make sure that the film looks true to life.
  And example of good match on action is presented on the youtube link below. in this scene there are two different shots which have been cut in order to give the the appearance that the scene is flowing and that there was not a cut between the scenes.  
   Match on action can also be used in other scenes such as a conversation. In one shot we could have character talking to another with and over the shoulder from said character. then, when the other character replies there could be another over the shoulder shot but of that character looking at the other.


Here is a example of match on action:

Connie.

Reservoir Dogs: Script.

In order the to film the title sequence from Reservoir Dogs we needed to needed to plan out what was happening in every shot and the about of seconds the shot lasted. This task was hand written for practicality, we took it on the shoot with us in order to know which shot we were filming.
Whilst doing this we writing this we also figured out what the shot list was and what props were needed.
The actors provided some of the props as did connie.

Here is the script we made:

Communication for Reservoir Dogs Remake

I sent out a Facebook event to boys who I thought may be able to help the group to film the remake to see who would be around for filming.

BBFC Research

Communication for Parity remake

 As Mem would be unable to make the date we had set, I decided to ask Liam to see if him would come back after school on monday night to be in the clip.

Liam was ill this day and was therefore unable to participate, Connie then acted as the dead body instead. 

Thriller Production Company Research

http://www.coffeefilms.com/content.html

Coffee Films first began in 1996, following on the Naked Pony company which no longer runs. Naked Pony's main theatre was based in South East England. They then spirelled up to creating documentaries on music and wildlife. They are currently producing; Lucid a psychological drama/thriller and lots of different wildlife projects working with international broadcasters. The company hopes to be successful for a long time.

Partnerships

Coffee Films have been involved with and completed lots of different films since they have been up and running. They like to experiment with technique, style, genre and the medium of moving images mainly. Their aim is to be diverse.

Example of a short Indie Thriller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOnKzNghZho

They have also made films which are not thrillers such as



a drama

And a doccumentary

And a music doccumentary

Shot Reverse Shot

Reservoir Dogs Remake

Roles of the remake

Katie: Directed and communicated with the actors, Titles Map, Filmed
Connie: Directed, Titles Map
Chloe: Edited, shot list

Parity Remake

Our Re-make of Parity

Roles of the group:

Editing and Camera: Katie
Directing: Chloe
Acting/Directing: Connie

http://www.youtube.com/user/GirlsGroupThriller/videos

Sub-genre's of a thriller:

The Sub-Genres of a Thriller:

In taking a deeper look into the thriller genre we see that there “sub-genres”. This is a way of identifying the content of a film. There are characteristics which form the genre of a Thriller for example the use of blood, violence and typically the audience will be kept in suspense, not know how the plot will thicken etc. Yet, certain details in a thriller can picked out and used to form a sub-genre. These are used to associate different thrillers with her, with mutual elements such as plot ect.

I used www.wikipedia .com to research these sun-genres. Please note that sub-genre’s within thrillers may have elements and characteristics of other genre’s such as horror, yet are still classified as a thriller. The sub-genres are as follows:

Action Thriller: Action thrillers often have elements of mystery and crime films. They are full of action, contains large elaborate sets, explosions and guns. There is often a time element to them, with fare-fetched scenarios such as there is two minutes to stop a mars bar from derailing a train, with energetic, strong and ambitious male characters saving the day. For example “James Bond” (see below).

Conspiracy Thriller: Often containing a Heroic character who challenges the darker side. The storylines are mostly political, with beliefs that there may be more to an event than meet the eye, an example would be “Fight Plan” (See below).

Crime Thriller: This genre is extremely hard to place as there is a very fine line as to what is a thriller and as to what is a crime film.  Usually these films are crime films with an added suspense or mystery to a failed crime. They are commonly filmed from the criminals point of view. They focus on actions as oppose to the psychological side of a criminal. The commonly include murders, robberies, shoot-outs ect. For example “Seven” (see below).

Eco-Thriller: The main conflict in these thrillers is due to a disaster whether it be true to life or Science-fiction. Floods, earthquakes and nuclear disasters are all possible storylines. The science fiction element to these, often consist of storylines about problems that may occur in the future.  An example and Eco-Thriller is “In The Blue” (see below).

Erotic Thriller: These thrillers are a mix of the typical characteristics of a thriller and erotica. Becoming more popular since the 1980’s, this genre includes “Fatal Attraction” (see below).

Horror Thriller: These thrillers contain conflict between characters which is mental/emotional and physical. There is also a very fine line between what is a thriller and what is a horror as most horrors have a sense of the “unknown” which is most common in Thrillers. The main elements throughout a Horror thriller are fear and mystery. There is often a superior being or force which the main character has to outsmart, the main characters commonly become victims at one point or another. An example is “28 Days Later” (see below).

Psychological Thriller: commonly, the conflict between main characters is mental and emotional as oppose to physical. A person may have a mental defect or is mentally unhinged causing them to act the way they do. “The Orphan” is an example of this (see below).

Supernatural Thriller: Characters in a supernatural thriller often have abnormal powers of some sort. These thrillers combined the tension accosted with a normal thriller but with added horror aspects such as ghosts and other such phenomenon. An example of such film would be “Carrie” (see below).

Connie.

Recce: Location One.

As part of our planning we were asked to take photo's of the locations were are using for our final opening sequence. The first location is a bathroom. I have taken photographs of the key parts of the bathroom being filmed. The corner. Where the woman will dress and the mirror is where the woman will transform. 


Here are the pictures:

The location has plug sockets just out side the room which can be used for camera charging.
Just out side the door of the room, where the second picture is taken there is enough space to be able to film without capturing any wall ect this is good because the camera can be outside the room, leaving enough space for actors to act ect. This will be productive when filming the scenes with Psycho-girl in the mirror as the camera will not be seen.

This is a residentual bathroom which with a few probs like travel sized complimentarys can be changed to look like a hotle.

There is also a kitchen in this house that can be used for refreshments which i will provide. Tea, coffee ect this is important as we will need to keep actors energy levels up in order for them to perform well.

There is a seperate toilet that the owners of the house/cast/crew can use so that they are not inperupting filiming time.

the lighting is good and the titles are easily wiped which means that there is not a great risk in staining anything.

The bathroom has a good morder feel which will make our film look professional.

There is a spare room in the house which can be used by the cast and crew as a costume/make-up department and can also be used to store equipment without being damaged.

Group Meeting: Thursday 1st December

Connie and Katie are working on The Usual Suspects: Title tagging, whereas Chloe is editing the shots from the remake using Final Cut Pro.

Group Meeting: Monday 28th November

We have all come in today to film our remake of Parity, for this we have brought in ketchup to use as blood and have borrowed a bucket and mop from the school cleaners. The filming is taking place in the boys toilet as it has a mirror we can use and a similar setting to the toilet used in Parity.

For our remake we asked a friend of ours called Josh, who acted as the murderer, and Connie acted as the victim. Katie directed and filmed the remake by using a shot list  and the stills sir had posted on his blog to use as guidelines. Katie was behind the camera, paying close attention to the directions Connie was giving. Chloe is in in the process of editing the shots.

Group Meeting 24th November 2011

We came together as a group to discuss the shooting of Parity which is a remake of another student's work. The topics we discussed were how we were going to shoot it and the mise en scene aspects we will need to film it as close to the original as we can. We watched the video itself and paid close attention to the stills Sir has posted on his blog. We propose to create a shot list, obtain the following props; fake blood, a knife, a bucket and a mop. Also, we are going to message two boys asking them to star in our remake, we will be print-screening the message as evidence.

We have decided to meet every Mondays after school, Tuesdays 3rd Period and Thursdays 3rd Period. Plus, we will write a list of the things we will complete before the following meeting.

Here is the video of Parity.

Brainstorm:

Mr. Barton asked us to produce 3 brainstorms as a group to the three Scenarios that he proposed. Here are the Scenarios: We all produced a brainstorm each. I chose to create a brainstorm for the "Crime thriller scenario". I used the website www.bubbl.us for this. Here is my brainstorm: Mr. Barton also asked up to research Thriller that we think are like the one we brainstormed for. I used the The Internet Movie Database website (www.imdb.com) to find photos and posters on the films I researched. My brainstorm is a little like Seven, although Seven is a psychological Thriller is does have elements of crime thriller in it and i think my story-line is like Seven's because the murderer in Seven murders to get revenge on the people who are committing some of the deadly sins.  Memento is also like my brainstorm as the lead character is seeking revenge. Why completing this task I learnt that you have to think about certain details when thinking up a thriller story-line in order for it to make sense. I was constantly thinking, does this make sense? Is it to complicated to film/act or understand? Is there elements of suspense? Will it appeal to the target market? I feel that my story-line would be more effective if the budget for our production was higher.The actors would need to be in there late 20's. In the end we decided to go with Katie's idea for a Psychological Thriller. This is because psychological thrillers are easier to film on a lower budget, her idea was great and effective, we all agreed strongly that we would like to film it. Here is the brainstorm for Katie's idea:

Moodboard: Final Thriller

Here is our moodboard of the aspects we will include in our thriller. Frankie and Chloe based the photographs on the treatment and ideas the whole group have discussed.

Katie and Connie brainstormed the ideas and planned locations etc for our thriller.

Group Meeting: 22nd November 2011

We met up as a group in order to film our remake of Resevoir Dogs.
We had met up on the 16th and the 21st to film however the people who we had asked to be in our remake did not show up, so today we all met up and got a group of boys together in order to film.
We used goals as our location as their was a wall we could use. Connie was directing as well as Katie, who was also filming and Chloe will be editing the final piece. Katie messaged and invited the people we asked to a group via facebook, so she will print-screen the group invitations and the message.

Brainstorm: Redundancy

As a group we were given these scenarios to choose from individually, so that we could each produce a brainstorm for a thriller of our own. In total our group should have 4 brainstorms, one for each member.

Here is my brainstorm, I chose to take homage to Taxi Driver and Se7en, as my thriller is a psychological thriller called 'Redundancy'. 

The reasons I chose Taxi Driver as I felt it has a very enticing storyline and the whole concept of being trusted when you are a taxi driver by your customer, made me think that this would be an ideal character for my thriller. Plus, the audience would expect the taxi driver to be trustworthy at first and would be surprised when he turns out to be the murderer of the film. I also chose Se7en as the murders in Se7en are very different to each other and yet they all have something in common, for instance, like John Doe, Luke Corseno is mentally unstable and even though they both give off the impression that they are sane, it is a front.

From this task, I found it easier to understand why the directors of thriller films included certain characters, props and the idea for their film a lot more clearer, as when thinking about the different aspects I wanted to incorporate in my film, I wanted to ensure that the plot would be enticing to the audience, that the story would conclude well and that it was understood. In all, this task has helped me a lot to think about the many different types of thrillers, the genre conventions and why they are used.

Group Work- Audience Research Statistics

Double Indemnity

From looking at the ratings, it is denotes to me that this is a very popular film, as 28.6% of the people who rated gave the film a 10, 25.9% gave a 9 and 23.9% rated it an 8, therefore compared to the other ratings, it has fulfilled its aim of attracting it's target audience. 18-29 year old males rated the film the most so in effect I think that this film was aimed at the male gender and the specific age range of 18 - 29. Generally, due to the content of the film being scandalous and fast paced, it would keep the male audience enticed as they are primarily interest in action, plus seeing as the main character is a man, they can emphasise with him.

Fight Club

Setting aside that Fight Club is one of my all time favourite films, when looking at the statistics, it is relevant to say that many others enjoy watching the film as much as I do. The fact that 43% of the ratings are a 10, 28% are a 9 and 16% an 8, it is very clear that many of the people who have seen the film have enjoyed it rather than the minority of people who gave a low rating. The older the person, the lower rating they gave, which to me denotes that the target audience for this film was the younger generation of adults. Plus, due to the cast being male, with a fast paced storyline, it would explain why mostly men watch this film. Fight Club was one of the first films I watched knowing it was from the Thriller genre, therefore while watching it I could see it was a prominant film within the whole of the Thriller genre and its timeline.

Se7en

In comparison to the ratings for Double Indemnity and Fightclub, it seems that the older the viewer, the lower the rating, which in conclusion could be down to the fact that thrillers are dominantly certified for the viewing of 15 year olds and 18 year olds, therefore people of these ages are more likely to watch them and find them appealing. Also, following the trend of a male dominant audience, Se7en follows suit with 268,000 male ratings and just 45,000 female ratings. I think the reasoning behind the amount of males watching this film is due to the disgusting images from each crime, the male dominance of the cast and the enigma code of the film.

Group Meeting 15/11/2011

We were not successful as there was lack of communication and lack of time. This has resulted in level 1.
To change this, our action plan will include getting each others numbers. We have realised texting is not the best way to communicate with each other. We did not have a very good plan to begin to film.

We have planned to shoot on Thursday and film Reservoir Dogs.

Production Company Possible Logo's:

Script for Preliminary Task:

Script:

Preliminary Task:.

Scene starts with a close up of Mark putting a gun in his pocket.

We then see him straighten his clothes and loosen up (Long Shot).

There is then an emphasis Marks foot as he walks through the door and sits on a chair. (Camera places on floor, mark’s feet walk past).

We then see a Mark’s facial expressions as he sits at the table. He is nervous about the gun in his pocket. There is then footsteps heard. (Mid-shot).

Then Mary appears, she shits on her chair. (Mid-shot)

Close up on tea cup which is put on the table.

Mary: Here’s your tea. (Sounding angry)

(Two-shot: Mary pushes cup towards Mark)

Mary: How was your day dear? (Emphasis on the word “Dear”)

(As Mary speaks there is an Over-the-shoulder-shot from Mark, Grabbing the cup and nearly taking a sip. Yet he does not, he waits and replies to Mary)

Mark: Yeah, not too bad. (Playing it cool)

                                                     (Close up of Mark drinking)

(Extreme close up of Mary’s eyes then a mid-shot as she is clicking her fingers on the table)

Mary: I know you did it.

Mark: Did what?

(Mark dies loudly)

(Long shot as Mary stands up, Two-shot walking to body dialogue is said in these shots)

Mary: You killed your other wives. I guess you were finally out smarted and by a cup of tea. A real assassin. (Emphasis on the word assassin)

(Mid-shot of Mary looking smug)

Mary: They do say, true love never dies. Ha!

Research: History of Thriller