22nd February 2010 - Actors, Costumes and Props

The actors that will be in our thriller are Sam Willis as the 'Stalker' and Ashley Grantham as the 'Indie Kid'. We have decided on these as they are reliable as they are also taking AS media and understand that they cannot mess around. We have also chosen them due to their physical attributes as Sam is tall and suits the style of a stalker, and Ashley has the hair and build of an 'Indie Kid'.

This is Sam Willis:

This is Ashley Grantham:

Sam's character the stalker will be wearing a long jacket, jeans and boots, similar to these:

Ashley's character the 'Indie Kid' will be wearing a hoodie, jeans, trainers and a flat peak hat. He will also be wearing headphones:

21st February 2010 - Thriller Genre Research

‘Thrillers are films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension. Thriller and suspense films are virtually synonymous and interchangeable categorizations, with similar characteristics and features’. ‘ A thriller is a film that pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. The tension usually arises when the main character is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission from which escape seems impossible.’ [http://www.filmsite.org/thrillerfilms.html]

There are many films that are included in the thriller genre; however these can be split into many different sub genres. ‘Number 23’ is a physiological thriller, The Bourne Trilogy is action thrillers and the Scream Trilogy is horror thrillers.

‘Characters in thrillers include convicts, criminals, stalkers, assassins, down-on-their-luck losers, innocent victims, prison inmates, menaced women, characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, fugitives, private eyes, drifters, people involved in twisted relationships, world-weary men and women, psycho-fiends, and more. The themes of thrillers frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder.’ [http://www.filmsite.org/thrillerfilms.html]

16th February 2010 - Location Planning

Today me and Adam went around Toton trying to find suitable locations for the filming of our thriller. We decided that some paths along Toton sidings would be best as it would fit our storyboard perfectly and is in quite a quiet area so would not be at risk of shots being ruined by other people. As there are trees and bushes either side of the path it makes it perfect for a stalker scenario, which is what we are aiming for in our thriller opening. These are images of the location that we are going to shoot:


This part of the path has a slight curve so it would be perfect for the beginning of our clip when we first start seeing the stalker, also it had bushland either side of the path so it can add mystery.


This part of the path is straight and long, this is perfect for the two shots when we want see both stalker and victim on camera.



This area of path has a bank running parallel to it, meaning we could film the wide shots at the end of the clip from a high angle, adding more mystery, and we would also be able to see both characters at the same time, instead of doing separate shots.

12th February 2010 - Thriller Planning

In this lesson we analysed the questionnaire results that we gathered from students in our college during the week. We asked 20 students so that we could reach our target audience of teenagers. To analyse the results, we split the questions in half, so we each took 5 each, and then produced pie charts visually displaying out results.We split them in half so it would save us valuable time and we chose pie charts as they can be easily read and can see what is the most popular answer.

This is our analysed results:

This shows that the majority of people would prefer the location to based in a woodlands area.












Most people asked want the thriller to be set in the afternoon.











Most people believe that there should be 2 characters in the opening of our thriller.

The majority of people would like a stalker storyline in a thriller.









Most people would suspense music and ambient sounds to be used in our thriller.











The vast majority of students asked would prefer the thriller to be shot in naturalistic lighting.










The vast majority would like the actors in the film to be male.












Props and costumes that people wanted to be include were dark clothing, mysterious objects and contrasting costumes.









The majority of people would prefer there not to be speech in the opening of a thriller.












85% of people would prefer the colour used to be dark and mysterious than bright.









Using these results it gives us a clear view of what people in our target audience would like in a thriller. These include naturalistic lighting, dark mysterious colours and clothing, male characters, no speech and a stalker storyline.

The next thing we did was worked on the storyboard for our thriller. We decided on what would be in each shot, what camera angles would be used and what editing will be used together, where as Adam drew up the storyboard and wrote the text so it looked more continuous than each of us drawing different sections of it. Also by having one person drawing we could really focus on what we wanted in out shots and how out thriller would look.

This is the animatic of our storyboard that Adam produced so we could visualise what our thriller would look like and could then alter the storyboard if need be. In the clip we used a song that was off a free use music website, to avoid any copyright infringement.

Whilst Adam was finishing off the storyboard by adding colour so that we could turn to the storyboard into an animatic, i wrote up a risk assessment for our shooting.

Risk Assessment

Falling over (Injuring slef or breaking equiptment) - To prevent this be careful witht he quiptment and try to film in safe flatter areas
Other People - Try and film in an area that is not too busy
Weather - If raining avoid filming due to electrical products and danger to students
Multi-Level Location - Danger of people falling, so try and work in flat areas
Poor Lighting - use lights if dark so people can see and dont runt he risk of falling over or getting lost
Equiptment being stolen - Never leave equiptment unattended

8th February 2010 - Thriller Planning

In today's lesson, the class split into our groups and began our planning of our thriller. In my group it is me and Adam Turner. We decided to go in a small group as we find it easier to work with minimal amount of people as there is less to argue about or have contrasting opinions.

The first stage of our planning was to brainstorm our ideas, we did this together so that we could both have input on what are thriller could possibly look like. we split our brainstorm into smaller sections and connotations of thrillers, such as sound, location, costume, props, characters, lighting, story and actors.

Once we had finished producing the brainstorms, We then moved onto compiling a questionnaire that was to be aimed towards our target audience, late teenagers, this consisted of 10 questions that would cover all the aspects of how our thriller would look. Our questionnaire can be seen below:

Questionnaire
1. What would be the best location for a thriller opening?:
• Woodlands
• City
• Indoors

2. What time of day should it be set?:
• Early Morning
• Afternoon
• Night

3. How many characters would be suitable?:
• 1
• 2
• 3+

4. What type of storyline?:
• Stalker
• Romance
• Revenge
• Unprovoked

5. What type of sounds?:
• Suspense
• Deigetic
• Non-diegetic
• Ambient

6. Lighting?:
• High key
• Naturalistic

7. Actors?:
• Male
• Female

8. Possible props and costumes that could be used?:

9. Should speech be used?:
• Yes
• No

10. What colours could be used?:

We decided on these questions as it would give us a clear picture of what people in the age group would like to see in a thriller.

The next step was to devise a filming schedule for our thriller. This included when we would film, what equipment we would need, what props and costumes would be needed and how many filming sessions would be necessary. This was so we could plan our time so that we did not get lost behind on time and would be prepared for each section. this was our filming schedule:

Filming time - Sunday 28th February (try to get majority done, if not we will use time during the week to capture extra footage)

Location - Toton Sidings

Time - Mid-afternoon

Equipment - DV camera, DV tape, Tripod

Actors - Ashley Grantham and Sam Willis

Costume - Stalker character: Long coat, Jeans, Boots
Indie Kid : Hoodie, Flat peak hat, Jeans, Trainers

Props - Headphones, Bag,

Thriller Research - Signs

I watched this clip of 'Signs' to help me with my research and understanding of thrillers and their opening sequences. I chose this film as it is different to 'Scream' as this is in the sci-fi genre, where as scream was in the horror genre

Sound

• High tempo music is used over the credits, this is to add suspense before showing any footage as the audience do not know what it is leading up to.
• When screams can be heard in the distance, this builds up tension as the audience does not know where the scream are coming from and why people are screaming
• When the non-diegetic sound of dogs barking can be heard, it builds tension as the viewer does not know what they are barking at

Camera

• An Establishing shot is used on a garden, which then pans to a photo of a family, building tension as the audience do not know what this family has to do with the thriller.
• A long shot of a man sat up in bed adds tension as the audience begin to wonder why he suddenly sat upright
• A close up of Morgan's face adds tension as the audience don't know what he is staring at with such a lifeless expression

Editing

• The opening credit fade onto the screen on top of a blue light, this adds mystery to the shot and also fits the theme of sci-fi.
• A cut between a close up of a mans face and a shot of his feet walking on corn adds tension as the audience cannot see what he is walking towards.

Mise-en-Scene

• The setting of a cornfield is used as they are vast and easy to get lost in. This builds tension as the audience do not know what is hidden amongst it.
  

Thriller Research - Scream

This is the opening to the film 'Scream'. I viewed the opening 3 minutes of the clip to help me with the understanding of how thriller openings usually work.

Sound

• When the title fades in, it makes a banging noise, this suggests that the film will contain action.
• There are non-diegetic sounds of a phone ringing and a woman screaming whilst on the titles, this sets the genre and gives some idea of the plot.
• By using diegetic sound of the other person on the telephone, it creates suspense as it puts the viewer in the same position as the woman, in not knowing what the caller looks like.
• The dialogue "I want to see who I'm looking at", turns this film into a thriller and creates a lot of suspense as it depicts to the audience that he has been outside and watching her the whole time

Camera

• Tilt from the phone up to the woman answering it. This corresponds with the titles before hand where there was non-diegetic sounds of a phone ringing and a woman screaming. This implies that the two are connected and gives the viewer the impression that it will be this woman screaming.
• As she walks around the house the camera follows where she goes. This suggests that she is being stalked, as most of time when she is not on the phone the camera is steady.

Editing

• The title fades in from a black screen, and then gets smaller and bolder, after a while the text then changes from white to red. This suggests that the thriller is based on horror as red is the colour associated with blood and gore.
• A cut from the titles to the phone ringing shows that it was that phone ringing at the beginning and suggests that she may be the one that was screaming.

Mise-en-Scene

• When she is on the phone discussing scary movies, she is playing with a block of knives. This implies that the thriller is based around horror as she is playing with something that is used as a weapon in most horror films.
• The setting of her home has many glass windows and doors. So when she discovers that she is being watched it adds tension to the viewer as they are kept guessing where he was looking through

1st February 2010 - Thriller Research

In this lesson we began our research into the film genre of thrillers. For the first part we looked into the typical conventions thrillers have, these included: Build up music, dark lighting, antagonist and protagonist characters and use of shadows. The second part of the lesson involved watching three opening sequences to thrillers. these were: Signs, Lost Highway and Blood Simple. we then noted on the camera angles, editing, sound and mise en scene. To finish we started to view 'The Usual Suspect' which we will finish viewing next lesson