Cast and Costumes

Dan Walker
Dan will be acting as a kidnapper who generally wears dark, dirty clothes to adapt to his role. I will be wearing a black coat, dark jeans and white trainers as I think that it is this image that fits my character. I feel black symbolises danger therefore this is the colour I have chosen for it.

Holly Costema and Amy Selby
Holly and Amy are acting as girls who have just come from a night out, they will be dressed in smart clothes, dress, but more casual with lots of jewelry and handbags. It is important that their costumes are casual as the audience must be able to distinguish between the good characters and the bad characters so with the girls wearing colourful clothes we can tell they are the innocent characters compared to the black costume I am wearing.

Props: These will be including obviously the costumes and then a photograph of the girls, these are the only props really as it is just a kind of chase scene.

It will be in and around the two twichells running alongside Queen Elizabeth's Park in Toton/Stapleford. We chose these locations because the are fairly typical for this to be happening in. Twitchells are known to be typical places for crimes day or night because they are so private and enclosed. Here are some location shots.

Timeline

2nd March
Filming final scene
Editing first scene

9th March
Editing second scene
Editing third scene

16th March
Editing forth scene
Editing final scene

23rd March
Re-edit
Re-edit

30th March
Re-edit
Re-edit

6th April
EASTER
Drafting evaluation

13th April
EASTER
Evaluation

20th April
Final adjustments
Final adjustments

27th April
Final adjustments
Final adjustments

Final Practical Research

Films

According to www.imdb.com/chart/thriller The Godfather is the number one thriller of all time with The Godfather 2 coming in second and The Dark Knight in third place. The Godfather won 3 Oscars including Best Actor, Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay. It also had another 19 wins and 17 nominations. On the opening weekend the gross at the box office was $302,393 and it opened in 6 screens in the USA.Examples of films:
Phone Booth is a thriller about a selfish man trapped in a phone booth by a deranged sniper. Framed for the murder of a pimp, he finds himself surrounded by police who have no idea of the sniper's presence.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)#Film
The Bourne Identity was adapted into a movie starring Matt Damon which used many of the thriller conventions of the plot. Though its sequels, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, depart significantly from Robert Ludlum's storyline, the conspiracy-thriller genre is still well-preserved.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)#Film

Genre

Thrillers have a wide variety of genres including, literature, film, televison and gaming. Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains. Literary devices such as suspense, red herrings and cliffhangers are used extensively. There are a lot of sub genres within thriller for example, action thriller, crime thriller, medical thriller, drama thriller etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)#Sub-genres

Today we constructed a mind map about costumes and props for each character. Here is our mindmaps to prove so:

Discussing our Opening

During today's lesson we discussed the content of our opening, we decided that we are now going to film like a chase scene with two girls going out running from like a rapist type character. So today we devised a storyboard to show this. Here are the pictures:

Selecting our Groups

During today's lesson we decided upon our groups in which my group consists of myself, Amy Selby and Holly Costema.

Firstly we made an immediate brainstorm we covered:

• Plots e.g. Murder, Affair, Abduction, Robbery we thought this because they are all typical thriller plots, because they all cause tension and cover many conventions involved in those listed below
• Locations e.g. House, Park, Shop, we thought these as they are quite realistic places
• Mise-en-scene e.g. Gloomy lighting to create tension, props- stolen goods etc. Gloomy lighting we think was best because it is more tension as it is commonly more tense situation when it is dark rather than light
• Sound e.g. background music to create tension, I think this because from experience and the media I believe it works well as it causes emotion
• Camera e.g. close ups on weapons, establishing shots - build up picture of location
• Characters e.g. protagonist, antagonist as these are typical characters

From this we constructed a more detailed brainstorm into our final ideas.

We then made a questionnaire which we will hand out to collect research. We asked questions such as What sort of graphics people like, what sort of thriller characters they like, where they watch thrillers etc.

Preliminary Task

These are the storyboards we used to prepare our preliminary task

For our preliminary task we first collected ideas of what we may want to do, E.G.

• School Disciplinary Meeting
• Police Interrogation interview
• Job Interview
• Medical Appointment
• Hostage situation

In the end we went with the police interrogation interview

Camera

We decided we would record the scene several times but in different angles to help editing later on. We used various two person shots, over the shoulder shots, long shots and tracking shots to help establish the scene.

Mise-en-scene

In order to make a realistic interview room we kept the room quite deserted as typical, and positioned the table as an interview room with a chair on either side. We did not have particular costumes although, Alex Nightingale who played the suspect in the clip wore tracksuit bottoms and particularly juvenile clothing to represent youth crime. One spotlight was used to help focus the audience on one thing, and to help set the scene. Props such as the evidence, and tape recorder helped also to distinguish what was happening

Sound

In the dialogue we ensured representation of police was used in the language used for example "Interview Commencing at....". We came up with a script which is as shown below

PC Walker: Interview Commencing at _ _ : _ _ at Sun Hill Police Station with PC Dan Walker and Paul Smith. Where were you between the hours of 7:30 and 9:30 yesterday

Paul: At home

PC Walker: Can anyone confirm this?

Paul: I was on my own

PC Walker: How do you explain this? (shows evidence)

Evaluation of openings

For the homework last week we were told to watch the openings of two thrillers, and take notes on them. The films which I had chosen to watch were Man on Fire, and The Bourne Ultimatum

Man on fire!

Sets the scene- There are facts shown on screen to teach the issue being tackled
A range of establishing shots to introduce the location
The text on screen detailing the location helping us to picture place
Busy, dull, motorway- lots of people to watch expressions

Engages Audience- Fast pace, builds excitement in viewer
A lot of drama at first capturing instantly the audience’s attention

Crime- Kidnap- core of narrative

Enigmas- Who is the boy being kidnapped? Why are they abducting people?

Identity- Exciting music, mise-en-scene, costumes

Peril- Sound effects of screaming, show boy being attacked

Special Effects- Fast motion, Slow motion, Distorted imaging, Zoom, Point of View, Black and White

Bourne Ultimatum

Sets the scene- Shows main character instantly and we begin to build a picture
The text on screen detailing the location helping us to picture place
Busy, Gloomy- ideal for action

Engages Audience- Fast pace, builds excitement in viewer
A lot of drama at first capturing instantly the audience’s attention

Crime- Unknown - Builds Suspense- core of narrative
Bourne is being chased

Enigmas- What is he running from? Who are the people chasing him?

Identity- Exciting music, mise-en-scene, costumes, what he does

Peril- Tense music, Fast pace action, Dark gun scene

Special Effects- Fast motion, Distorted imaging, Handheld camera, Enhanced sounds

In the lesson after we watched North by Northwest. The film which was devised by Alfred Hitchcock had several of the conventions of thriller as it focussed around a crime, at several points found the main character in peril such as the helicopter seen. There was also many examples of twists and turns, Hitchcock is famous for his red herrings, such as the girl the character meets. This is also an example where it makes the audience want to ask question
such as "Who is the girl?", "Why is she being so nice to him?"

Wheatleys Words of Wisdom

So far, we have planned, filmed and just begun editing our opening to the new thriller. At the beginning of last week's lessons, Mr Wheatley offered some advice on how to construct an effective opening and how to use the camera.

1. Do not push tape in

2. Steady shot on tripod to prevent wobbliness

3. Make sure lens are clean, and wipe with cloth

4. Don’t point at sunshine

5. If doing a pan, allow enough space

6. Set it to Slow play- SP

7. Set exposure to manual

8. When you hit record wait five seconds to film

9. Set white balance up correctly

10. Zoom in a bit, set focus, gradually make BG blur, closer FG and BG are together the more you need to zoom in

I feel that this has been useful to me because now I am aware of some of the hazards to be careful of and have learnt something new for example the abbrieviations of SP and how to set the white balance

What are the conventions of thrillers?

• Crime is at the core of narrative- often murder
  
• A complexed narrative structure, with false paths, clues and resolutions
  
• A narrative pattern of establishing enigmas (makes you ask questions)
  
• Extraordinary events happen in situations
  
• Themes of identity, mirroring and voyeurism
  
• Protagonist with a flaw, exploited by antagonist
  
• Titles often reflect aspect of the character's psychological state
  
• Often a scene where the protagonist is in peril

In the lesson, we were told to find a partner and discuss what would make up a thriller, we decided that it should be scary and a sense of mystery. Holly and myself decided that it should thrill the audience. The mise en scene should mirror portaginess.

The reason I have also highlighted the conventions of a thriller on a whole is because our final task is about making our own opening scene of a thriller in a group. Therefore this will help me think of what the storyline could be.

Examples of thrillers include Sin City, The Dark Knight and Jaws.

I think that it was useful to go over the conventions of thriller as it helps me to have some guidelines in my head about what to include in our project. It has also helped refresh my memory and has also taught me a bit about the difference between a thriller and other films.