Filming - First try

During this half term, we have filmed our 'first draft' of our thriller opening. The filming was not exact to our storyboard but the theme of it never changed. After watching back some of the clips we think we may need to change the shots right at the start.

At first we filmed at Elias's house as the first scene is him on his computer sending an email and then going to bed and then we went to go and film at Mariama's as she was the girl replying to the email. Filming these shots were not as easy as we thought as there were a lot of lighting issues as well problems with getting the perfect shot and keeping the 180 degree rule.

The next shots we did were at Southbank at the London Eye. It was hard to film here seeing as it was very packed and there wasn't a lot of space to film because there was always people walking in and out of our shots. We wanted to film here becuase it is a tourist area and it was supposed to look like Elias was just picking a girl at random and also it's nice scenery in the shot.

While filming we decided to make a video blog which we will upload soon!

After watching all of the clips on the Macs we will see what we need to redo and/or what we need to cut out and then we will go from there...

TITLE FONTS: RESEARCH

Although it is early on we have decided to start researching different fonts that may suit our title, many examples will be posted up on the blog, as well as different COLOURS. 

The program we will use to experiment different fonts is a website called www.dafont.com 

This website has different types of fonts under different types of themes such as, Holidays, Gothic, Fancy and even Dingbats. Under these there are other types of themes to choose from such as Christmas, Cartoon, basics such as Serif and San Serif. 

These fonts are not on Livetype which is the program we will use to create our fonts however, it is still important to look on this site for ideas on what we want as it has a wide variety of font types. 

Below is a screenshot of the website and, some example fonts we find interesting. 

Examples of makeup: RESEARCH

It is important that we make our opening look as realistic as possible. Therefore when the audience see the flashback of some of the girls dead, it is important we make them seem dead. 

This is through bruises to portray damages and, maybe pale faces. Below is some research done on makeup  we found on youtube. My favourite is the first one because, i think it looks very realistic and although it is on an arm it is possible to do makeup as such on someones neck and, other body parts. 

inspirational use of false plateau

Recently i was at home, late at night, not much on t.v until i passed through the channel 'sky-thriller' and started watching a film called 'Armored' which is a crime thriller about a group of criminals sent to deliver some money somewhere else but instead they choose to take it for themselves. Little did they know that one's conscience was stronger than his greed for money. One scene which particularly inspired me is the one that is showed below when the engine dies and a black truck pulls up inside it. the music, mise en scene (the blacked out van) and zoom up of the bomb all in one created great suspense which was followed by false plateau and in the end creates relief as it was all a joke on 'Ty'.

Photo's from our pitch 'THE CYCLE'

Shot by Shot pitch

This is our storyboard for our thriller films, some scenes may change depending to weather or if we decided to improve it.

Group 14's Pitch- THE CYCLE

This is our pitch for our Thriller film 'The Cycle' We had to present it to the whole class and our media teacher. We received feedback on things to improve or any worries that she had with our idea. The rest of the class also gave thier imput.

Photo's-Planning our Prezi for our pitch

Treatment for Thriller

Our treatment is about a serial killer who is on the prowl to find new female victims to attack. The sense of normality is seen at the beginning to make the audience really surprised when something tragic happening, flashbacks and split screens of the past experiences of his victims and the things he has done to them this nightmare equips him for his quest to Central london begins and he sets his eyes on a tourist. This foreshadows what is going to happen to her as the audience has already seen the things he has done to previous women.

Intertextuality from Mesrine

We have decided to use intertextuality from the film Mesrine. At the beginning of the opening sequence it uses lots of split scenes to show different locations and match cuts of the characters waking down the road. At the same time credits are being shown as well as more split scenes. This looks rather cool because you can see the actors walking in one shot  from their point of view and the other is a shot when you can see them walking towards you. We have decided to incorporate this idea as it will show different points of view and different locations.

Film that inspire me: KISS THE GIRLS

I recently watched a film called Kiss The Girla (1997) which is directed by Gary Fleder and features well known actors such as Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd.
The movie is a crime and suspense thriller which is about a man Dr. Alex Cross who learns that his niece has been kidnapped by a ruthless serial killer who calls himself Casanova, and likes to leave his victims tied up to trees. His only lead lies in a doctor who escaped Casanova's lair - FILM JABBER


This film really inspired me as an idea for my group's opening thriller. i really liked the way it incorporated two different sub genres of thrillers and it came together really nicely. Although it is not mentioned on websites and reviews, i think this film is quiet psychological as women are being raped and the one lady who does escape, ends up hearing and seeing things for a while. Furthermore she is held in a mental hospital in order to recover her trauma. 
i mentioned this idea to my group and they seemed to like it, which is why we decided to do our opening based on a serial killer who is about to kill another woman, so the audience go on a journey finding how he meets women and manages to 'whirl' them into him and, eventually rape and kill them. As a group we managed to include each other's ideas and everyone made a great contribution.


Below is the trailer of Kiss The Girls, hope you enjoy :] 

  

Trailer of TAKEN (Intertexuality)

At 0:59 seconds we see one of the girls being kidnapped. We have replayed on this idea and are going to use some sort of intextuality. Split screen shots of dangerous actions towards women will be shown

CRIME & PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

Combining the elements of both a Crime and Psychologcal Thriller lets us play on the idea of mind games, being able to add in blood and death.

Thriller Planning

THRILLER PLANNING (BRIEF)

Openings that have Inspired you and why

Taking of Pelham 123-Narrative Opening and the upbeat pace of the scenes, music and the credits

Stepfather-Sense of Normality, then something tragic happens

Opening Structure to be followed

Narrative opening with credits that slide in and out of the shots, dissolving or fading into the back grounds. Slightly disorientated. 4 or 5 split screen flashbacks

What Sub Genre will be produced

Crime alongside Psychological thriller

Intertexual references

The scene were we see the same routine (Super Market)

Taking Of Pelham (Shot of New York)

Fonts and Font effects to be used

Sans Serif as it looks serious and formal and that is the message we are trying to convey. Black fonts, capital letters.

Locations to be used

Resturent, establishing shotof London, Bedrooms, Busstop and on the bus (Turnpike lane)

Key Props to be used



Intertextual references

We decided to use the 'Supermarket' scene from THE STEPFATHER as a piece of intertextuality. This is beaucse this is seen as a routine to (the stepfather) in which he gets to meet women prefably blonde and eventually form a relationship with them with the motive set out to kill. This is a good idea beaucse we though it would create a lot of irony from the beinnging aswell as showing the mentality of our main character when he sets out for an average day. Instead of just sticking to one location we are going to se several so we dont exactly capture the same exact idea we just use it to help develop our own.

The second piece of intertexual reference we will use will be from THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123. In the openin there is an establishing shot of New York City. This is significant as it sets the location and further shows the busy lifestyle and how the story affects alot of people. We planned to do an establishing shot of London, capturing Some of London's tourists attractions.

Inspired openings- TAKING OF PELHAM 123 & STEPFATHER

Taking of pelham 123, i have previously blogged about before. The opening to this film is actually one of my favourites beacuse of the use of colour, the fast upbeat intensity and the use of sound. The movement from scene to scene happens rather quickly and adds more effect to the beginning of the film. We as a group decided to use the idea of a NARRATIVE OPENING where we would just get straight into the movie instead of having DULL credits and blank screens.The film openings stand out because the editing is so stylised.

The Stepfather also has an influence on the beginning of our movie. The sense of normality that he encouters makes the audience feel as if it is going to be a typical day, however something dramtic happens (seeing the dead bodies) this creates suspense and ease. The formality of him being neat and tidy creates a sensual idea of routine.Take a look at The Stepfather opening. We are going to re-create this though our opening sequence....(FIND OUT AT THE END)

Thoughts of Preliminary Making

I enjoyed filming for our Preliminary film. It was fun to be a director for as little as 10minutes. Being able to use props and be covered in fake blood was quite hilarious. My team worked well together and we were able to film a good scene for practice. We however must remember the five second rule when filming so that if we want to add in effects on final cut pro we will be able to without any problems. I can't wait to actually start the final project with my group. Bring it on!

Untitled Preliminary: EVALUATION

This is our Preliminary film. We called it 'Untitled'.

EVALUATION

Together we created an interesting preliminary storyline however, certain parts that were in our preliminary planning were not included in the final preliminary for health & safety reasons. We worked very well as a team however, we decided that when we do our shoot for our actual thriller opening, we need to be in a suitable area at a suitable time. This is because, whilst we were on shoot for our preliminary there were a lot of people in the corridor which meant we had to stop a lot. We learnt that as one of our shoots will be in a busy area Central London, it is important that we are aware of other people. 

The props and the performacne of our acting skills were really good. We tried to use as many camera transition as possible for example, shot reverse shots and match cuts to give it a really good finish. I think the idea and concept of the prelim was quite good and we showed it in the best way we knew how.

As the vampire/human i found it tricky keepin in the 'vampire' teeth (HA) as all the blood kept going into my mouth. The use of blood was to convey that i was the killer and so the auidence knew the direct link as to why Mariama had blood all over her neck.

The tesco bag was kind of used as a comical subsitution of something more dangerous.

Photos's from preliminary

preparing to film

props for the clip

 shot of 'death' scene

working on camera

first shot of the clip

prop for the clip