Finalised Idea

Film Date & Time:
1st Shoot > Friday 26th February 9.00am till 10.30am. (Canceled due to the absence of Maz)

Camera/Tripod Assistant:
Michael & Maz are both responsible for picking up the necessary equipment to create our thriller opening.

Filming Location:
Town/College; both locations are public which means we must take extra care for health and safety as well as any problems such as disturbing the public and the need to ask for permission if needed. We will travel to the locations mostly individually if it cycling or the use of public transport.

Lighting:
We would like to film in the night to add a dark/eery backdrop to our plot however our schedules never match up so we may need to edit the footage's lighting when using final cut to produce the night time atmosphere.

Actors:
Due to the lack of numbers in our group we are considering the aid of our friends to complete this project. Maz and me will interview possible candidates who can create the atmosphere and feeling we require to make our project huge success. Furthermore we want actors who look the part and can create something unique and different to our thriller. The actors will not be needing to learn a script prerecording as there is minimal if any lines to learn.

Film Crew:
On the day of filming Michael will assume the role of director and cameraman. Maz will be starring in the thriller as well as taking up editor and producer duties.

Props:
We do not need the use of any hand held props in our thriller. However we need the use of a bed and bathroom/mirror.

Back-Up Plan:
Our back-up plan if the weather is to disrupt our filming is to postpone all filming until the weather has cleared. Although we could still film in bad weather, because it could add the scary gloomy effect as well as the sound of the wind could increase tension.

Character Review: Protagonist

Liam Neeson plays the role of Bryan Mills an ex-CIA agent who needs to find his daughter who has been taken hostage from a group of Albanian gangsters. He is portrayed as a protagonist in numerous ways, the use of script, costume, lighting and camera shots.

The script places him in the situation where it is obvious to the audience that he is the protagonist, slightly cliched with the man saving daughter from bad men storyline. We also see he is a much darker character than normal with the threats, violence and clothing.

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you." In this particular scene you witness the transformation of the protagonist from a loving father into the dangerous CIA agent.

His clothing in the film is smart but business-like showing the seriousness of the plot and character, it also dark which blends with most of the scenes due to the fact of the lighting and atmosphere they display.

This character does not really compare with our protagonist but this is due to the fact that the thriller is only based on the opening of the film and as we are not allowed to expand on the storyline.

Character Review: Antagonist

Kevin Spacey plays the character of John Doe in Se7en; the antagonist. He is a relatively unknown character and the audience knows little about his appearance and state of mind until the last 30 minutes where he reveals himself and his disturbing ways. The plot is based on the seven deadly sins.

The writers of the film show our antagonist with secrecy and have concealed his physical appearance til the later stages of the film, however they have written this character in way that you can feel his presence from the very first murder. This makes the audience feel they know the villain.

"Wanting people to listen, you can't just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you'll notice you've got their strict attention." When they find who the murderer is the audience would have already discovered how provoking the characters minds is but this is due to the excessive insanity his words are. From the quote above you can see his mind is set on evil and that he has no care for the world.

From the picture below you see the appearance of John Doe an unexpectedly weak but normal looking man. When I witnessed this I was surprised but when you see the interrogation from Mills and Somerset (the protagonists) you realise that these two oppostites (the disturbing mind and weak looking man) seem to be appropriate.

John Doe compared to our character is rather similar in the way that he will not be completely revealed in the opening of our thriller but you will feel the strong presence that the 'Se7en' villain so easily depicts. However our character will not be so disturbing but this is due to the fact (again) that we are unable to expand our projects into a full thriller.

Test Shot Review

We took one lesson to complete some test shots so we could see what works and what doesn't. However these were filmed in the day and in a different location from which we want to film. This means that some shots may seem better than they actually are. We decided to try different shots for each scene to see if there was a better way of picturing the story in a thriller way.

We tried handheld shots to add a sense of reality and physical movement to the film, and we felt that this was quite successful; this lead us to believe that the film could be entirely filmed like that but we still are undecided as it could make the film seem tacky and unprofessional.

A problem that we faced when filming was the progression of continuity as you can see from a number of shots there is a difference in some of them; Carl appears in some shots and disappears, then there are different people in the background and cars etc. This needs to be sorted out and carefully searched for when filming the final cut.

Furthermore we found out that sound is a big problem depending on the weather conditions, we filmed on a windy day meaning that all you could hear was the gusts, we decided to add our own music to add a suspenseful feeling towards the test.

We created two videos; a video with our entire filming and a second video that has been edited into some sort of chronological order.

Top Tips For Filming

1. Be Clear Of The Short Length You Want To Achieve.
2. Keep The Camera As Steady - Tripod.
3. All Ways Capture Extra Footage.
4. Take Shot List.
5. Capture A Variety Of Shots.
6. Keep Continuity
7. Have A Back-Up Plan.
8. Make Sure The Tape Is In The Right Place.

Health & Safety:

- Be Aware Of Surroundings.
- Get Consent.
- Don't Film In A Dangerous Place.
- Don't Do Any Thing That A Passer-By Might Be Offended By.
- Be Respectful To The Public.
- No Children In The Film.

Thriller Storyboard & Shotlist

Shot 1: Establishing Shot

Shot 2: Long Shot (Over The Shoulder)

Shot 3: Mid Shot

Shot 4: Reaction Shot

Shot 5: Shot Reverse Shot

Shot 6: Shot Reverse Shot

Shot 7: Match On Action Shot

Shot 8: Close Up Shot

Shot 9: Reaction Shot

Shot 10: Mid Shot

Shot 11: Close Up/Flashback

Shot 12: Credits

Mise-En-Scene of a Thriller

Set:
- The setting for our thriller is in 3 locations, a street, a location for a night out possibly pub, club etc and a bedroom/bathroom. All locations will be filmed in the night except from the bedroom/bathroom scene.


Props:
- In our thriller there are not many props needed, maybe a balaclava, for the antagonist, however this is because the thriller is mainly based on the psychological side and there is no brutal acts of violence with guns and weapons etc.

Costume:
- As the protagonist is returning from a night out this means he will be in smart-casual where as the antagonist will be dressed in dark clothes blending with the setting to add an eery effect.

Lighting:
- Usually thrillers have a dark lighting scheme, with mainly shadows and minimal lighting. however we have contemplated of using black/white for the first few shots and then a change into colour when the morning comes.


Actors:
- There will only be two main actors, the protagonist and antagonist. the protagonist will be a normal person and at first you feel that he's the victim of an unplanned attack as you feel he is a member of the general public.

Revised Schedule

8th-12th February > Filming

22nd-26th February > Filming & Editing

1st-5th March > Filming & Editing

8th March > Deadline Filming

11th March > Rough Cut Deadline

18th March > Final Cut Deadline

'Why "Thrillers" Thrive' Review

The difference between a horror and a thriller film is how the story is portrayed by the characters on the screen, 'we have to project ourselves into their consciousness'. We feel that in a thriller we are in the scene feeling involved in every car chase, shoot-out and aggressive arguments.

Furthermore thrillers have a sense of reality where as horrors have entirely surreal scenarios of beastliness and horrible events that only exist in the most perverse of peoples imaginations.

However in a thriller it is easier to twist a viewers imagination into believing part of the action when it is viewed in a cinematic view rather than at a theatre. This is because on a screen the producers can capture more emotional and revealing shots e.g a point of view shot during intense action to make the viewer feel that they are the person that is in grave danger therefore maximizing the thrill. Where as in a theatre the viewer is only able to see snippets of the action as it is impossible to make the match on action shots seem as realistic as you can in a cinematic view.

Moreover you cannot use the different shot types that a cinematic film can use to increase the feeling of reality and thrill.

In this case horrors life on the silver screen is meeting its near end and is unable to conjure new and modern ideas where as the thriller strives in creating suspenseful and radical ideas that have a major sense of reality, keeping it's viewer "on the edge" with the ability to spontaneously turn the film inside out and upside down.

Will thrillers die out? We feel that it is less likely for a thriller to die out as it is for a horror as the thriller film tends to have numerous ideas and variety in how to portray an scenario many times, however horrors are unable to regenerate these as often and become tedious with the lack of imagination furthermore the predictability of the following scenes.