Filming Postponed

Due to the heavy amount of snow George could not make it to the location of our filming on our set filming dates of the 17th, 18th and 19th of December 2010. Hollie was also unable to make it to Sible Hedingham from Gosfield due to ungritted and blocked roads. The fact that the snow is not the intended weather we had planned for our thriller, we have been forced to postpone filming untill the snow has gone. Unfortunatly Hollie is going away for Christmas and days beyond Christmas which means we cannot start filming untill she returns. She will not return until January meaning filming will be postponed until as late as January. As a result of this we have decided to start filming once we start school again so we can borrow a camera as no members of our group have video cameras.

Filming Complications

Due to some miscommunication between members of the group we have not borrowed a camera from the school. We will therefore have to use George's iPhone to record the footage or if a member of the group has a video camera we will use that.

Filming

Our group shall be filming over the christmas holidays and then begin editing in January. We will continue to update our blog during the half term with posts about our filming, the time of day, the setting, camera shots, costume and props.

Possible Titles for Our Film

• Chasing the Very Last Train

The reason we chose this title is not only becase it's unique it's also mysterious which adds to the requirements of a thriller film. It could also be used to explain the rest of our plot. The idea of how the stalker met his victim is that she caught the last train back to her hometown and they sat opposite each other on the train and she did a kind deed for him such as giving him a piece of cheweing gum and now as he is mentally ill, he has developed a very unhealthy and unnatural obsession with her. Another idea is that they catch the same bus every Saturday when she goes to see her friend or her dad while he just catches the bus to see her. They have never spoken but he is secretly obsessed with her and has been stalking her for months.

• The Stalker
• The Shadow that followed
• The Silent Hunter
• The Follower
• Infactuated
• Distubred Mnds
• Distorted Mind
• Evanescence
• Obsession
• Obssessed

Thriller Film Titles

• Spiral
• Mr Brooks
• The Game
• The Machinist
• Hide and Seek
• Pyscho
• Se7en

Updated List of Possible Songs

1. Rihanna - Unfaithful http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp4UwPZfRis
2. Rihanna - Russian Roulette http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ2nCGawrSY
3. Coldplay - Clocks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KkWGy7W3_o
4. Gary Jules - Mad World http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1MlvVc4
5. Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GemKqzILV4w
6. The Fray - How to Save a Life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY2INQnmRyk
7. Kate Bush - This Womens Work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSCQPSrlNbk

Weather Conditions

This past week Sible Hedingham as well as most other parts of Britain were hit by snowfall and a series of showers. When we film we need to check the weather to ensure that there will not be any rain or any snow on the day we are filming to prevent the camera from becoming wet and damaged. We will also need to make sure that the weather is the same on the days that we film. For example, we will need to make sure that it is dry on all days that we film instead of it being dry one day and wet the next otherwise this will ruin the film.

Loctions of Filming

Locations we shall be filming

• Outside a derelict house in Hedingham near St Peters Church
• Road from High Street Green to St Peters Church
• Rowan Hood's House
• Cow Fields
• Pip Tait's Garage
• St Peters Church Grave Yard

Although we are unsure if the derelict house is in fact derelict we are certain that nobody lives there. We will not be entering the house and we will be standing on the grounds outside the property so we will not be tresspassing or breaking and entering and therfore will not need to ask for permission to film there.

The road is a public road so once again we will not need to ask permission to film there. We will however, need to ensure that we are safe when filming on the road as we don't want to cause an accident or get injured by a car. This may require one person standing at one end of the road and another at the other end of the road with mobile phones ready to call each other to inform them that a car will be coming up the road.

As Rowan is a member of our group so once again we do not need permission to film inside her house.

The Cowfields in Sible Hedingham are public. This means we don't need to ask anyone for permission.

Pip Tait's garage is where we plan on shooting the Stalkers wall of obsessed photos. Pip is a very close friend to most members of the group and has given her consent for us to film in her garage. She has said that we do not need to give her a specific date as to when we wish to film there so we will just text her when we wish to film at her garage.

St Peters Church Grave Yard is a public church and is a communal area. However, as a sign of respect and to avoid any incidents such as the police being called or interrupting a wedding/funeral, we shall ask permission from the preist beforehand if we can film there.

Opening Credits

For the opening credits of our thriller film we must unanimously decide as a group the style of the font and the colour of the font to use. An idea disscussed within the group was having the font either black or white so that it is clear and making it easy to read. However, this all depends on what the back ground image is at the time and whether black or white font is readable and can be seen easily. Another idea that was thrown around was that when the shot changes and the titles begin to start, the shot should be changed so it is in time with the music.

Filming

Now that our group has finished the storyboard, we can begin filming. We plan to film during the Christmas holidays so we will get a camera on Friday from the 17th of December 2010 and begin filming on Saturday the 18th of December 2010. A potential barrier that may prevent us from doing this is we may be unable to borrow a camera from the school during the christmas holiday. If this is the case then we will either use a camera that belongs to a member of our group or we will have to delay filming and start filming after christmas.

What makes a good thriller...

What makes a good thriller…

Characters…
Hitchcock [blonde] women à Blonde and dumb
Baddies
Victims – damsel in distress
Hero
Hero and anti hero ie Dexter
Femme Fatale

Costumes…
Red dress
Black suit and tie crisp white shirt
Black long coats
1950’s
Top hat

Settings and Locations…
At night
Raining
Foggy – smoke machine
Fire place in old Victorian home
Churchyard
Forests
Windy, thunder and lightening

Sound and Music…
Silence
Jaws – dun dun dun duh
Screaming
Clock chimes
Heavy breathing
Gun shot
Commentary – monologue

Situations…
Women and men smoking in bed = they’ve just had sex [frowned upon to be showed in film]
People looking in a mirror, person bends down, stands up straight and reflection of someone behind
Cliff-hanger

Good examples of thrillers…
The Godfather one and two
Inception
Pulp fiction
The Dark Knight
Rear Window
Fight Club
Psycho
The usual suspects
The silence of the Lambs
Flight plan
Se7en
Salt
Sin City
Red for blood
Leon
Reservoir Dogs

Thriller Notes...

Many of the thriller film introductions we have watched have very little dialogue; therefore in our film we have no script.
We are going to have diegetic noises for example heavy breathing from the stalker and his heavy footprints when he is stalking the girl in red - victim. The Victim's diegetic noise will be when she screams as he kidnaps her.

A thriller from last years group 'The Followed' has a similar plot line to our thriller. A camera shot they did that we liked was a low angle shot of the stalker walking, we are going to have low and high angles of the stalker following the victim through the churchyard.
Another group had a shot of their villain walking through a metal fence we are going to do shots of the stalker following the girl through trees, bushes and fences to show his point of view watching her and as the audience's view of watching the stalker and the victim going past.

The victim is wearing a red coat which will be the only colour in the thriller like in 'Sin City' the red symbolises red for blood and shows how the victim is sexually alluring towards the stalker.

The film 'Leon' a shot which we liked was when the villain was behind the victim and the camera was moving towards the back of the victim, as the villain moved towards him with the knife, this created tension because you couldn’t see behind until the knife appeared around the victims throat, the victims heavy breathing also built up the suspense.

Costumes

The film is set in modern day so the costumes will be simple. The victim will wear jeans and a coat to show that she is just a normal person and she is expecting nothing to happen to her. The stalker will wear dark jeans and a dark hoodie to show that he may be planning to do something especially when walking around at night dressed like this.

In our film we think that the victim should wear red to show the connontation of danger linked with her.

As the costumes are modern day, the coat will have a design like this and this is what the victim will wear. The bright red makes the connotation of red with danger more obvious.

This black hoodie is what the stalker of our victim will wear. This will make him look mysterious and make it look like something isn't right. It will also help him to hide better in the dark as he is wearing black which means his victim will not be able to see him.

The other parts of our costumes will be modern day clothes such as dark blue jeans for the victim. The stalker will be wearing black jeans with the black hoodie which again will make him look like a dark character and this will link him with the connotation of evil by him wearing all black.

The victim's jeans will look like this as these are what girls wear nowadays.

These black skinny jeans are what the stalker will wear so he is wearing all black. These are again, modern day clothes for boys.

Questionnaire

The Story Board...

Questionnaire Results

Questionnaire

1. What is your gender?
Male ¦ Female
2. What is your age?
13-15 ¦ 16-18 ¦ 19-25
3. What gender would you prefer the main character in a thriller film to be?
Male ¦ Female
4. What period of time should the thriller be set in?
Past ¦ Present ¦ Future
5. How many main characters do you think a thriller film should have?
1 ¦ 2 ¦ 3 ¦ 4 ¦ 5
6. What time of day would the thriller be set in best ?
Night time ¦ Dawn ¦ Daylight ¦ Afternoon ¦ Dusk
7. What should the villain’s role be in a thriller?
Stalker ¦ Rapist ¦ Serial Killer ¦ Gangster ¦ Other
8. Where should a thriller be set?
City ¦ Harbour ¦ Churchyard ¦ Warehouse ¦ Other
9. What should the thriller be in?
B&W ¦ Colour ¦ Both
10. What is your favourite thriller film?
___________________

Thriller?

Thriller is a genre of film, literature and television. The key essentials of a thriller are suspense, tension and excitement. The primary subgenres of thrillers are: mystery, crime and psychological thrillers. The brightest examples of thrillers are the Hitchcock’s movies.

Thrillers mainly consist of an atmosphere of menace, violence, crime and murder by showing society as dark, corrupt and dangerous, however they often have a happy ending in which the villains are killed or arrested. Thrillers heavily elevate on literary devices such as plot twists, red herrings and cliff hangers. They also advance on moods, such as a high level of anticipation, adrenaline rush, arousal, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety and sometimes even terror.

Characters in thrillers often include criminals, stalkers, assassins, innocent victims (often on the run), menaced women, characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, private eyes, 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

In recent years, thrillers have been slightly influenced by the horror genre; they have more gore/sadistic violence, brutality, terror and body counts. Recent thrillers which took this route include Eden Lake, The Last House on the Left, P2, Untraceable and Funny Games

Film Inspiration

We watched different thriller films and got inspiration from each of them.
From watching Sin City we liked the idea of the film being in black and white and the only colour being the red dress. From this we are going to have the only colour being the red coat as the person wearing this will be the victim. Using red for the coat shows the connotation of danger and the audience know something could happen to her. This film also inspired what we want for the weather in our film. We wanted to film it on a dark night when the weather is bad maybe raining as this would create tension in the film about what is going to happen. The reason for doing the film in black and white is because we can't garuntee the weather conditions when we film our opening two minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3wq3gLo5Pk
We also got inspiration from a previous year's film where they had a extreme close up of a flashing blue light on some straightners. From this we liked the idea of having a blue flashing police siren at the end of the two minutes. We wanted the sound of the siren to fade out to silent so you can just about hear it in the background.
We wanted to set our film in modern times as we think the costumes will be easier to come up with and would be easier to design.
The setting would also be easier to come up with because they would be easier to find and filming would be easier because if we set it in the past we may accidentally film the cars and the film wouldn't look right. It would also be easier as we wanted to use things such a computer to use facebook and in the past they didn't have these things.

Films Ideas

Our idea for a plot would be that a young teenage girl is being stalked by a young adult boy who saw her at a party where they were drunk and now he has become infatuated with her. In an abadoned house where he has a shrine dedicated to her. There is a wall of photos of her, including some from facebook, and a chair in the corner with ropes hanging on it. the photo in the middle of the photos is the largest. There will be a shot of this zoomed in then zooming out and the stalker will be crossing her eyes out which tells the audience she is wanted dead by him as he added him as a friend on facebook and she rejected him. This is the reason for him wanting to kill her. The victim of the stalker will be walking through the churchyard where the stalker will grab her and take her back to the shrine.
We have chosen to have the film setting in a churchyard as this creates quite a dark atmosphere to the situtation in the film. This is because the stalker thinks that no one will be around a night, well not many people, especially in a church yard as it seems quite a scary place at night. This means he knows that there will not be anyone to follow him back to where he is taking or anyone to see that he is taking her.
It will also be set in an abandoned house as this shows quite a dark effect as this shows that the stalker wants privacy and no one to know anything about what he is doing. This will be because he knows no one will visit the abandoned house to find any of the photos that he has put in there.

This picture is of what we hope the church will look like when filming in the church yard at night. This is where the stalker will grab the girl and take her away.

This is what we think the abandoned house will look like, maybe a little different. This is where the stalker will have his shrine with the photos and candles.

This picture shows how we want the road to look that runs from the church towards the shrine. We want it to look as dark as we can and make it look like it is only a little road that maybe not a lot of people use so it looks like no one will be able to witness the stalker taking the victim.

At the end of the film we wanted to have the stalker grab the victim on the shoulder and just as she turns around we will go to a shot of the moon with the sound of sirens in the background just as the film fades out. The sound of the siren will fade out with the shot of the moon fading out at the same time.