Organisation

Our organisation for the Thriller project, we created separate folders for each location and renamed each shot with a specific description. This will make it easier for us to navigate our project and help us to create our thriller opening in an organised and clear manner.

Group Target - 27th February

We decided that our primary target for today is to begin all editing.We've decided that this is the best course for action and would be most beneficial to complete. Our whole group who are at lesson today will focus on this as a group.

Edit: We have begun editing, and with some experimenting of Final Cut Pro we have decided what techniques we may use in the future.

Group target for 24th February

We decided that our primary target for today was to finish all film sequences and all sound sequences.We've decided that this is the best course for action and would be most beneficial to complete; as opposed to updating a few blog posts.

Edit: End of day post; all filming has now been completed and the sounds have all been recorded. We now have to edit the sequence.

Animatics

The storyboard drawings collated in order in the average time the shot will be there in the film.

The below is our commentary over the shots which take place, going into detail about why whe chose some shot types and why the composition of the shot is what we chose..

Thriller Storyboard

These are the post it note images used for the storyboard. Each picture is one shot in the film with a few exceptions where more post it notes had to be used to add detail to the shot.

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Thriller Casting Call

Our four characters are filled by three actors.

Geoff Ffoeg - Benjamin Mongardini

I will be fulfilling the central character role of the reclusive and cool Detective, Geoff. This was largely done for ease. I played a character in the previous Preliminary film and the character of Geoff was one that did not require any defining features such as height and body type. Just a guy, with a cool trench coat.

Susan Nasus - Izzy Trott

Izzy Trott is friend of mine that I know to be very determined on whatever she might be working on. Her character, Susan, is the one that will be running in the forest. This also makes her the target of the assailant. The reason I picked her is because she is around 5"2 in height and filming her at eye level would make taller people seem very intimidating.

Assailant - Joshua Wilson-Yelverton

Josh Wilson-Yelverton will fill the role of the Assailant or the Antagonist of the film. He won't have an official name as for the entire film we envisioned Geoff following clues and leads to find him. Not giving him a name helps to shroud him in an extra layer of mystery, at least to us. Josh is considerably taller than Izzy, coming up to 6 feet. This aids to amplify the effect I described with Izzy.

Rachel Lehcar - Stephen Griffin

Rachel is somewhat of a wildcard as it is not officially a character and only a mysterious foot that we added to create more enigma. Her main function as a character in the film is to show Geoff the way to possible suspects for the assailants. Her face will never be seen, only her feet. Because we had come up with Rachel as a name, we had the idea that Izzy would play this character, only with different shoes but in reality it can be absolutely anyone as long as it is clear (by the feet) that it is a different person.

Film Synopsis

Opening:

Beginning at a graveyard, Geoff Ffoeg was mourning over Susan’s death. While being upset, painful flashbacks occur, the pain suggested by his flinching. Between flashbacks he continues to talk to the grave. Each time the flashbacks occur, they begin to have decreased a gap between them. The flashbacks involve a girl running in woods. When she believes she has escaped, she runs into the assailant.  Geoff bellows and kneels in sadness at the graveyard. Susan, in the flashback, is hit down by the assailant. He also remembers when he examined the crime scene; his focused on stray sports jacket lying on muddy ground. A second person is revealed to been jogging with Susan. Geoff  completely breaks down at Susan’s grave. Then Susan is remembered bleeding in forest and suddenly breathing, suggesting that she is still alive. Assailant stands watching Geoff in the background, he is discovered to have a scar down his cheek. He walks away towards a dark flight of stairs. Door opens illuminating dark, dingy room. Susan can be heard screaming and crying. Assailant turns on light switch; Susan’s sounds become louder until they stop. Assailant turns off light switch. Cut to black and Title. End of opening

Continuation of Plot:

3 months later Geoff stumbles through his (and Susan's) house, reflecting on different photos of their time together which have been taken down and put in the attic. He mutters how he can’t believe she’s been gone for 6 months, and is still having trouble dealing with her death - even after all this time. He finds a picture of a friend of hers (Rachel) and wonders how he had never seen this one before, a picture of them in the forest where she went missing. Now with a plan, Geoff goes in search of Rachel. After several attempts to enter he breaks a window round the back. Geoff questions her on how she never came to police, Rachel is scared. Susan and her were chased when out jogging. Rachel begins to describe the assailant but gets shot and dies before she reveals vital information. Geoff decides to lay out a trap making it seem she’s still alive. After a failed attempt to capture the assailant, they come up with a different plan- see what Susan's parents say. Enter the conservative parents whom Susan hates and hasn't seen in years. After a violent conversation with the father of Susan; whilst the mother is quiet standing in his shadow. The mother pulls them aside after the confrontation and reveals information without the Father knowing. They are introduced with 3 new characters, Susan’s old friends who used to be close to Susan until they faded away, they all feel that Geoff was the reason that Susan became distant from them. The first friend, Benjamin, was her best friend and had lost his love a year before, although Susan was never there for him and made him feel jealous with Geoff. The second called Tyrone, a medical student; he is calm and reveals vital information about Freddy and why he might have reasons to commit the crime. Whilst visiting Freddy they have to chase him down along a busy street, just barely catching him. They all have incentives to have committed this terrible crime, revealed after visiting each one. She is shown as being in discomfort being in the same room as Freddy, causing Geoff to arrest him. Freddy denies everything, but is still arrested after the police found Susan’s jogging outfit in his house.

Thriller Lighting Experiment

In our lighting experiment we explored how to make a reflection appear with different lighting set-ups. The image below is what we attempted to re-create:

From the upper image we can see an artificial light source- the lamp- which acts as a prop in this scene. During out recreation of the image we did not have a suitable prop, so it was not shown in our own image. The lighting set-up, however, was designed to be perceived as being a lamp. During our experiment we also tried to use a green filter and a white filter, trying to get the best colour in the scene. We ended up with the yellow filter; making the scene look more like a room being lit up by the lamp.
 

 

In the bottom image we can see our lighting set up-to the left of our character we had a light source with a dark yellow filter in front of the light. You can also see another light shining on the character's jacket from below, where a person was holding the light up; resulting in a perfect angle of light, allowing us to see the person clearly surrounded in darkness.

 

Thriller Props

Props

Police duct tape. Bought from amazon.co.uk, this will serve as a barrier for Geoff to cross to access the crime scene, making the outlook of the situation realistic.

Red and white rose. Hand made, partly because we'll get the design that we wanted and also to make it durable, this will signify the relationship between Geoff and Susan- red being 'passion' and white meaning 'unity.' This will be placed on Susan's grave.

Rachel's shoes, these will be found on the ground during Geoff's investigation. |

Twig from a tree- this will be used for continuity- allowing the viewer to understand that the chase is happening ion the same place. Not a brought in prop from ourselves, but a prop found on scene. This is used to show that we will make sure continuity is followed, that whenever we take a shot we will make sure everything is the same or as it should be.

Thriller Filming Location

There are a couple of locations we desire to film at, being that they are in our sequence plans and are exactly what we imagined in our first thoughts.

1. One location is a Graveyard, there are obviously a few to choose from that would suit our needs but we also need to make sure they allow us to film on the premises. The area we have gotten permission to film in is beside a road which shouldn't be a problem as we don't necessarily need the original sound if cars become a huge problem. Although one problem with this is we will have to choose a day other than Sunday to film as the church may be busy and active on that day. Geoff will mourn here and then have confrontation towards the end of the sequence. This will act as the present setting in the timeline. 

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Another part of our sequence is set in a location which is based in a forest area. We have asked permission for this at a Nature Reserve (Eastern road nature reserve). This would be perfect for our sequence and the area is so big that we could find several suitable filming locations. This setting will allow us to create a chase sequence that we desire and allow us to travel from the graveyard/church within a few minutes. This will also allow us to have flashbacks of characters running and a crime scene later on in the timeline.

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We also need a Dark Room. There are a lot of locations that we could use for this and we wont need many shots taken here. We could use a room in the college for this as we have already found some ideal places and this means that the cast can easily turn up. We need this also for present time and to end the opening sequence. This will need to have a light switch and the ability to have hardly any light.

Thriller Costumes and Hair

Costumes and Hair

Each character in the opening has a different costume set; reflecting their individual characters and their day-to-day lives. We also show how significant the colour of each costume is.

For Susan, the primary female character, her clothing will be a colourful jogging outfit; a bright colour in the darkness that surrounds her. The outfit will also reflect her colourful personality. Her shoes will be typical running shoes; creating a feeling of empathy and relate ability with the audience. Her hair will be styled to be frantic and messy; showing how scared the character is.

Geoff will be wearing a somewhat dark, brown/grey outfit. The outfit will be a trench coat, an item of clothing detectives often wear- showing his job and how the job plays out in the story. He will also be wearing glasses, giving a stereotypical vibe for being clever, and deductive. This authoritative outfit will also give the character some power within the scene, as well as showing his masculinity. His hair will be styled elegantly to show his business like attitude.

The assailant will also be wearing a three piece suit with a cynical colour; the darkness of his suit will reflect the darkness of his personality. The darkness of his outfit will also show how there is mystery and will also show how the audience will be kept in the dark about who this person is. He will also be wearing a hat; most likely a fedora, showing a dangerous vibe- and we will only ever see a part of the characters face. His hair will be messy- the same as Susan- which will link the two together; both struggling with something in their lives which brought them to that position.

Rachel will be an enigmatic character; we will only ever see her shoes in the opening. The shoes themselves will be red jogging shoes; the red will show the danger and desire in this character; while the shoes themselves show her relation to the main character- they were both joggers. She will, however, not be wearing tracksuit bottoms- creating a confusing, enigmatic, situation which will undoubtedly confuse the viewer. In this case any facial expressions, hair and make-up will be invisible.
 

Thriller Make Up

In our thriller opening, we need make up to create the individual characteristics for our characters we wanted. We can use this to create enigma around certain injuries and question how injured they are (are they dead for example). I attempted some of these which went fairly well, although at our skill of creating wounds, they would look better at a distance than in a close up. Experimenting with this will only improve this, allowing us to try other things to create the feelings we seek to. In our film opening, we want to create a scar/scratch down the Assailants face which will be easy to recreate on site and on the day, even at different locations. We also want to use make up when Susan is beaten down to the ground, but used to suggest her injuries could be fatal. 

There are many tutorials on YouTube which show you how to do a basic wound step by step. We can also can create cuts and wounds using trial and error, creating the perfect looking cut on camera. Using red marker, you can create a basic line then make it look more realistic using make up.
The materials we need for the complicated make up are also cheap and usually house hold items, like glue sticks, therefore easy to find.

Thriller Lighting and Colour

For lighting in the film, we hope to aim for an overcast day. On overcast days, the clouds covering the sky spread the light from the sun, creating an evenly lit scene without the high contrast shadows that would be present with the sun shining.

LED light

We are well aware that planning for specific weather is rather difficult, which is why we will be bringing a minimum of two battery powered LED lights. These two lights will act as the Key and Back light to create Low Key Lighting. Low Key Lighting is created when the Fill Light is removed, creating strong contrast between the light and dark areas of the subject(s). In some cases, the Back Light will become the Fill Light to lighten the shadows present. For example, outdoors in an overcast day.

Overcast Weather

Our Thriller intro has a heavy use of Flashbacks to create Enigma and Suspense. Without an Auditory or Visual element to imply a Flashback, the frequent transitions may seem more like Parallel editing where both events are happening simultaneously. A cue of the Flashback helps to show to the audience that a jump in time has occurred.

A good option is to have a flash sound effect at the beginning of the Flashback while there is a simultaneous fade to white that matches speed with the sound. This brings in both Audio and Visual but it could still be mistaken as a very fancy (and unnecessary) transition. By desaturating the video (remove colour) during the Flashback, it gives a sense of the footage having aged. Hence why, the events shown will be assumed to have occurred in the past. The rest of the film may be desaturated too as by removing the strong vibrant colours, the mood created is very bleak and depressing. This assists the events occurring in the present, although this would negate the Flashback's desaturation unless it is increased.

Thriller Allocated Tasks

Tasks in the Thriller Film Task are the same as the Preliminary Film Task, only in far more detail. Below are the leads for each task. They will be in charge of that task and making sure it is completed with the necessary blog posts. Also, if necessary they can bring other group members in to assist in the completion.

Story Boarding Artist: Benjamin Mongardini

Make Up Artist: Nigel Furminger

Location Scout & Planner: Nigel Furminger

Casting Director: Benjamin Mongardini

Prop Manager: Stephen Griffin

Costume Manager: Stephen Griffin

Director of Filming: Stephen Griffin

Camera Operators: Nigel Furminger, Benjamin Mongardini