Changing The Costumes for the Second Shooting

After the first days filming we took our footage back to school and had a look at it before the editing process. However we decided upon reflection that the footage was not of a satisfactory standard, and as a result of this we decided that we are going to re-shoot the film entirely in order to improve it.


One of the main improvements that we thought would help would be to change the costume because it was also very basic and not very interesting and didn't make the thriller any better, so as a result of this we decided to change the costume.


The changes that we are going to make are not going to be to drastic however we have decided that a smarter approach will be better. The initial costume for most of the characters is a blue pair of jeans with a white shirt untucked and with the top button undone and also after the death scene we used an acrylic paint in order to replicate blood, however when we looked at this on the camera it looked very tacky and fake.


Because of this we decided to change the costume of the main character to a pair of smart black jeans and a smart jacket and this will make the character look smarter and have more of a sense of authority as the person is eventually going to be in the commanding role when he is killing people. we also decided not to use blood in the re-shoot.



Here is a picture of Charlie wearing what we decided the costumes should initially look like with the fake blood. 













Here is a picture of me wearing the changed costume which is a much more smart look and you can see that we do not use fake blood here as it looked tacky, and this more smart approach makes the main character look a lot more threatening.  










By George Hick

Re-Shooting

After reviewing our footage we believe that there are some fundamental pieces of filming that we missed and so the film ios very difficult for a viewer to understand. Also, we are not happy with the length of our starting scene, and the variety of shots in these opening scenes was poor. Our character is seen to be running but there is no clear reason why, and with the long shots it is difficult to see the anxiousness of the character. As we believe that our storyline is good we are reluctant to chnage our story, but the shots used to portray our story could be changed. To develop this scene we want to move this running all to a point of view shot, so that is very easy for the viwer to realise the anxiousness of the character, and can also be seen as desperation with the addition of heavy breathing. This way you could also get establishing shots of the area.

We also need to shoot our final location for the thriller. The location is an abandoned concrete building and we were not able to film in this location on our first day due to the not having our photo's taken and printed on polaroid camera print paper. Here we want our main character to wake up and not understand why he is there and how he got there. With the polaroid pictures hanging along the the ceiling of the building and when our character looks upon them it will induce a flashback where we will edit in our previous footage with a black and white effect to give the feeling of the event being in the past. When the flashback ends the character will be seen to be panicing and disorientated, and also desperate. This will happen three times with all three flashbacks with the angle of the shot beoming higher and higher to give the feeling of the character becoming more and more vulnerable.

By Thomas Beal

First Day Filming

We chose to film on Saturday 19th March and met up in Ongar. Our day started off a bit late as me, Christian and Tom were at the meeting point at 11am, whereas George woke up a bit late and didn’t meet up with us till 11:30. After the small delay, we went off and George then realised he forgot one of the main props, which was his watch. We also then realised that the main prop of the entire film that we needed was the knife, which I wasn't prepared to bring as I didnt want to carry it around, incase we got stopped. Which meant that George had to go out of his way in order to get a knife, this took up alot of time however,  once we had that, we started filming, and at first, it was hard to actually know where to start. Our first shot we think will be George walking quite anxiously and he keeps looking at his watch. At first, we had to do this shot around 3-4 times as we had a few problems with the tape in the camera. We then went on to film our next shots and a couple of times we changed the location of the shots. This was because as we were filming, we came across good locations as we walked past them. Once we had finished filming in the location we went back to the high street and got some food. By the time we finished lunch, it was around 2:00.

We then went to our next location which was around 10 minutes away. It was quite hard to film in this location because it was close to the public and our man prop was a knife. We had to cover the knife in red paint to look like blood. On top of this location being near the open, houses looked onto our location also. We had to have someone in a ditch with a black bag over their head, and then someone with a knife. It didn’t look like a film from someone who didn’t know what was going on, so we had to film this part quite fast.

Once we finished the 'dippers' location, we then moved onto the abandoned barn which was on private land, so we had to be careful in this location also. We found a really good spot in the barn as there was barbed wire all around and it looked quite menacing. We only took one of take of this and if when I edit it, it looks quite bad, we will have to redo this location. It wasn’t really hard to get to, it’s just the fact that its private land so if we do have to go back there, we will have to make it quick again.

We then moved along to the derelict swimming pool which was a good location as the fact that it was falling down and derelict, made it fit the genre perfectly. This location took quite a while to get right as in the three flashbacks, we didn’t want them to be repetitive and so we had to change what the murderer was doing.

Overall it was a really successful first shoot, but we do need to go back to Ongar to finish off our last location of the concrete room of George waking up after he had blacked out. We also may need to do a few more retakes of some of our shots in case they aren’t very effective.

By Charlie Head

Final Storyboard

This is a storyboard of our final film, which we carefully followed while making our film. The first time we filmed, the footage we got was very poor and just didn't look right for our film. This was because we knew where to film but we didn't plan it carefully enough and we ended up arguing of what shot to actually use when we was there. I then decided we should re-film the whole project so I made a shot by shot storyboard telling us what shot to use and where. This was very successful as in the end we managed to agree to re-film it and it turned out  much better than we anticipated. 

Marketing our Thriller Film

To promote and find an audience for our thriller, we are going to create a promotional poster of our film. This is to attract our audience and to also draw a new audience. The poster has to be enticing and present an element of fear to follow the film we have made. We also plan to have the poster centred around 12 o clock on the watch as this is a major theme with the film, so we want the poster to be moulded around a prop, like the film poster of Halloween. This poster is centred around the killer's knife which we would also like to include in our poster.

We also want to create a trailer for the film. A short montage of key moments from our shooting should be included to show the character and a certain degree of the violence that is suggested in the film. The trailer should also give details of the production companies, key names and key dates, most importantly the release date.

By Thomas Beal

Marketing

Films can be marketed in a variety of different ways. In the past, posters and billboards where the only possible way to create a buzz for a film and to attract an audience. A film targeted for a mass audience would be able to put up posters in mass public places, like tube stations, big tourist attractions and city centres where huge amounts of possible audience walk through everyday. More specific films to a niche market would have to be more precise in where they put their posters, and would have to target certain area's, for example a thriller film would do well to target in a typically adult area, like Camden.



Iron Man 2 Billboard in Times Square



More modern ways of marketing are through the media. Advertisements through television are very effective. Trailers are the most common way of TV advertising and will give the viewer a snippet of the film to promote and intrigue the viewer. In a thriller the trailer will give a very brief outline of the film and will raise suspense and dread towards the plot. They may even offer an enigma to the film to entice the audience to go to the see the film. Radio advertisements are also effective and can target to a niche audience much easier than television, for example a Gothic thriller would be able to advertise to a large part of its audience through a Gothic radio station.

A new way of advertising that is recently becoming very effective is Internet and viral advertising. Fan pages on Facebook can generate massive hype to a film and by posting updates to the film and exclusive trailers through the page would be very effective, as advertising through Facebook gives people the option to share with friends easily, creating further buzz for the film. Viral advertisements could include a series of video's posted on YouTube or through the official film website. In thrillers, these could very easily present an enigma and get their audience to interact and answer the question, but not give them the answer so they feel even further enticed to see the film.

A recent film to be virally advertised is the upcoming Limitless. A video posted on YouTube showed a man hacking into the large screens in Times Square. The advertising here is that the film trailer he had taken over from was Limitless, so effectively every viewer to watch this video is also watching a trailer for the Limitless film. An advertisement had also been set up in public transport showing the star of the film Bradley Cooper advertising a pill to "unlock your potential", which is the main basis of the Limitless film.

We have many possible ways to market our thriller film and will design a series of posters and will hope to be able to edit from out footage a trailer for the film.

By Thomas Beal

Shooting Schedule

Scheduling when to shoot was quite hard as there is only a few camera's able for use. After 2 hours of planning our plot, we came to decide a day on which we plan to shoot on. We decided to shoot on Saturday 19th March as the weather looks like it’s going to be a nice day, which means it’s perfect for shooting.

We planned to meet at The Two Brewers Pub at 11am. From there, it’s roughly all over Ongar all day filming. There is a Sainsbury’s close by so if we need food and drink, we can get it there. We want to try and record for as long as possible so, if we film to 5-6 o'clock that should give us enough time.

If our shooting goes well, I'll bring the film with me to edit at home. If I find that there are some mistakes, we will arrange for another re-shoot day hopefully the week after.

By Charlie Head

Music Ideas

Freeplay Music

http://freeplaymusic.com/search/category_search.php?t=f&i=69

The Haunting
                Tense, builds up tension also, stings throughout. Could be used for chase scenes, but becomes noise and messy and would not be suitable for an isolated setting.

--

http://freeplaymusic.com/search/category_search.php?sindex=11&i=48&t=f

Blood Deep
                Tense, building suspense but does not climax, gives a disorientated feel to the character and could be used in the waking up scene or during flashbacks. Not fast paced enough to be used for chase scenes.

No Reflections
                Gives an eerie feel, stings throughout alerting audience and heightening suspense and tension, gives an aggressive feel also, and could be used with flashback scenes.

--

http://freeplaymusic.com/search/category_search.php?sindex=21&i=48&t=f

Gloomy Room
                Eerie feel with a high pitched note throughout, building suspense and tension and also giving a fright to the audience with stings. Could be used to highlight a knife or key scene like a flashback.

--

http://freeplaymusic.com/search/category_search.php?sindex=41&i=48&t=f

Difficult To Breathe
                Starts with a fair equilibrium and builds up suspense gradually with an built up with music stings, undertone, feels isolated and could be used at the start of the scene when the protagonist goes from the town to the field.

--

By Thomas Beal

Actual Locations

Photos of Actual Locations

 Derelict Barn 

The reason i thought it would be a good idea  to use a derelict barn as a location is because it is a very original location and something that is not easy to come by. It will be very suited to a thriller becuause it is a dark scary place with a solitary atmosphere.

Empty Moat/ Forest

The reason we decided upon using an empty moat as a location is because it is also a very original location with many different aspects to it. It is also very suited to a thriller because it is a dark quiet place with alot of coverings that make it a very eery place.  

Derelict Swimming Pool

A derelict swimming pool is also another very original location. It is somewhere that is always known as a very active place, so when it is empty it is a very eery place. It is full of dirt and graffiti and has broken walls in some places so it makes it very scary and make it a very good location for the thriller.

Swamp

A swamp is not a very original location, however it is a very good place to film a thriller. I think it will be a very good place to film a thriller because it is very well known as a place of danger. It is very overgrown and has alot of sticky mud in and around it, therefore if anyone was to fall in it would be very dangerous. Therefore it is a good place to film a thriller because of this.

Desolate Fields

A desolate field is also not a very orginal location, however we feel that it would be a very good location to use a long shot on. If someone is filmed walking or running through an empty field then it creates a feeling of loneliness and this is something that is scary in many thrillers the thought of someone being alone as it creates a feeling of isolation.  

By George Hick