Thriller - Protect & Survive

Matt recommended us to look at a site called, 'Protect and Survive' to help us think about the basis of our parademic thriller.

The site tells you about how you would be able to remain as safe as possible due to any kind of attack, for example; a nuclear bomb.

It tells you about how to build an 'inner refuge' in preparation of a 'fall-out'. I found this very interesting as it gave me an insight as to how people would react in a situation which would prove life threatening. I like the idea of there being some case of survival in our thriller, a way out. I have an image of it reflecting 'I Am Legend' and instead of being a horror thriller something which although scares you and keeps you on your toes, has some hope for survival and is not all about the sufferers.

It also advises the readers about the different areas of food health relations and sanitation. Explaining that you should drink lots of water, pack lots of tinned food. For sanitation, bring necessities like Strong disinfectant. This could give us clues about props that we would like to use and I think it's good research in order to make our thriller believable to the audience and if we dot this kind of props around our setting then it could show the audience that the population tried their best to maintain the human race and survive.

 

Thriller - Changes/New Ideas

We have realised that it is unfeasible for us to locate our setting in Central London as there is no possible way we could make it look like it had been abandoned for a period of time. If we had a substantial amount of money it would be amazing if we could create something like 'I Am Legend' with grass growing through the concrete etc but that's clearly unrealistic.

Matt and Luke reccommended we use something tighter and smaller, in order to make it clean. If we used something like Hurtwood House it would actually be very clever seeing as not all of it looks like a school.

We could shoot the main house being taped off and boardered up, suggesting to the audience that not even the rich can escape from it (as it looks like a grand country manor).

We coud have a shot in the theatre with all the seats thrown about and blood stains with piles of bodies with sheets over them, suggesting the media and entertainment aren't safe implying there's no motivation for the lack of survivors.

I like the idea of shooting the tennis courts taped off and getting the art department to create some grass which we could put round the edges of the court, which suggests a sense of time and how long this has been going on for. We could also have piles of bodies on the courts with sheets over them to demonstrate to the audience the severity of the parademic.

Matt gave us the idea of doing a tracking shot of the classrooms to give more of a school environment showing that the disease and illness has targeted the youth as well. Implying nobody can escape from it. We could board off the class rooms and create holes in taped off doors where foxes have been rummaging about for food from the carcasses.

We also spoke about using the canteen to create the imagery of food mixing with death and how if the food is contaminated nobody can survive due to lack of resources. I like the idea of putting Christmas decorations around the canteen which have deteriorated over time showing the audience that it is some time past Christmas and that this disease has spread since then. We could also put blood stains and bodies around over white sheets, the idea of turning it into a hospital and failing.

Thriller - Location

I was putting into consideration what I would like the basis of our shots to look like. This is to get a rough idea of how we want the shots to pan out and so that we won't be rushing on the day with no rough plan. This also ties in with the storyboard and how I thought this could potentially work.

My first picture of the London eye is a shot from Waterloo Bridge, looking out onto the thames and the view. I think this will work really well, it gives the audience an idea as to where our film is set, the iconic image of London suggests it's a big deal and that people will be intrigued as its something that the population can relate to with our thriller. However this photo is in the evening whereas we are planning to get our shot at dawn. I would also like the angle to be moved over to the right so that we could get more of a clear angle of the river.

This next image is one that I found on google images of the pub that we are using (The Devereux) which is on Fleet Street, adjacent to the Strand. I like the shot its arty and eerie however we will not be shooting in black and white but I find it's a good low angle example of the outside.

Another one of our locations is using a park, something which is usually associated with being crowded, a place for families and socializing. However we're using this to create contrast in our thriller, something which is usually happy to and flip it on its side to make it eerie, spooky and unlikely. We have decided to use St James Park as its near, big, and there are bound to be some places which are empty in order for us to do some filming. The picture that I've chosen well represents a thriller. Its a mystical and eerie shot which I found very interesting and would quite like to include it given the chance.

As I am in the middle of doing a rekkie for the location, I liked the idea of using Southbank skate park. Its quite a derelect area with grafiti suggesting it is mainly used by young people which also suggests that the disease has been spread to all ages and is affecting all members of the public. I also think it would visually be very interesting as its quite dark, quite hidden away and compliments the idea of the thriller through being damaged.

Thriller - Target Audiences

For research and planning we looked into which range of audiences we should be aiming to watch our film. I went onto Youtube and looked at the statistics of 28 Days Later which is a similarly based film to our own. The statistics proved that the majority of people who were interested in watching it were males aged 18-34. It also said that the female ratio looking to watch it were only 13-17 year olds. Culturally it suggested that that genre was widely favoured in Canada, America, parts of Europe (mainly in UK)and Australia.

Thriller Wordle - Messing With Fonts

I was working on fonts for fun just to mess about and came up with this on Wordle.

Working with different fonts is extremelty important when it comes to creating your design element for your thriller. You need to select a font which would be suitable. Picking a font which was elegantly written and stylised or to pretty would obviously not work well, and something which would have been written for 'Alien' is also not appropriate as it would be too sci-fi based.

We are still debating on what layout for text and which font to use as the title is still a working progress.

Thriller Soundbridging and Filming

Going back to my idea of soundbridging, I got my inspiration from the classic films 'Harry Potter' and in the seventh film part 1, Ron is listening to the radio of people who have died, with a long list of names, and the radio soundbridges and carries on the different shots of scenery that their passing through, emphasising their isolation and impact of death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYo9BXGQyDM

Thriller Location

We've settled on using my uncle's pub which is located in Fleet Street.

It closes on a Saturday and Sunday and we find that this would be nice to shoot on a Sunday as it would be a lot quieter, more tranquil and we can give off the effect of it looking deserted as well as the streets.

I found an image on Google images of the interior and bar taps which gives us a good idea about what the pub would be like to shoot and gives us some clue on how it looks and could adapt to our filming it.

I like the cheery and welcoming atmosphere to the pub so it will be interesting to have to maintain part of this ambience but also having to turn it on its side and create a contrasting and eerie edge. I'm looking forward to our shooting here I think it will be really interesting.

Thriller Updates and Progress

We have decided to move from using a supermarket, to a pub, due to the fact that my uncle owns a pub which closes on Saturday and Sunday and is a sweet old pub located in Fleet St.

As it's fairly central we were thinking of going there early in the morning, getting shots of quiet streets and I also really like the idea of going onto Waterloo Bridge (which is around the corner - literally) and getting a shot off it, to all the other bridges. This creates an element of open space, points out to the audience that this disease is central and is also quite an interesting visual.

I really really like the idea of filming lots of open shots of places, like the shot off the bridges, empty streets etc and it starting off looking at a petrol station with deserted cars queued up. One of the cars has it's door open with the radio on talking about whats happened, then after we've acknowledged the radio in the car with perhaps a close up, we then soundbridge this onto the other shots. Much like they do in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1.

Thriller - Storyboards

These were the various mapped out ideas which we had thought of and translated them onto paper to give us a rough idea of what we wanted it to look like on camera. This helps us to think ahead of what it could/would look like.

This is was our original prop list to help us think of amounts and how much we would need.

These were the first original shots we came up when we pictured using Emma and which angles we thought would be best to use, for example we wanted to use a wide angle shot with her in the middle huddled on the ground, showing how she is isolated, alone and vulnerable.

These are more close up shots/big close ups to convey to the audience her emotions; we wanted a big close up on her scabby, bleeding and dirty feet to show that she had been neglected which would reflect the idea of the film and show that she had been defenceless.

These other example shots are again showing how we wanted to keep our filming very minimalistic and equally effective, we wanted to begin with darkness mixed with white noise or bad tv to first initiate to the audience to ambience of the film; bleak and eerie.

As demonstrated on our storyboards the setting is very simplistic and the shots are all very naturalistic. However this may have proven to not be so useful as it could have been boring for the audience.

Thriller Adaptations - 28 Days Later ideas

We were shown the opening footage from 28 Days Later for inspirational ideas on how we wanted to base our opening idea being critically formed through rioting and suffering due to illness's.

We really liked the idea of portraying rioting through our circumstances in our thriller and wanted to use footage like this to create more tension and to establish how we got there.

I also found this idea of rioting very crucial to the point where, the audience to our thriller need to know how we got to the derelect destination. Also because we're basing it around pandemics we thought that a result of rioting footage would help create tension and suspense. It also shows an establishing shot to the audience as they would have been intrigued to know how they got in that situation. In order to do this we needed to feed the audience the crisis which was based around our thriller.

'Watching' Documentary on Film Openings

      We watched a documentary in class demonstrating the different types of film openings for thrillers, presented by Thomas Sutcliffe.

  Firstly Sutcliffe says, "Films need to seduce their audience into a long erm commitment. While there are many types of sudction, the temptation to go for instant arousal is almost irresistable" basically implying that you have to be able to set the scene and grip the audience and make them want to watch your film. This helped us to think through how we need to entice our audience with our first 3 minutes. However they're are some risks in having an 'instant arousal' as sometimes the film does not live up to the expectations then set to the audience, or follow through with what the beginnings set.

  We also learned that a good beginning needs to allow the audience to have some knowledge of what is going on, but enough which keeps them in the dark. This then will then help the audience to establish what is going on but also leaves enough unknown to keep them gripped for the rest of the film.

  Stanley Kauffman describes the classic opening from North by Northwest, where we see an establishing shot of New York, then an office building, then his office, then Carey Grant, all in an elongated tracking shot. Enabling the audience to know what it is there getting in to.

  Sutcliffe also described in the video why the opening to Seven is so effective. At the title sequence of the film we see that it sets the tone of it being a gaury thriller, with some psychopathic tones. It hits the audience on the head and prepares us for the following events in the film.

  The video also taught us about, "a favourite trick of Film Noir" which is a technique involving putting the end of the film at the beginning, like 'Casino' which sets the tone of the film, enticing the audience and wanting to know how the characters got there.

  Sutcliffe looked at 'The Shining' and how at the beginning of the film we see in the music that its bleak and tense, but also how the camera persues the car like a predator, stalking it. Showing the audience that the car is heading in the wrong direction and that something bad is going to happen.

Thriller Preperation

      We have been working on some more thriller ideas and have come up with multiple concepts which we have interpreted from news stories and blended them with already thought of films and books.

     For our first idea we came up with the idea of Cannablism based on sci-fi and supernatural sub-genre and how it could have evolved in futuristic events up to 20 years time. We discussed how it could be due to lack of resources such as food and water but also things such as bird flu and pandemics which would allow the population to decrease in deaths and survivors would have to resort to eating humans. We decided that this would be a good idea.
        We wanted to set it up in a derelict supermarket which had been trashed and out of use due to looting. There would be a tracking shot of all the isles, filled with empty shelves, rubbish and blood stained floors to give the audience the idea of isolation and abandonment. For sound we wanted a rolling can and a close up to give the effect of alienation.
  This idea was well recieved in the class and our teacher saw that this would be easy to create tension and suspense.

   For our second idea we based it on Halloween and how in America they set up haunted houses in a Suburban village/town as an amusement. They use actors to play the part of ghosts and an unwanted presence in order to thrill and scare the viewers. We liked the idea of creating a haunted house which people went to but to change it a bit and for the surroundings in the house to go out of control and for the actors to either be, not actors by psychopaths/or actually are ghosts. Also the people inside the house would be screaming with no escape but could get no help from anybody as passers by would accept that as part of the amusement, not incidents of danger. Therefore the people who visited could not seek help.
        We wanted to shoot the house with a board next to it strongly initiating to the audience that it is actually an amusement. For sound we chose children trick or treating and laughing and playing, and mums chatting so that everything seems normal but the audience know that it isn't normal.

   Our third idea was based around a news story set in Roccarrso in Italy where they had discovered a whole in the ground in the snowy mountains. We chose for our Sub-genre to make it a conspiracy and sci-fi thriller in the sense that this hole could lead to a parrallel or another world.
         We liked the idea for the beginning of shooting the snowy hills with a bird out of place (say something tropical like a parrot) flying over it and dying. This gives the audience the idea that something isn't quite right as the bird is clearly in the wrong climate but we question why it's there in the first place.

   For our final idea we saw a story in the news about how a boat had set fire on the red sea, with only one survivor. We interpreted this in the aspect that for our thriller, the survivor could have been the one to set the boat alight and escapes.

        In order to create this tension we had an image of a man walking around the boat with an oil can in isolated waters, the audience doesn't know why he's doing it or where he's come from, and at the end he lights the match and jumps off the boat. But the audience don't know what happens to him after. I also liked the image of him lighting the match, flicking it and the screen going black. So nobody knows what will occur. This would be a conspiracy and sci-fi thriller as it is a government opperation. All of which the audience know nothing about within the first few minutes.