Shooting and Failed edit

  We had planned to shoot our Thriller opening on the 10th, 11th and 12th of Novembe, however, there was a student protest in Central London, where our story takes place. We thought it sensible to avoid any difficulties including transport cancellations, and large amounts of people, so we decided not to shoot on the Wednesday.

  Overall, our shoot was successful. We did not encounter any problems in Central London and were very aware of the public in regards to our equipment and their privacy. We shot in London on the Thursday morning, so had a bit of a time limit as we had to be back for our lessons, therefore we did not complete all of our filming. However, we did plan days on which to re-shoot, so this was not a problem.

  We shot in my dads offices, The Department of Education, on Friday. We really wanted to get permission to use the building as we wanted to create an authentic office/organisation environment, so we were very grateful for this accomodation. When filming we were very concious of the fact it was a work environment so kept quiet and tried as hard as we could to stick to our shot list. The shoot was successful, apart from a small error in preparation regarding the elevators. We wanted to show our character walking into a lift, being in there, and walking out, but we had not realised how many lifts there were that respond to just one button. We had to press the button the quickly rush to the one that was coming. We did eventually manage to shoot it. We were also on somewhat of a time limit as we could not let it get dark, for continuity purposes. We filmed from roughly two thirty, and it starts getting dark at around 4.30, so we didnt have a huge amount of time.

  When we came to the edit, we were told that all of our footage was unusable, due to over exposure (despite the fact the camera was on 'auto' for the duration of the shoot) and we could not load our footage onto the computer as the tape lagged and jumped. This was an unfortunate case of bad luck with equipment. We will have to reshoot the entire thing. This would have been a huge problem for us as the use of my dad's offices was pretty exclusive, however, he confirmed that we will be able to use it again.

  I hope the reshoot will be beneficial, as we can perfect things we werent one-hundred percent happy with, and we may be more efficient in regards to shooting. We plan to film the majority of the central London content on Friday 19th, and the rest the following friday, including the stuff at my dads office.

More photo's of our indoor location.

Mise-en-scene ideas

Shot List

Extreme long shot (establishing shot) - Central London

Long Shot - Busy London Roads (panning with cars)

Long Shot - Busy London Streets

Long Shot - Building detective works in  (pan up?)

Extreme Close Up - Fingers typing on laptop

Medium shot - Character typing

Close Up - Characters face

Over the shoulder medium Shot - Colleague rushing in to tell her news

Over the shoulder medium shot - Detectives reaction

Extreme Close Up - Hand reaching for phone

Medium Shot - Opening door

Long Shot - Rushing down corridor

Extreme Close Up - buttons on lift

Medium Shot - Entering lift

Medium Close Up - Character in lift

Long Shot - Good character walking through atrium towards door

Medium Shot -  Good character rushing down street

Long Shot - Bad character rushing down Oxford Street

Medium Close Up - Bad Characters Face

Medium Shot - Good character's back rushing pasts people turning head

Long Shot - CCTV footage of bad character

Long Shot - Bad Character running down alley way

Close Up - Good Character on the phone

Long Shot - Good character rushing down street

360 degree shot - Good character looking around to find bad character

Close Up - Good character's face on the phone, bad character tells her to look around

Bad Character's Perspective Long Shot - Good character looking into the camera

Photographs of what we hope to be our main location

  I took these photos of central London around Oxford and Regent Street and near the Houses of Parliament, to get an idea of the nature of our location. We wanted to use an iconic and busy place to film to show the importance of the company in our story. 

  I noticed many difficulties with our location, mainly the amount of people in the area and the possible disruption we could cause. Also the public could have a negative affect on our footage. We have planned to do some extreme long shots of the area which could prove difficult as I couldn't spot anywhere where this could be filmed from. 

  Our location isn't set in stone, we are also considering Southbank, which  haven't taken any pictures of yet. 

Initial thoughts for 2 minute Thriller Opening

 My groups initial idea for our opening is a crime Thriller. We are planning to film in central London, maybe Oxford and Regent Street or Southbank. We want to create a tense, busy, quick-fire mood, rather than a quiet, spooky suspenseful feeling.

  We came up with a vague storyline. Instead of having a stalker plot, we decided that the goodies would be stalking, or rather searching for, the baddie. What the audience will gather is that there is a company following a man, but they don't know what he has done. The head of the company will be a woman as we thought a man chasing a woman would send out a more perverse message than we intended.

 There will be a lot of difficulties to face whilst filming, for example, we want to make it look quite big, and spectacle-ish with big buildings and computers, and of course we don't have the facilities or abilities to film that sort of thing. Hopefully our shots rather than the content will be assessed. Also we are filming in a very busy area so we will have to be careful with the equipment and hope that the busy effect we are aiming for wont just turn into a mess where you cant see who is supposed to be on camera.

  We've taken inspiration from crime thrillers such as The Bourne Trilogy, where you are thrown into the story with no information. We are relying on having the enigma we will hopefully create to give the film tension.

  Our film fits the thriller codes and conventions with the mood, which is tense and exciting. We have the stock characters of 'goodie' and 'baddie', and are filming in an urban area.

Common Thriller Actors

Robert Deniro

Often played characters that were often prone to brutal violence and/or characters who were borderline psychotics. His Italian upbringing contributes greatly to the Mafia/gangster films his is cast in.

·        Righteous Kill

·        The Godfather part 2

·        Taxi Driver

·        Angel Heart

·        The Untouchables

·        Goodfellas

·        Casino

Jack Nicholsen

Frequently works as a character with mental instability. His features like his wild eyes may be a reason for his casting.

·        One flew over the cuckoos nest (not really a thriller, but useful when describing his type cast)

·        A Few Good Men

·        The Shining

·        The Passenger

·        The Postman Always Rings Twice

·        Batman

·        The Departed

Leonardo Dicaprio

Plays conflicted, tortured-by-their-own-demons characters, who need to deal with their past.

·        The Beach

·        Blood Diamond

·        The Departed

·        Shutter Island

·        Inception

·        Gangs of New York

Matt Damon

  Damon has a strong physique and is quite attractive, which may be why he is cast as the action hero.

·        Saving Private Ryan

·        The Talented Mr Ripley

·        All the Pretty Horses

·        The Bourne Trilogy

·        The Departed

·        the good Shepherd

·        Greene Zone

Anglina Jolie

  Jolie is extremely attractive and has the strong feminist ‘fembot’ look. She is capable of doing her own stunts.

·        The Bone Collector

·        Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

·        Taking Lives

·        Changeling

·        Salt

·        Wanted