Certification

We decided the certificate of the film would be a 12, using the BBFC's guidelines on the rating films I decided this would be the most appropriate rating. Our film will follow mature themes and contain some moderate violence.

We decided a lower rating would greatly reduce the amount of freedom within the film and would mean more mature adult themes would not be viable. However if we pushed the film up to a 15 certificate this would be completely unnecessary and unused by the film, for example we would have no need for the more in depth violence etc. as this can all be heavily suggested anyway and sometimes not showing violent acts and self harm as examples can be more powerful than showing them. 

Violence In Films Today

New Location

Our location was previously at Beachy Head, Eastbourne. However once we did extensive research on the location we discovered it would infact be an hour and a half drive each way in addition to being extremely windy which would greatly effect the shots of the balloon.

Due to these factors we decided as a group to change the location to the Sussex Downs, this location is much closer to all of us (within 20 minutes) and will have the same effect as filming on beachy head due to the vast panorama views that can be seen from the top. 

Cutting Letters Scene

Below, is a clip which includes similar shots to that of our scene with the cutting up of the letters. We can see here that lighting is especially important to the scene and will need practise so that we can perfect the effect, also the type of lighting will need to be taken into account. For example the college's bright white lighting would be totally inappropriate as it wouldn't give that warm glow to it that you get from lights with a golden glow to them. This will have to be taken into account and we will have to find an appropriate light source. A possible location for this is a room in the college called the POD which has no light. This will make the shot easier to do because we don't have to worry as much as other light sources. We may use a lamp for a light source but i think we are going to have to use lights which we can change the intensity of the light (low and high key lighting) because we want some very good shadow shots but from other angles this may not look as good so we are going to have to change the position of the light. 

Location Survey

As part of our Thriller we needed to decide where we were going to film and the main thing we were looking for was a high place on top of a cliff or hill. We came up with the location Beachy Head in Eastbourne. This would give us some effective shots off the cliff and by having the character just standing there by himself with the red balloon it will look awesome. Underneath is the details of how to get to the location and the address. 


Location:

Beachy head
Eastbourne District 
East Sussex
England


We decided to get the directions from Maddy's house, who is located in Horsham,  as she is the one who will be driving. As Tom lives in Burgess Hill and Matt lives in Plumpton, we needed a way to make it a shorter drive. To make it easier Tom and Matt would be going to Haywards Heath Station to meet Maddy who will carry on driving to Beachy Head.
   

By using the AA website we could choose a starting point off the drive and the end point, also with a via point. This gave us the full directions and how long the drive is going to take. The drive is going to take 1 hour and 20 minutes but if traffic is bad this could take much longer. (The Route)


A few other bits of information which may be needed whilst we are up there.


Nearest Hospital: Eastbourne District general hospital.
Nearest Police Station: Seaford, Sussex Police Station
Local Taxi Company: 720Taxis Eastbourne 01323 720720


No Other means of travel are needed as we are driving to the location but if needed we will have to use the local train station, Eastbourne Station, which has services to Brighton and Haywards Heath, so either way we can easily get there if anything bad happens such as Maddy's car decides to break.

What Technical Facilities are there?
None, Beachy head is very remote and we will have no technical facilities nearby, however we will have Maddy's car. We must ensure that we have all the equipment such as the The Camera (Sony HDR XR550V Camera), Tripod, Any Sound Equipment and Any Lighting Equipment. All equipment is fully charged and working before we leave otherwise we would have wasted a trip to Eastbourne and petrol is very expensive these days. Space for filming shall be no issue, beachy head is extremely large and open. We also need to make signs to alert people that we are filming to they do not interrupt us.

Cast and Crew Facilities?
There is not many places nearby where we are recording, except The Beachy Head Hotel which is also a Pub. This will be useful if food or drink is needed or if any of us need to use the toilet. If weather gets so bad, we will check before we leave because we don't want to film in the rain, we have Maddy's car to sit in just incase.

Health and Safety

EDIT:
Due to the lengh of the drive and health and safety issues of filming at beachy head we decided to change our location to the Sussex Downs.


During the filming of our piece we shall have to make many health and safety risks into account and must not endanger ourselves with substantial risks. Here is a list of the main risks involved with our filming and how the risks can be minimalised.

• Driving to Beachy Head. Maddie shall be driving our group up to beachy head where we shall film the majority of our filming, there are the usual risks with driving here such as crashing and adverse weather conditions. This is aplified by the fact we are driving along a coastal road and a motorway to get there. This risk is reduced as Maddie has a full UK drivers license and is in a fully insured car, showing she is a capable driver.
• Filming on Beachy Head. Due to filming near a cliff edge with high drops and unsolid ground we will have to take extreme care as to where we film. The risk here is proberly the largest risk involved in our filming, however it can be reduced by filming when it isn't windy with good weather conditions, we shall also have to stay away from cliff edges. We could further reduce the risk involved with being near a cliff by using illusions to give the same effect of us being on a cliff, by example by using a different piece of land entirely to film the shot on, aslong as we establish the scene as being on Beachy Head this shall be no issue.
• The baloon shot on Beachy Head. The baloon will be filled with helium so that it floats in the air for one shot. We must take care with the baloon as for example if it popped it could cause slight injury or alarm someone else causing them to trip or a dog to run away for example. This is a neccesary risk and cannot be avoided, we must take care to leave the baloon away from sharp objects and bring a replacement.
• The camera/bipod. We will obviously be filming with a camera and bipod, the person doing this will have to remain aware of their surroundings especially on beachy head and take care not to trip up. The bipod must also be places on stable ground and away from the clidd edges.
• Filming in Matt's Study. This is just one scene involved in a study, (see image in post below) here there are minimal health and safety risks apart from the room being small itself so we must take care not to overcrowd the room as this may result in accidents.
• Lighting equipment. During all of our filming we shall be using lighting equipment which can be very bright on full settings. We must take care not to shine this in the direction of roads as it could cause accidents, we must also try and make sure we dont shine it in anyone eyes, the risks however are greatly reduced if we do not do the above practices.
• Filming in the car. We may end up doing a establishing shot filmed from within a moving car, during this take we must take great care as this could be a potential health hazard to us and other drivers. To avoid this risk we must perform the filming only when the road is empty and we must not lean out of the car under any cercumstances.
• Lastly we also have to take into account the publics perception of what we are doing seeing as Beachy Head is a renowned suicide spot, and we shall be filming there. This can be done by wearing high visibility jackets for example or putting up a sign. We do not want the general public to phone the police about potential suicides!

Animatic

The video above is our storyboard which describes what are Thriller opening is going to be about. It is just a rough idea but this is going to help us when we come to filming and editing the clips. 

The animatic above is the same just without the sound because that gives us a rough idea of how much time to use on each shot

Possible Filming Location

Matts Office


This is the picture of the office that can be used when we shoot the cutting up the letters scene. By looking at the picture we see that the window is letting in a lot of light so we if used we will have to shut the blind to get the low key lighting effect. When filming there is not a lot of space for filming in front of the character because of the table

Pre-Production Planning

Synopsis
The film is going to start with an antagonist cutting up letters from newspaper/magazine. This then cross cuts to an establishing shot to the location. There will be a man on the cliff holding a red balloon which we do not see his identity. The opening sequence will end suggesting he has jumped off the cliff and the antagonist posting the letter through a post box with the address of a police station. The rest of the film will be based in the police officers point of view of the story, trying to solve if it was murder or suicide.

 
List of Roles
Director - Maddy Spencer
Lighting & Sound - Matt Fawdrey & Tom Barrow
Editing - All Of Us


Cast
Matt Fawdrey - Antagonist
Tom Barrow - Protagonist 






Props & Costume
Red Balloon with String
Suit and Tie
Trench Coat
Newspaper/Magazine
Scissors

Locations

Beachy Head - We chose this as a location due to the abnormality of the location and this will be a memorable due to it being unique, this was used to it being referred to again throughout the film. Aslong as we obtain the establishing shot of Beachy head we can film some of the shots such as the baloon related ones in much less dangerous locations as the illusion shall be that it is at beachy head, this will be very helpfull when it comes to health and safety.

Matt's Office, Plumpton Green (see post above for image)
 During the scene of cutting up of the letters the location isnt neccesarily important as it is mainly extreme close ups, however we will need to perfect the lighting in this scene to effectively set the mood of the piece.

 

OUTDATED

The filming of the man cutting up the newspaper cuttings is undecided, this will either be in Tom's garage or Matt's office. This location shall not matter too much due to the shots mostly being close ups which are heavily focused on objects, meaning the viewer shall not pay too much attention to the surroundings.

Script

We are not going to have any dialogue in this opening sequence because this gives a great effect on raising questions, which a thriller aims to do. We are going to use Sound Effects and Sound Tracks from both diegetic and non-diegetic positions

Research Task - Matt Fawdrey

Kill list

Camera

• Arguing couple framed separately, not together unless to physically hit the other; draws attention to the idea of the couple being separate and shows their relationship is not currently successful. 
• Man above woman on stairs; could be said that this portrays their roles in the family and enforces stereotypes of the man being in power in comparison to his wife.

Sound

• Shouting
• No music; used to draw attention to the raw emotions of the argument and dialogue.
• No music needed due to the atmosphere and tension in the scene was built sufficiently though the argument.

Editing

• Child in room, trying to ignore argument; enforces the idea of innocence. This never had to be included, however was edited in; this child has no other screen time.

Mise en scene

• Expensive house
• White rooms, void of life and emotions, this could be related to the houses occupants as well.

Pulp Fiction

Camera

• Lots of mid shots, focusing heavily on conversation, used to set the scene for the film; very effective.
• Also contains some Close ups of the characters to portray emotion.
• Lastly towards the end of the scene a long shot is given when they begin to rob the diner as this shows them both clearly standing up within a single frame.

Editing

• Finishes on a giant change in atmosphere towards the end, until then there very casual and relaxed, then all of a sudden they shout and rob the diner.

Mise en scene

• Middleclass diner, smoking indoors (sets location and time period)
• Very average and portrayed normality in the couple, creates more of an effect when they start their hold up.
• Having Coffee and breakfast, relaxed and casual.

Sound

• No music, draws attention to characters conversation
• lots of ambient sound setting the scene of a busy american diner; this also sets the time of day.

The sixth sense

Camera

• Couple are framed within a literal frame itself when reading (shown in reflection); this is good as it shows their emotions in addition to the document itself for viewers to read.
• Uses a shot taken from behind ornaments to convey the woman being watched; this shot also frames her nicely to emphasize her.

Editing

• Few variation in shots, there mainly all composed to fit the purpose of showing emotions, it has also been edited so that it has a slow pace; this is probably used as it can set the tempo for scene/film.
• This slow pace may later be released in the next season, however if it is not it has allready put the viewer on the edge of their seat.

Mise en scene

• Nice house once upstairs seemingly innocent and normal to a family for example.
• Moves into the cellar where the overall scene is more grim and scary, very dark with a lack of lighting in comparison to the upstairs scene.
• No longer a home in cellar, less objects used by family's.

Sound

• Starts off with a quite eerie music and then once the woman goes upstairs frightened the music changes to happy love music, almost ironic.

Disappearance of Alice Creed

Camera

• Focus pulls were used to draw attention to the items brought, and in particular to their prices; shows their on a budget and makes the audience enquire with questions.
• At the very beginning the shots are extremely varied in how long they last, this gives the intro an uneasy tempo to watch, building angst in the viewers. 

Editing

• The pace of the shots is faster at the beginning of the piece and then slows down towards the end, this could have been used as it sets the scene of the film quickly with all the need to know details and then the film changes to focus on the story.

Mise en scene

• Steal a builders van easily and quickly, past experience?
• The room has extremely high security installed, to detain someone against there will.
• The clock is replaced from a functional, homely clock to a formal bland clock in the room. This portrays the men as professional. 

Sound

• The two men do not say a single word to one another, this shows they are extremely unified and either well planned or have performed these tasks many times before.

44 Inch chest

Camera

• Many abstract close ups of items.
• Slow camera movement, this lets the viewer take into account every small detail in the scene and due to the long shot lengths they have a lot of time to analyse the piece and ask questions.
• There is a close up of the man's face when he is on the floor, this close-up was used to make the viewer feel uncomfortable about the scene.
• There was a focus pull at the start of the scene to let the viewer again start asking questions about the scene.

Editing

• Extremely slow pace at the start.
• Many cuts with very few fades and other effects.

Mise en scene

• We can tell the home owner is rich due to the setting and expensive furniture included.
• Due to the white dog we can presume the man has either a wife or is in another persons house.
• Is the man on the floor a victim or the perpetrator? He might not even be the home-owner as he seems to not fit in with the surroundings.
• The man in the apron is obviously caring for his mother and seem normal together in comparison to the previous scene, this makes the audience enquire to why the two scenes are linked and what the relevance is of this second scene.

Sound

• Slow, love music; seems out of place entirely with the first scene, the love music also leads us to believe  that the man has been separated from someone close to him, possible his wife? The dog would also fit in with this.
• No music in the second scene; few sound effects apart from the TV.

Lighting

For this task we had to recreate some still pictures with the lighting equipment we borrowed from the department.

This photo we see that this was a tad wrong, this is because we printed out the pictures and they came out in black and white, so we assumed that it was very low key lighting with a blacked out room. We can see we have a back light and a key light at very low intensity. Next time we should make sure that the lighting is a bit weaker and printed off the pictures in colour.

<!--[if !vml]-->This photo we see that we have only used key light at very high intensity and by looking at the picture above we shouldn't off used it very high but very low. Also we see the other side of his face so we should have used some fill light so we see all his face. This was also not the same due to the picture being printed out in black and white

This photo was very hard to make come to life. This was due to one of the lights being broken when we set up. Also we could not get the light to be bright enough and there was not a tunnel to use. Our lights were powered by using plugs which made it harder for us to use. To make this shot we had to use very high key light behind the character. Our picture did not come out very well but we tried our best to get the full effect

Frontal Key Light Only

Key Light and Fill

Bottom Up Lighting

Top Lighting Only












Side Lighting Only











Back lighting Only

Frontal Key Lighting

We can fully see the character but this light gives the face a lot of shadow. This we may not use as in our thriller we might not want to see the characters identity, unless we use a good character and we want to know what he looks like.

Key light and fill

This shot we cannot see and of the background which could be a great effect to use, the face that the light is mainly aimed at him makes the character fill insecure and put on the spot.

Bottom Up lighting

I like this shot as it gives a great shadow on the wall behind the character, this could be used to just record the shadow of the character which would still hide the person’s identity. I think we should use this lighting as it could create questions and suspense.

Top lighting Only

This shot hides the characters identity and leaves the face full of shadow, this would be used to show clothing and setting but hides facial expression. This is also some lighting we may use in our work.

Side lighting

This lighting we can see only side of his face, which gives a great effect as it doesn’t give much away to his face. We don’t see and setting which is also good. Not sure we will use this in our film opening but it could appear somewhere.

Backlighting only

Love this lighting as it makes the character look creepy and dangerous, which we would want in our thriller. We know nothing about this character but if we use this with high key, we will se some setting.