Our Characters

Characters

The victim
 This is who is going to playing the victim in our film, we think he was most suitable due to being the same age as the convict we wanted and a typical late teenage boy.







The victims wife
 We decided to use myself in the film as I am also the right age to be the
 girlfriend of the victim and I will only be needed for the phone call to the victim. We also thought that I looked like the average part to fit in with
 the film.






The Killer
We didn't really need a specific look for out killer as we wanted him to always be covered up and not seem therefore, we just decided it would be easier for Shaan to be the victim and make sure that he is always wearing dark clothes and don't use his face in any of the shots as we don't want to reveal the killer in the opening sequence.






                                                                    

setting up scene

this is a clip of us setting the scene up for our first shot

Planning opening sequence

Setting up

This is a photo after just setting up the props in our first scene of the killers previous murders revealing his mask. We had to sort out the lighting in order to give it a dark anxious feeling.

Meeting 6

In today's lesson we discussed about the problem with our actor who is going to be the victim and the fact that he is a ex convict and the actor we got is too young for the role. To solve this issue we decided that this victim had assaulted someone at a young age and went to youth defenders. 

Meeting 5

During this meeting we planned out the different props that will be needed for one of our scenes. 

We used mug shots of ex convicts which will be shown in the killers room. We also created a police report to be used in the detectives office. 

After printing them out we pinned them to a board so it was ready to use when film. 

filming schedule

Date	Scene	Equipment/Props needed	Location
19th December	Inside the killers house, planning the murder	·       Tv ·       Mask ·       Pens ·       Board ·       Paper ·       Desk and chair ·       Camera, lights, tripod	Drama Hut
2nd January	Victims girlfriend will be on the phone talking to the victim	·       Phone ·       Camera ·       tripod	Rosie’s bedroom
4th January	Victim will be walking home when his girlfriend calls him	·       Phone ·       Camera ·       Tripod	The Triangle
10th January	Murder scene	·       Mask ·       Camera ·       Tripod	The Triangle

Storyboard

Meeting 4

In todays lesson me and Shaan developed our storyboard by drawing the images of the opening sequence and adding what exact shots are in each of the shots. We also began to think about what sound may be in the background. By developing our strotyboard this has helped us have a clearer imag of what our opening sequence will exactly look like.

Location Reece

This is where we are shooting our opening sequence. We choose this scene as there is a train track in the background of an alley way which we thought would make the scene look more effective and create my tension.

Meeting 3

In todays lesson me and Shaan did some research into opening sequences which helped us look at other similar films to our opening sequence ideas.

We looked at Dark knight and we really liked how they showed a man holding a mask down the street and focused a lot on the mask. As we want to have a mask as one of the main features of our opening sequence this gave us a lot of inspiration on how we wanted to make sure that the audience knew the mask was an important piece of information of the film.

Risk Assesment

1. Bad weather
The weather may change throughout the day, which will ruin the shot. If the weather change is obviuous, such as raining we may need to re schedule the filming.

2. Actors
We need to make sure that the actors are well looked after, eg. making sure they are warm, giving them food and drinks and thanking them as they have given up time. If any of the actors are unavailbe to film we will need back up actors to step in.

3. Sharp objects
We must make sure there are no sharp objects that may harm the actors in the area that we are filming

4. Members of Public
We must remeber that we are filming in public, and so we must consider that we may be in the way of the general public, we should thank people when we are done.

5. Getting Lost
All the actors should know exactly where we are filming, this can be done by handing out maps before with the locations marked on them

6. Stolen Equipment
 When filming we must be aware of anyone that could steal the equipment, to ensure this doesnt happen we musn't leave any equipment lying around and always try to have more than one person with the equipment

Prop list

The props needed for our swede are as followed:

1. A mask

 This is what the murderer wears and also places on their victim

2. Map

This will be in the detectives office with previous murders mapped out. 

3. Knife (May not be needed)

This will be the method of murder

4. Detectives clothes

The detective will need to be dressed up in detectives clothes to create the mise en scene

Character list

For our opening sequence we will need a few characters. We may decide to remove or add characters after developing the story more. But at the moment we have decided on the following characters:

Character 1: the detective

Character 2: the victim

Character 3: the murderer

Character 4: the victims wife

The detective

This is a typical look of a detective with the hat and long brown coat. They usually are wearing a smart shirt holding a magnifying glass.








The victim

Our victim in our opening sequence is not what you would usually expect visually for them to look like however, the stalker who is murdering all of these people is because they are ex convicts and he believes they should still be locked up.





The murderer

Our stalker/murderer main image is a man middle aged with a mask who always covers his victim in a mask.




Victims wife
 

The wife is a typical wife of an ex convict with the gold hoops, she is going to just look like an average woman aged 20.

Location list

For the filming of our opening sequence we are going to need several locations to film.

Location 1: the detective office 

For the detective office we will use a school office. We will put props in the room to create a 'detective feel'

Location 2: victims house

We will need a house for the victim this will be used as the destination the victim is travelling to. And perhaps his wife could be here when she calls him

Location 3: victims car/ or public transport. 

The victim will need to be travelling home from work and so we need a method for him to travel if either by his car or public transport like a bus or train

Location 4: dark alley and empty street

This is where the crime will happen. We need to make it as dark as possible to give the viewer an idea that something bad is going to happen. 

We may decide to use different locations at a later date and so we will need to have a updated version of this list. 

First Plan of Stroyline

1.Over the shoulder then closs up-Killers map planning out where he’s going next where the man works, lives etc.-m have picture of victim (mug shot), other people crossed off ,show masks. Begin titles

2. Goes straight to the detective scene- talking about all previous murders with the mask why is this happening? - match on match action in the office.

3. Go to the victim in a car coming home from work, they get a call saying can you stop off at the shop.

4.  Glance car driving at a man holding a mask (pan)

5.  Back to detectives drawing on maps of previous murders work out the pattern of murders (close up of finger working outing the map pattern) zoom into street using cctv and see mask killer walking down street.

6. Close up of detective’s feet running.

7. Victim walking and then murderer barges victim and the victim say what are you doing! And then murderer turns around with mask on.

8.  Detectives radioing others saying we are going to get him were on the way, they get to the scene the victims on the floor with the mask covering his face.

Meeting 2

After doing market research on our 3 ideas we looked at our results and discussed about which idea we now would think was best to use. We both decided that by doing idea 3 would be the most interesting for the viewers to watch and that it would be the most effective. We now know that the improvements and changes we need to make to our idea to make it better. We need to add more shots, make the storyline more clear and make sure when making the film that we focus on costumes and making the mise en scene detailed.

Market Research

Name	Idea 1	Idea 2	Idea 3
Mr Phillips	Needs more continuity editing And face to face shots But good story line	Too basic, story line is not developed enough	This is his favourite Perhaps have cross cutting between detective office and crime scene.
Adam	Interesting story line. Twist on the ‘normal’ stalker	Boring storyline, doesn’t appeal to me	The idea seems different compared to the other two, and likes the mask idea.
Amara	Realistic story, interesting shots but would be hard to film.	Too predictable, has been done a lot.	Likes the suspense and tension that will build up throughout. Could have sequels
Matt	Good story line on this idea. But would need more settings, props and actors	Too basic not enough shots, no ‘wow’ factor.	Good idea appeals to him Suggested to use good costumes and mise en scene
Aaron	Likes the idea as haven’t seen many films of this style before. But could develop the story line a little more.	Idea hasn’t been developed enough, doesn’t really interest me.	Really like the idea of the mask. Builds up tension for the viewers.

 

From our market research group we discovered that the two most popular ideas were 1 and 3. Although from finding this information, we need to develop the ideas more, to build up the tension.

 

Planning for our opening sequence

After watching previous opening sequences and deciding on choosing the thriller genre we started to brainstorm some ideas.

We came up with 3 different ideas 

Our First meeting

On our first lesson about thinking what we want our opening scene to be like the first thing we needed to decide what type of genre we wanted to do.

By doing a lot of research on existing students work we decided that thriller was the ones that worked
the best.



We looked at this opening scene and think that the special effects used to show the hidden camera really gives it a realistic view of what the stalker can see. The use of sound throughout really helps build a lot of tension and makes the thriller seem real. This helped us thinking about doing thriller as our genre as it worked very well compared to a lot of other genres.



This is another students example of an opening scene which we looked at although there is a variety of camera shots which make the film interesting when they are doing the running scene however, the genre which they used (action) we feel that it was not very clear of the story line and it didnt really have a lot of main scenes excep the running scene.