Risk Assessment

Risk assessment 

1. We have to be careful of passing cars when filming in the road. If a car is coming down the road we will quickly and carefully move onto the pavement or out the way to let the car come past and stay safe. If someone does get hurt by a passing car we will call emergency services immediately.

2. As we are in a local, residential area we have to make sure we don't make to much noise in order not to disturb people living in the street, especially as we are filming at night. We will do this by not shouting to each other if we need to be heard and not causing to much disturbance when moving equipment round and filming the external car scenes. If we do cause  to much noise and disturbance we will apologise to local residents and make sure our filming process is quieter. 

3. Also, because we are in a local, residential road we have to ensure we don't film anyone who is not involved in our thriller. If someone is walking down the street or coming out of a house near by that may be in shot we will wait until they have gone. If we do film anyone in the background we will cut it out when editing or re-film the shot again.

Plan for day of filming

Plan for day of filming

We have to start late afternoon because we need it to be dark outside as it's part of the mise en scene for our thriller.

4:00- Set up camera equipment including tripod and outdoor lights.
4:15- Practice using the equipment and familiarise ourselves with it.
4:30- Wait till 5'oclock for it to get dark. In this time we will discuss storyboard and prep actors.
5:00- Begin filming all shots on the first page of the storyboard.
6:00- Now film all shots from second page of storyboard.
7:00- Break
7:15- Film all shots from third page of storyboard.
8:15- Film all shots from the last page of storyboard
9:15- Watch the whole video and see which parts need to be re-filmed.
9:35- Re film any parts that need re-filming.
10:15- Pack away equipment
10:25- End of shoot day

Questioning the public on thrillers

Questioning the public on thrillers

We learnt from our responses firstly the teen boys are more likely to enjoy thrillers than women, however some women do. This helped us to identify our primary and secondary audiences. We also learnt what types of thrillers audiences prefer which helped us so we could include different sub-genres to attract a wide range of audiences. We also found out what people thought of our idea for our thriller. This helped us to see if we could change any of our idea to attract more to audiences. There was also some extra information we found out, such as if people would watch our film if there was a hot guy or girl, so we could get more ideas about types of things to include in our mise-en-scene. 

Script for opening sequence for thriller

Script for thriller

Man: (knocks on door).

Woman: (walks over to door) who is it?

Man: FBI open the door please (Hold badge up to window).

Woman: (unlocks door). 

Our script for our thriller is very short, because our film mainly involves just driving and actions that give off hints, not so much the dialogue. As with less dialogue it creates more ambiguity and suspense.

Shot list for opening sequence for thriller

Shot list for opening sequence of thriller

• Wide shot - Car coming onto the road.
• Panning shot- Car coming down the road.
• Over the shoulder shot - In car , of man driving.
• Medium shot - Man driving , side view.
• Close-up shot - Man looking.
• Medium-shot - Window of house.
• Medium-shot - Man outside house, side view.
• Medium-shot - Man reaching over to open glove compartment.
• Low angle shot  -  Man getting badges out of glove compartment.
• Over the shoulder shot  - Man pulling badges out of glove compartment and looking at them.
• Medium-shot - Man taking badges out of bags.
• Close-up shot - Badge being placed on belt.
• Long-shot - Man gets out of car.
• Panning shot - Man walks up to beginning of drive way and looks at house.
• Tracking shot - Man walks up to house.
• Medium–shot - Man knocks on door.
• Medium-shot - Woman walks out of room.
• Panning shot  - Woman walks over to door.
• Medium close-up shot - Woman at door asking who it is.
• Medium-shot - Man at door saying "FBI".
• Medium-shot - Back view of woman opening the door.
• Medium-shot - Front  view of woman opening the door.
• medium close-up shot - Man comes in and puts hands around woman's throat.
• High angle shot - Woman being strangled and begins to fall, looking down on woman.
• Low-angle shot - Looking up on man as woman continues to fall and he is pushing her.
• High- angle shot - Woman lying on the floor.
• Close-up shot - Man looks up and begins to walk to over to cupboard. 
• Medium-shot - Man starts to open cupboard, can see him from behind.
• Close-up - View from cupboard , man opens cupboard, smiles and nods.

We use mainly close ups and medium shots because that's what tends to be the case for many professional films and it works well for the thriller genre because you can see the emotion on the characters faces and it helps the audience to see things that help to reveal the narrative. However we use a huge range of other shots, including: tracking shot, low angle, high angle, panning shot, and wide shot.

Timeline for opening sequence of thriller

Timeline for opening sequence of thriller

• 0-3 seconds – fade in
• 3-6 seconds – car driving round corner
• 6-9 seconds – back of car on street
• 9-13 seconds – shows man’s eyes in mirror
• 13-17 seconds - shows face, showing him driving
• 17-20 seconds – hands on steering wheel 
• 20-24 seconds – car pulls up outside house
• 24-25 seconds – pulls gear to park
• 25-27 seconds - man looks at house from car window
• 27- 33 seconds – then shows him looking at woman in house
• 33-34 seconds – close-up of man’s face
• 34- 38 seconds – putting on gloves
• 38-44 seconds – reaching to glove compartment, taking out plastic bag with fake ID and then taking ID out of bag
• 44-47 seconds – close-up of badge on belt
• 47-49 seconds – man gets out of car
• 49-55 seconds- tracking shot walking up to front door of house
• 55-57 seconds – man knocks on door
• 57- 62 seconds - woman gets up and walks over to doorbell security screen
• 62-64 seconds – FBI badge against camera
• 64-68 seconds – woman walks over to front door
• 68-71 seconds – woman unlocks door
• 71-75 seconds – man comes in and slams door behind him
• 75-77 seconds – man pushes woman to floor
• 77-79 seconds – camera looking at man strangling woman
• 79-81 – cut to view of woman being strangled
• 81- 84 seconds – cuts back to man as he stops strangling woman
• 84-87 seconds – woman lying unconscious on floor
• 87 – 91 – man walking around house
• 91- 96 – man stops, spots what he wants and walks up to it
• 96-102 seconds – Black screen. Man opens doors of cupboard slowly (view from cupboard) and smiles/laughs
• 102-110 – end titles

Target audience for different types of thrillers

Target audience to thrillers different to mine

Examples of thriller sub genres which are different to ours and involve a different target audience are: religious thrillers, eco-thrillers and medical thrillers.

Eco thrillers involve the protagonist who must stop and prevent a threat to the environment (man-made or natural) that will have consequences for society if left unchecked. The damage could be local, but nation or even world-wide stakes are more dramatic. These type of thrillers normally involve a target audience of males, ages 18 to late 30s. An example involves the film “Jaws”. The film Jaws is about a great white shark attacking the Amity island, a police chief,a marine scientist and grizzled fisherman go out to hunt the shark and prevent victims from getting hurt.

Medical thrillers- this sub-genre involves something usually used for medical purposes becoming a deadly weapon. Often it is a virus that is leaking out to the public. The protagonist, antagonist or both are usually doctors. Example of medical thriller film is Shutter Island. In the first seconds of the Shutter Island trailer the audience is introduced to an actor called Leonardo Dicaprio which immediately targets a female audience of ages between 16-40 as he is a famous attractive and known male actor. However as the trailer continues it is seen that the film is targeted at both males and females due to tis interesting plot. In shutter island a US marshal is set to investigate a missing patient from the Shutter Islands hospital. this targets an audience of both males and females between the ages of 16-40.

Religious thrillers films incorporates religious themes, including religious questions, ceremonies, and objects. Some religious films may include supernatural experiences, exorcisms, demon possession and church cover ups are the most common and typical religious thrillers themes. An example of a religious thriller is Blessed. In the film Blessed there is a couple who desperately want to have a baby unfortunately the lady has been diagnose as infertile and the couple can't afford the medical treatments that might allow her to conceive a baby.However the woman eventually becomes an expectant mother of twins, but the closer her due date appears the more she suspects that she has become the unwilling victim of a pact with evil. The target audience for this film is late 20s- 40s.

Target audience for thrillers similar to mine

Target audience of thrillers similar to mine

Drive –rated age 18

The silence of the lambs – rated age 18

Intruders (TV series) – rated age 15

Headhunters – rated age 15

This means it is suitable from the given age and over. However, films or TV series rated for teenagers wouldn’t be likely watched by older audiences. It would probably range from 15/18 – mid thirties.

All these films have features which will be similar to our thriller and will be useful when filming and editing our opening sequence. Firstly, in Drive, Intruders and Head Hunters the main character is a man quite smart, mainly in a suit. In The Silence of the Lambs the main character is a woman who is an FBI agent. We will incorporate this into our thriller and have the main character of a fake FBI agent to be wearing a suit which will make him look to the woman like a legitimate and trustworthy agent even though he isn’t.  In Headhunters, although the actual plot is quite different from our thriller film, the concept of a man being chased and the action-packed nature of the film will be the basis for our thriller. However, as we are only creating the opening sequence, we will try to include into it the impression as to that is what the rest of the film will be like. The camera shots used in most of these films is a lot of close-up shots to show characters emotions and to draw attention to small things that help to understand the plot as well as medium and wide shots to capture the action of the scene.

What I have learnt from filming a run through of my opening seqence

We filmed a run through of our thriller opening sequence, similar to our storyboard, to decide if we wanted to keep anything the same or change something for when filming the real one. From filming the run through we learnt what shots looked best for certain scenes or if we would have to play around with different shots when filming the real thing. Also, we established what type of lightning we wanted to use to give the mysterious and suspense effect to the narrative. We also learnt what effect we wanted to create through the rest other aspects of the mise-en-scene, for example, we knew that we wanted to film on a suburban street but through filming our run through we decided we wanted to film on a quieter street so there wouldn't be a lot of background noise and cars driving past, like in the run through, in our real thriller. We also decide we wanted the man's costume to be a suit and tie with black gloves in our real opening sequence to make him look more important and authoritarian as well as dangerous because of the black gloves. This is to present him clearly to the audience as the antagonist. We also leant that make the beginning when the audience sees the car drive down the street and pull up outside the house slightly longer so it is not rushed into and to make it a good opening and establishing shot for the tension to start building and so the audience immediately become gripped. Lastly, we have learnt that we need to make sure the camera is less shaky when filming the final opening sequence as it will make it look more professional as in our run through the camera was moving around quite a bit. We also have to ensure when editing that the cuts aren't so jumpy and flow well from scene to see so the audience can grasp and understand what is going on in each scene properly.

Filming a run through of my opening sequence

 

This is a run through of our opening sequence to a thriller that we filmed. This was to get an idea about things we wanted to change and keep the same when it came to filming the real opening sequence.

What I have learnt from storyboarding my thriller

What I have learnt from storyboarding my thriller

How difficult was it to match up your ideas to images on paper? It was relatively hard because it's easy for me to visualise what I would like our opening sequence to turn out like, however it's harder to draw those ideas up on paper. This is because on the storyboard every shot needs to be drawn in order for the filming process to be as efficient as possible. If we missed out one drawing it would of made the whole storyboard inaccurate, meaning that when we film we may miss out certain scenes and parts of our plot.

What did you learn about your shot choices from storyboarding? I learnt that we have tried to use a range of different camera shots in order to make our film more advanced and make the filming process more fun for us. Instead of just using similar shots, like medium and wide shots; we tried to include some other different shots like high/low angle shots and tracking shots. That way there will be a variety of shots when we come to filming and editing our sequence.

What have you changed since your storyboarding? One idea that we wanted to change was instead of the FBI badge being held up to the window (as the window is foggy not clear), it could be held up to the door bell camera and the woman could be looking at who it is on the screen. By doing this it will work better but will also add in more time, making our thriller sequence the 2 minute length it needs to be. Also we put a cut where the man is strangling the women to show both points of view. Lastly, we originally wrote that we will film the last shot behind draws and then man will walk up to them and then it's a close up of him opening a draw. However we think using a cupboard is better. It will work by putting the camera in the cupboard with the doors closed and then the last shot is the man opening the cupboard and smiling because he's seen what he wants.

Storyboard for my thriller

Storyboard for my thriller