Location Pictures

These are the images of the loft i will be using as unfortunately my basement was filled in with cement !!!!

These are the images of the outside of the farm house i will be filming.

Changes!!!!

I have changed the story line of my film slightly, i have decided that the murder has schizophrenia and his mind has told him to kill this man. Through the intro the audience will see him battleing with himself and arguing with himself, however eventually the evil side to his mind will win.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality. It most commonly manifests as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking with significant social or occupational dysfunction. Onset of symptoms typically occurs in young adulthood, with approximately 0.4–0.6% of the population affected. Diagnosis is based on the patient's self-reported experiences and observed behavior. No laboratory test for schizophrenia currently exists. A person diagnosed with schizophrenia may demonstrate auditory hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized and unusual thinking and speech; this may range from loss of train of thought and subject flow, with sentences only loosely connected in meaning, to incoherence, known as word salad, in severe cases.

Universal Pictures

I have decide to use Universal Pictures as my picture company. I have decided to use an existing picture company because i think it will look more professional, they have also done a range of film genres so it will fit with the genre of my film. It will also save me time rather than having to come up with my own.

Titles

I have now planned the titles which will go into my film; 

Universal Pictures presents

A Lottie Fossey Film 

Directed By Lottie Fossey

Starring Axel Staal and Luke Wright

Produced By Amy O'Brien

Script By Zoe Gibaut

Music By 

Edited By Kimberley Dunne

Tzvetan Todorov Theory

We looked at Todorov today and applied his theory to my film. I have skipped the first stage (equilbrium) because i am jumping straight into the action and i am not adhearing to this first rule, which means that immediatly my film is in a state of disequilbrium.  Stage two involves a regintion of the distortion, this is the man torturing and killing the vicim. Stage three is a recognition of the disorder, so the audience will see the victim tied to the chair and being tortured. Stage four is an attempt to repair the distortion, so in my film even though it wont be in my final piece the tortured man's son will go looking for his fathers killer. Stage five is the restoration of a new equilibrium, so the killer will be killed by the tortured mans son. If i was making the whole film both stage four and five would appear and be followed.

Planning

Now that i have looked at films that are out, i will now look at my thriller in more detail. I plan to film at an old farmhouse, i will do a long shot so that the audience can see all of the farmhouse this will throw the audience off as it will look like a nice place, I will then skip to a shot of a dark basement with a little ray of light, the audience will not be able to see anything else, the audience will then see the titles begin to come up, they will be in blood red and slightly dripping. The audience will hear a voice over, someone is having an argument with themselves however it is all in code, so the audience doesn't know what is being argued over. The camera will slowly start to zoom in then a flash of a man smiling will flash up on the screen. The camera will then go back to the dark basement and the camera is still zooming slowly, the titles are still coming up and the audience gradually start to see a figure in the darkness. The image of the man smiling flashes up again, but this time he has a look of horror on hid face. The camera then pans around to see the victim tied in the chair the audinece can then see his face, it is pale and their is a small drip of blood from his mouth. The smilling man flashes up again but this time he has a blood stained trowel in his hand. The camera then goes back to the victim in the chair, the camera begins to zoom out and the audience can then see the victims injuries to his torso. He is wearing a shirt that has rips in it with blood trickiling out of his wounds. The image of the smilling man comes up again but this time he has a bloodstained gardening fork in his hand and he is stabing the victim tied to the chair, however the audience doesn't see this which will add suspense and horror to the scene.  

So far I have practised using IMovie and the camera equipment (Canon XL2), you can see the indroductory exercises i did in my blog. The first exercise i did with a camera was just basic editing, me and a partner just filmed a couple scenes and experimented with different angles and then uploaded them into IMovie and just cut them into 10 second films. The next exercise i did was my preliminary exercise where I used the Canon XL2 and filmed a friend walking through a door into a room and sitting down talking to someone. In this exercise i had to obey the 180 degree rule. I then uploaded the shots into IMovie and edited them.

I have also started to analyse what a thriller opening should include, this is what I have found;

The dictionary defines a thriller as a suspenseful adventure story or movie. All thrillers that are shot under sub genres must comply to certain generic conventions, there must be an ordinary person in a extraordinary situation because the audience must be able to see themselves through this person. Very often enigmas such as Red Herrings are used to mislead the audience and even the characters.

Shot List:
1)Universal
2) Old Farmhouse (Long Shot)
3) Dark Basement (long Shot)
4) Titles
5) Man Smiling (Close up)
6) Dark Basement, figure in a chair (Medium Shot)
7) Man Smiling (close up)
8) Person tied to a chair, just see his face (Close Up)
9) Smiling man holding bloody trowel (medium Shot)
10) Whole Body of man tied to a chair (medium Shot)
11) Smiling man now has a fork and is stabbing victim tied to the chair (Long Shot)
12) Name of film!!!

This is the my animatic storyboard;

I have decided on the props and costumes for my thriller. Costumes are just normal casual clothes jeans, hoodies etc however the victim will be wearing a shirt so that the rips and blood stains will look more effective and have more of an impact on the audience. For props I will have a chair, rope so the victim can be tied up and some gardening tools so the murder and torture will look unprofessional. The murderer has never killed any one before, however it is a premeditated murder.

I have researched how to make people look dead and how to create real-looking wounds. To make someone look dead i will need white face powder, red and black eyeliner for their eyes and their hair will need to be messy. For wounds i will need clay and mould it into the shape of the gardening tools, the moulds will then need to be stuck to the skin using spirit gum and then latex to make it mould into the skin. I will need blue and purple makeup to make the area look bruised, i will also need red makeup to make the wound look like skin. I will need black eyeliner to make the skin at the tips of the wounds look dead. I will then add blood gel to the wound to complete the effect. 

I have decided on the actors i will have in my intro. I have also decided on the titles that will appear in my intro, they will be blood red and faded in. I hope to emulate the titles at the beginning of Nightwatch (see research 8th september).

In my research i looked at many films and looked at how they introduced the film to the audience. I especially took note of the props, titles and settings they used. As i am planning on doing a thriller i looked at a couple of thriller/horror films and took particular note of how their openings would affect the audience.

I have looked at Nightwatch and the opening begins with the titles in blood red, the diagetic music is also very creepy which adds suspense. A voicer-over begins to tell the story, they have included sound affects such as flies which suggests that the army have been marching for a long time. The battle is very gory and graphic, they also look real, which i hope to emulate in my film. I want the audience to believe that it happened.
I have also looked at Van Helsing, the beginning begins in black and white with a mob breaking down a door, the music is very upbeat but at the same time scary. Flashes of lightning make it more creepy, the flashes also show the counts true face, but only for a second which creates intrigue within the audience, i hope to emulate this in my film but not using the same technique. Stephen Sommers creates more intrique by telling the audience there is a purpose for Frankenstein other than the ability to create life using bits of other dead people, but the audience wont find out till later, I also hope to emulate this in my film. When the monster falls into the burning windmill the audienece think that the 'Key' is lost and so cannot be used, this creates intrique in the audience because what is the count going to use for 'his purpose' instead.