Second Location!

We found the Second Location for the Alleyway scene. It looks really good, its perfect just I envisioned it. We were lucky to find it!... For ages we were wondering where we could film it and we were becoming quite worried incase we didn't find one in time but we did! Here's some photos...

 Three pictures of the whole alleyway.  One with Monique running down it as our captor. You can see how narrow it is.

 

Close up of the end of alley, Adam's
leather jacket got caught in the shot.

One side of the wall at different parts. We considered at which point to put one of our hostages   

 

Start of the wall

Middle of the wall

Towards the end of the wall: We decided to place the
character Clara Watson against this wall either here...

Corner: Or here.

We decided to put one of our hostages in the corner or by the wall right next to it. Here's Monique and I modelling how it would look.

"Please don't kill me!"

The other side of the wall is where we are considering to sit our other hostage. Monique's foot is caught in one of the photos! And here she is in another against the same wall looking like a very scary captor...

Ooh! Creepaaay!

Locations!

Here's some of the Locations were considering to use when filiming our thriller film...

Mr D's Office

This is the first office we viewed for our frist scene with Detectives in the office.

Both computers are along that wall on that desk, the first one is right next to that plant, you can see it a little bit (leaves are hanging over it).The first one at the front would be Detective Joe'sand the one futher

 down Detective Sarah's.

Also having the clipboard

of papers behind makes it

look like police tracking 

work up on the wall (all we

would have to do is add a

map with some pins). 

Mr C's Office

This next office is perhaps smaller but it has a different layout. Instead of the computer being up against the side wall it faces the door entrance. The other computer is behind, and like Mr D's office works out very well for the two detectives that share a room.

In the end we decided to go with this one. 
It is easier to film someone sitting around the computer from all angles around it; whereas with the position of the furniture in the other office we can't film from behind the computer which is a shot in our film the first establishing one in fact!

Shooting Schedule

Monique has designed our shooting schedule for our film..

Storyboard!

The group worked on and agreed our storyboard today! Drawing skills aren't fantastic, but at least tyheir clear and we all know what we mean!..

FINAL SCRIPT

Here's the final script for our film DEADLY ENVY...

We decided not to put Sahar in our film as she doesn't fit the role because she looks too young and we would preferably use someone else as she is part of our group. We found someone to play CLARA Watson.


SCRIPT: DEADLY ENVY

CAST:
Richard Parker as JOE Watson

Jakki Elliot as SARAH Daniels

Monique Fearon as CAPTOR

Karishma Halai as CLARA Watson

Shakira Watson as ALICE Watson


INT. OFFICE

(Very gentle background music – Piano solo)

There are two desks side by side and a computer on each. There is a swivel chair tucked under SARAH’s desk, which is neat and tidy with only a few papers out of place. SARAH’s desk has a feminine item to indicate that the desk is a female’s, possibly a pink pencil case or pencil/pen. JOE’s desk is fairly tidy with a few papers out of place and some post-it notes on the bottom of his screen. Next to JOE’s computer monitor there is a school photo of his daughter Clara, which the audience can see.

JOE Watson is sitting at his desk, staring intently at the computer screen. The scene changes, and we focus on what is being shown on the PC monitor.


EXT. DARK ALLEY/ INT. DARK ROOM

(no music) Dark room/alley is fairly empty and spacious, across the room/space in the centre CLARA is sat down on the floor in clear view, with her arms and feet tied together. ALICE is bound as well as gagged, and is sitting in a dark corner in the shadows. We can’t see her face.

The CAPTOR walks slowly towards CLARA, who is struggling against her bindings. The audience hear ALICE whimpering loudly, in horror and fearing for her daughter’s life. CAPTOR comes to a halt before CLARA, and we see the knife she has in her hand. The CAPTOR then slowly bends before CLARA bringing herself to a point just above CLARA’s head. The knife hand extends, towards CLARA while she looks desperate and whimpers.

CLARA: Please. Don’t. Please.

(We can hear ALICE whimpering through her gag in the background)

It seems like CLARA knows the CAPTOR, or recognizes them. She silently begs for mercy. The CAPTOR places the knife, point-forward, gently to CLARA’s cheek. We see a tear roll down CLARA’s cheek.

BLACKOUT


INT. OFFICE

(no music)

JOE is in tears, fixedly watching the screen in disbelief. SARAH’s hands slip over his shoulders in an attempt to reassure him. Standing behind him she looks anxiously at the computer screen and then back down at JOE, also in apparent disbelief.

SARAH: Joe…

JOE shoves the chair back, now extremely angry, and shoves SARAH away, unfocused on his surroundings. He storms out of the room. SARAH watches him leave, expressionless, and the door slams shut.

BLACKOUT

New and Improved Edited Script

Sahar as our script writer finally drafted the script for our groups film and sent it to us. I had the role of Script editor and edited to improve it, so here it is....

DEADLY ENVY

CAST:
Mr. Parker as JOE Watson

Jackki Elliot as SARAH Daniels and CAPTOR

______________ as CLARA Watson

Sahar Badruddin as ALICE Watson



INT. OFFICE
(Very gentle background music – Piano solo)

The scene starts in Detective JOE WATSON’s and SARAH’s DANIELS’ office down at the police station. There are two desks side by side and computer on each. There is a swivel chair tucked under SARAH’s desk which is neat and tidy with only a few papers out of place, SARAH’s desk has feminine item to indicate the other desk is a females possibly a pink pencil case or pencil/pen. JOE’s desk is fairly tidy with a few papers out of place and some possibly post-it notes on the bottom of his screen. Next to JOE’s computer monitor there is a school photo of his daughter Clara, which the viewer will possibly see.

JOE Watson is sitting at his desk with his hand on the mouse, staring intently at the computer screen.



EXT. DARK ALLEY/ INT. DARK ROOM

(no music)

Dark room/alley/area is fairly empty and spacious, across the room/space in the centre CLARA is sat down on the floor in clear view with her arms and feet tied together. ALICE WATSON is also tied up by her hands and feet, sat in a dark corner in the shadows, she has also been gaged.

The CAPTOR walks slowly towards CLARA who is struggling against her bindings. The audience see ALICE bound and gagged, in horror fearing for her daughter. CAPTOR comes to a halt before CLARA, and we see the knife she has in her hand. The CAPTOR then slowly bends before CLARA bringing herself to a point just above the CLARA’s head.

The knife hand extends, towards CLARA while she looks desperate and whimpers.

CLARA: Please. Don’t. Please.

(We can hear ALICE whimpering through her gag in the background)

It seems like CLARA knows the CAPTOR, or recognizes them. She silently begs for mercy. The CAPTOR places knife gently to CLARA’s cheek.

BLACKOUT



INT. OFFICE

(no music)

JOE is in tears still fixedly watching the screen in disbelief. SARAH’s hands slip over his shoulders in attempt to reassure him. Stood behind him she looks anxiously at the computer screen and then sympathetically back down at JOE.

SARAH: Joe…

JOE shoves the chair back, now extremely angry and pushes SARAH away. He storms out of the room. SARAH stricken with concern watches him leave and the door slams shut.

Gradual BLACKOUT

Script!

Our group now has a 1st script for our Thriller film: DEADLY ENVY.

CAST:
Mr. Parker as JOE Watson

Jackki Elliot as SARAH Daniels and CAPTOR

______?________ as CLARA Watson

Sahar Badruddin as ALICE Watson

SCRIPT

INT. OFFICE

(Very gentle background music – Piano solo)

JOE Watson is sitting on his desk staring intently at the computer screen. Close up of him, then quick shot of screen, where we see everything is dark. The scene changes.
EXT. DARK ALLEY/ INT. DARK ROOM

(no music)

Close up of CAPTOR, walking quietly towards CLARA who is struggling against her bindings. The shot extends, where we see ALICE bound and gagged, horror in her eyes for her daughter.

CAPTOR comes to a halt before CLARA, close up of the knife which we now see is in its hand. Then it slowly bends to bring itself to a point just above the girl’s head.

The knife hand extends, while CLARA looks desperate and whimpers.

CLARA: Please. Don’t. Please.

(We can hear ALICE whimpering in the background)

It seems like she knows the CAPTOR, or recognizes it. She silently begs for mercy.

CAPTOR places knife gently to CLARA’s cheek, and the scene fades to black.

INT. OFFICE

(no music)

Close up of JOE, tears in his eyes, disbelieving expression on his face. We see hands slip onto his shoulders, reassuring, feminine. The shot extends, and we see SARAH anxious, looking at the monitor.

SARAH: Joe…

Costumes!!

Detective 1: Joe Waston - Our main protagonist we decided to give him a trench coat similar to detectives in the classical thrillers. 

 Detective 2: Sarah Daniels - Our protagonists accomplice...! Although a formal female detective she is an attractive one often trying to subtly seduce and distract Detective Watson having an ongoing and secretly obsessive crush on him...

 Captor (unknown) - The thrillers mystery antagonist..

 Alice and Clara Watson - Detective Watson's family who are kidnapped! Clara being portrayed as a  normal young teen wears clothes in trend and expected of her age group - skinny jeans being one of them. This is in order for the audience to identify and empathise with her. Alice wears a blouse and jeans for the same reason, being portrayed as a normal person like anyone watching the movie, who is thrown into this disastrous situation.

Deadly Envy Teaser 2!

Here's our new and improved Deadly Envy teaser.

We decide to go with this one because:

• The colour connotations of green and red for the last Teaser implied something about Christmas to some audiences.
• Also to some audiences the music didn't sound like it was for a thriller film, to some it sounded like it just didn't suit the teaser and perhaps could be used later in the film, but just not for the first impressions for a teaser. Some felt it better suited an action film and drew attention away from what was on the visuals.

To improve it this time we...

1. Changed the colour scheme to just black and red to convey that sense of danger.
2. We cut the music and changed it to more sinister sounds to make it stand in their minds and cause them to question what is happening, hopefully persuading them to go and see our film.

Shutter Island

Today I watched the Leonardo DiCaprio film, Shutter Island, directed by Martin Scoresese. It is a psychological thriller set in the 1950s about a mental ex-U.S marshal Andrew Laeddis (DiCaprio) who creates a scenario in his mind that he is Edward "Teddy" Daniels. A federal agent who goes to secluded mental institute to find out about a missing patient Rachel Solando, but grows to believe he has stumbled upon a US government conspiracy of barbarically torturing patients to control their minds. Throughout the film the audience follow Daniels (DiCaprio) believing his life is reality as he looks for Solando, Laeddis and attempts to get into the lighthouse where he believes they are carrying out the experiments. The twist at the end then throws the audience as we discover all of it wasn't real and that Daniels who is actually Laeddis himself is a mental patient at the institute; who has created this situation and fake persona using parts, events and names in his own life, due to him not being able to come to terms with him killing his wife. All the staff at the institute played along only revealing it to him at the end when his suspicions aren't confirmed about the conspiracy in order to see if this would work as a cure for him. In the end although he realises and the audience see what really happened, it begins all over again in his brain for him, and he is taken away to have a lobotomy. This was a very effective psychological thriller as although he was not diagnosed as mental for a majority of the film the audience had an inkling that he was going mad through his hallucinations and dreams. Being in this mental institute built suspense as you never knew what these people were going to do especially when there was the break out, and with even the staff under suspicion, Daniels can trust no one.

Shot list 2

We made some changes to what's going to happen in the film, so I redrafted the Shot List, I think it is more detailed than it needs to be but it will help when we're writing a detailed script.

1. The camera descends from above on him. Tilting camera movement down from ceiling of the room to viewing him in a medium close up shot from behind the computer. 
2. Close up of Detective 1’s face. Looking searchingly at the computer screen.
3. We see a quick point of view shot of the computer. Before switching to the scene of what he is seeing on his computer screen.
4. The first shot is a close up of the kidnapper’s boots walking slowly making a loud echoed boot hoofed/heeled sound. Dolly camera movement with the boots as the person walks. The ground on which he walks is black and wet. The background is also dark with flickering dim lighting.
5. The next shot is an over the shoulder shot over the kidnapper who has on a black hoody pulled up. You can see the daughter tied to a chair under a light to who she is approaching. The child seeing the kidnapper approaching begins struggling fearfully.(Could be music at this point of kidnappers approach)
6. There is now a mid shot of the wife in which the kidnapper walks past. Wife looks at kidnapper desperate for mercy, begins to beg kidnapper for mercy.
7. The next shot is over the shoulder of the kidnapper who has now stopped in front of the girl. Camera is in line with the daughter’s face, who is now frozen with fear looking up at the kidnapper, terrified. (music would stop at this point, if any) In the background wife sobbing and begging can still be heard.
8. Maybe a close up of knife as kidnapper draws it out, its movements followed with daughter blurred in the background (wife can still be heard begging and pleading the background)
9. Shot with knife in the foreground now focused to daughter terrified in the background.
10. Close up shot of the kidnapper putting knife to daughter’s neck. Daughter is terrified.
11.    Blackout
12. Back in the office. Extreme Close up of Detective 1’s eyes looking bewildered with tears in his eyes at computer screen. Slowly zooms out to a close up of his whole face. Detective 2’s hands come slowly on his shoulders. She attempts to reassure him.
13. Master Shot of the detectives. Detective 1 angry and upset rises from the table shoving off Detective 2’s hands and walking out; out of view of the camera and then quickly across it again, leaving Detective 2 in the shot alone.
14. Wide shot of door slamming as Detective 1 walks out.
15. BLACKOUT

I've highlighted the main parts more about the camera shots, angle and movement than the actual story.

Questionaire!

In case you're wondering what these dodgy scans are.. we did our own research into our target audience! We did this by creating our own questionnaire with the following questions.. In the end we discovered that Psychological thriller and Crime thrillers were most popular and discovering this we decided to use these two thriller sub-genres.

Like Thriller Films? – HELP US OUT!!

Just Tick:
What year group are you in?

 Year 12

 Year 13
What kind of thrillers would you enjoy watching most?

 Crime (e.g. James Bond)

 Psychological i.e. those that have to do with mental illnesses etc. (e.g. The Sixth Sense)

 Legal (e.g. A Time To Kill)

 Political (e.g. The Ghost Writer)

Choose your favourite film from this list:

 007

 Seven

 The Silence of The Lambs

 Inception

 Bourne Ultimatum

 Black Swan

 Ghost Writer

 The Sixth Sense

 Let Me In

 Buried

 The Square

What makes a good thriller film for you?

 Blood and gore

 Twists and FX

 Complicated storylines

 Lots of action

 Weapons

*And why?
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________*

Would you come in to watch a film made by a year 12 group if it was played after school?

 Yes

 No

Can you let us give you an interview for five minutes? If you’re interested, please give us your name:
_______________________________________________________

And we’ll contact you as soon as we get your response! 

(The interview will be video recorded and posted online)

-Sahar, Monique, Zara and Adam

 

 

Shot List 1

Here's our 1st draft of my Shot List for our movie Deadly Envy. I'm incharge of doing this working with the camera and being co-director along with Monique.We haven't yet come up with the names but Detective 1 is a young male about 30. Detective 2 is a woman about 30.


Deadly Envy the story of two friends , Detective 1 and Detective 2 are both new detectives starting out only to be thrown into a situation too close to home as the try to track down the person who is holding Detective 1’s wife and child captive.

1. Scene starts in Detective 1 and Detective 2 office with Detective 1 earnestly watching a video on the computer showing emotions of anger and anxiety.

2. The camera descends from above on him.

3. Camera then switches to a medium long shot of Detective 2 coming to watch over his shoulder, watching him and the video alternately with caution and some sense of distress with some papers up in front of her to portray she was previously working but now has been distracted.

4. As she bends beside him the camera moves with her showing her face at all times and ends with a shot from behind the computer with both their faces watching the screen.

• Detective 2: (bending down beside him watching intently) What’s this?

5. Close up of Detective 1’s face.

• Detective 1: (hand near his mouth watching intently) I, I don’t know.

6. We see a quick point of view shot of the computer. Before

7. switching to the scene of what he is seeing on his computer screen. The first shot is a close up of the kidnapper’s boots walking slowly making a loud echoed boot hoofed/heeled sound. The ground on which he walks is black and wet. The background is also dark with flickering dim lighting.

8. The next shot is an over the shoulder shot of the kidnapper who has on a black hoody pulled up. You can see the daughter tied to a chair under a light to who she is approaching. The child seeing the kidnapper approaching begins struggling fearfully.( Could be music at this point of kidnappers approach)

9. The next shot is from behind the kidnapper who has now stopped in front of the girl. Camera is in line with the daughter’s face, who is now frozen with fear looking up at the kidnapper, terrified. (music would stop at this point, if any)

10. Maybe a close up of knife as kidnapper draws it out, its movements followed….

11. Shot with knife in the foreground then focused to daughter terrified in the background.

12. Shot of the kidnapper putting knife to daughter’s neck. Daughter is terrified

13. Blackout

14. Back in the office. Medium close up of Detective 1 looking bewildered with tears in his eyes at computer screen.

15. Master Shot of Detective 1 upset breathing heavily, rising from the table. Detective 2 tries to put her hand on him to comfort him but he shoves it off and walks out. Leaving her in the room and in the camera shot. He walks past the camera on his way out leaving her in the shot.

16. Shot of the door as it slams.

BLACKOUT

Deadly Envy Teaser!

Here's the first take of our Deadly envy Teaser!

• We used colour connotations of red to imply a sense of danger, the black also implies darkness and mystery. The green is to represent envy. 
• The music sounds quite dark but implies action and possibly danger which is involved in our film.

The American

Today I actually watched the Anton Corbijn Film "The American", a crime thriller starring George Clooney. The opening scene was vital as it gives the gist of what the film entails. In the opening scene a hired gunman unsuccessfully tries to shoot dead the main character, Jack (George Clooney) and as a result he is forced to kill the gunman and his partner who he was with as she supposedly betrayed him. There were no subtitles at the very beginning; they appeared about five minutes in when he was driving to his new location after meeting with his boss in Rome. There was not too much that happened in the film, most of it took place in a small Italian town but was still successful as you were always waiting for something to happen. The audience mainly followed him making the same assumptions that it was the prostitute working with his killer, but as the film progressed the audience grew to know more and as I suspected waited in anticipation to see how he would react to it (or already had). The camera angles following the main character's movements added suspense since you didn't know what was going to happen. The setting also contributed towards this being a small quiet town with small roads, silent alleys and street staircases. On two occasions he was being followed through the streets by men looking to kill him. There was definitely use of a twist as you wondered whether it was the love interest who was part of the plot to betray him, but in the end it was the boss and colleague he was working for all along who were plotting to kill him.

In Relation to our Film

This relates to our film in a sense that it is the his best friend that betrays him. I think in our opening the best friend being there portrays her importance throughout the film.
Also as our opening is only two minutes we need to consider whether to make it evident to the audience through certain camera angles and body language that she knows more than she lets on, or keep it completely hidden from them that she has something to do with it.

Paradox production Logo trials - and we have our Winner!

We did some more drafts for our logo switching things round a bit and writing it in different ways.

 

At first we tried this but then it still looked like a horror production company with the connotations of the colours red and black together... Black : Death and Red: Blood. We had arrows going either way to reflect the the way a paradox has more then one answer but questioned whether it looked to cheesy, old fashioned or still looked amateurish.

 In the end we went with this one as it looks more sophisticated and professional with a black background, and having blue and red together suggests Blue: Mystery and Red: Danger which suggest just what our films are about as crime/psychological thrillers. Also if we choose to show our production company name at the beginning this will prepare the audience for something dark and mysterious to come. Having a black background will make it dark when watching this cinema therefore preparing them for the dark atmosphere that may exist in parts of the film.

Paradox production logo draft 1

Here's the logo for Paradox productions..at the moment.We tried in both plain and red but we're not sure whether it looks to amateurish for a professional production team. Also it looks more like a production logo for Horror films rather than Thrillers (especially the red one). The font looks like the scary writing they would use in Horror films, etching it somewhere where it doesn't belong.

Paradox Productions

We decided to name our company Paradox Productions as production names are always something memorable, practical or just something different e.g. 20th Century Fox, Pathe (just being named after the French brothers that started it yet still simple and memorable), Buena Vista International (which is in English means "good view" but having it in Spanish makes it more memorable), BBC films (very practical). 

Paradox means something absurd or contradictory reflecting the films we make as there is a sense of uncertainty and contraditory concepts within our films. On one level you could say there is always a sense of suspense and uncertainty in Thriller films. In our film there is constant uncertainty as to who has kidnapped the Watsons. However on a deeper level there is contradiction whether our situation is realistic: For a woman to reaaally be driven to kidnap her best friends family... and manage to keep it so long from him and the entire police force who she works for....

Different styles of Thriller!!

Researching different styles of Thriller, how their openings are, what their trailers indicate about the audiences relationship with the film.

Watched the trailer and a movie clip from “Abandoned".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFR2tP4kN1I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW5Ee7RxyC8
It is a psychological thriller about a woman (Brittany Murphy) hose boyfriend goes missing in hospital. The hospital or the police have no records of him and so she is forced to prove her sanity and find him on her own.
The camera angles of the trailer are mainly focussed on her showing us that this is a film mainly about her and her situation. So from the trailer you can see elements of why it would be a psychological thriller.
I can imagine in the actual film the audience follows her, seeing what she sees.

Watched the trailer for “The American”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ywmoXZwkA0
Which is a Crime 'Drama' thriller about an assassin (George Clooney) who wants to give up his job, but still being hunted by his enemies. Not knowing who is giving them the link on his whereabouts he tested on who to trust and what to do.
The trailers camera shots of him and other characters doings e.g. loading guns indicate that it is a film where the audience follow him but perhaps know more than him but in anticipation wait to see how he finds out and what he will do.



Watched the trailer for "Wrecked"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKUtFGg09xk
Another psychological thriller where a man (Adrien Brody) wakes up in a state. He’s in a crashed ruined car with injuries. Not knowing who he is, where he is or what he’s done, he is forced to survive in the wilderness searching for clues about himself and his past.
Many of the shots in the trailer are close up shots of the wreckage, his injuries etc some on them are canted, representing the turmoil his situation has caused him.There are also many close ups of his eyes indicating it is a psychological thriller focussing on his mind, emotions and actions. Also the quick images of flash backs from his mind, make no sense to the viewer implying that we as the audience follow him knowing what he finds out, as he starts off knowing nothing just as the viewers do. 

I also watched the first opening 15 minutes of Alfred Hitchcock’s Crime thriller, "Number Seventeen" (1932).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJAyMwP6EQU

From the opening there was an instant element of suspense as a detective enters a supposedly abandoned house to find it is far from abandoned. The camera angle starts from behind him with an over the shoulder shot, so at first we cannot even see his face or who he is.  As he moves, so does the camera, so we are moving with him. At first we see what he sees. For example at one point he looks up and we are shown a point of view high angle of what he saw of how the stairs go up. After this the viewer has the eyes of God, seeing more than him to watch what will happen and how he will react to it and so the film begins....