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.