Shot list with pictures

 

Credit to Matthew Bostock

Final Production

Boys and girls, prepare to be amazed!

Summary of filming days

Day 1) On this day we filmed all our shots that comprise our "present day" timeline in addition to all the shots of trains that we used in our production.
For the present day timeline we filmed inside Bourne cemetary, we started at 8 o'clock and we were planning to stay there until 11; however we managed to get all the shots we needed very quickly and with no problems. The shots we took here were those of our original idea for the title screen that was to have the credits roll on the gravestones. We later abandoned this idea as it proved to be impractical and didn't look good or in theme with the rest of the production.
In addition to the gravestone shots we also filmed our intro that consists in Connor Marshall walking towards a gravestone (not showing the name) while carrying flowers and placng them at the base of the grave.
Subsequently we moved to the Tallington level crossing and took our shots of the trains to use in the production; it took from 1 till 3 to get all a wide variety of shots that we could use n the film.

Day 2) In this day we filmed all the shots from the flashback that is the main bulk of the production. We filmed at a discontinued train line in Rippingale, here we managed to get all our footage and came up with our current idea of the credits that consisted of writing our credits on the track sleepers. However this idea was discarded as the tracks were wet and we couldn't write properly on them, however we modified this idea and wrote the credits on some planks that Matthew had the good idea to bring. These planks were then positioned on one of the abandones train locomotives that were present on site. We also used the same planks to write our title on.
Overall the day went without any major problems.

Questionnaire results explained

I asked 10 people, including both males and females, aged between 11-17 a questionnaire to help us improve our thriller opening. The results can be seen below:

The results from question one show that people like Comedy films the most, followed by Horror films and Thriller. This shows us that although we are not making a comedy film, we could try and add an element of comedy into our thriller opening, to try and attract a wider audience. 

Question 2 shows that people in our target age group go to the cinema quite frequently. A large proportion went to the cinema just 2-4 weeks ago, and so we should bear in mind that our film does not need to be in the cinema for too long. 

Question three shows us that over 3/4 of the people like films to be 1 1/2 and 2 hours long. This shows us that the film cannot be too long, as the audience's attention might diminish if it is any longer. Also, it shows us that fast editing and fast-paced action need to be included to maintain the audience's enjoyment. 

The large proportion of our target audience do not stream movies online. This shows us that making the effort to make our film available on services such as Netflix would perhaps be a wasted effort, and that people would prefer to enjoy our movie via more traditional media methods. 

Question five shows us that the majority of people would like to go out with friends given t wo hours leisure time, instead of watching a movie. It shows us that we should work on promoting our film on posters, billboards, in taxis, buses and resturants, instead of working on promotions in the cinema. 

The last film the majority of people watched was Skyfall, the new James Bond film. At the time our survey went out, this film was extremely popular, and so it shows that people watch films that are 'in trend' - films that other people are watching and talking about on social media services such as Twitter and Facebook, and on the television and the news. 

100% of the people we asked said that they would like to watch a film involving death. This shows us that we should ensure we involve death in our film, and this is something that we have included in the opening of our thriller. 

Around 50% of our audience would spend between £5:01 and £10 on a film. Again, this shows our group that if we were working on selling our film, this is the price range we should base it on. 

This shows that most people would prefer to watch films where they have to concentrate on the plot. Therefore, we should work on making the plot more complex, and perhaps slightly twisted, so that it slowly becomes apparent to the audience how the film will end. 

Question 10 shows that the majority of our sample agree with the statement that they are a film enthusiast. It shows us that the people who we are targeting our film at are people who watch films on a regular basis, and therefore they will be experts at analysing and watching films. Therefore, we should work to ensure the film is as good as it can be, to provide the audience with the maximum amount of enjoyment.

 

 

 

These results give us an essential background knowledge of thrillers and how to make ours an effective thriller; we can extrapilate these results and apply them to ours to show that we have used this market research to improve our production. These results also give us an interesting insight how people react and respond to thrillers and how much they actually enjoy them, it also shows how the latest trends in the film industry are setting.

 

Rippingale shot plan

We have found a fantastic stretch of disused train track to use for our production. The former train house is still on site, and runs alongside the train track, so it will give the impression that the girl is waiting for a train to come. However, there are two trains on the tracks that cannot be moved, which may present us with some issues. The map above shows how we will overcome this issue.

Reviewed props and equipment list

Our original props and equipment lists have had to be reviewed because our initial ideas differ from what we ended up doing and using. Our first props list told of how we were going to use the materials from Branch Brothers and create our very own train tracks to use for the filming of our production. This is not the way we did it in the end as we found a much better solution in using an actual inactive track in Rippingale instead of going through the painful experience of trying to build our own tracks even if it would show more imagination. Because of this, we ended up using completely different props to that which was mentioned in our previous post for the props.

Props:

Gravestone - For the mourner to put the flowers at that would give the indication of death which is a conventional theme for thriller films.

Flowers - To indicate that the mourner actually cares for the person who has died, allowing the audience to fell at least some sympathy for the person that had died and channel more hate towards the killer.

Balaclava - To hide the identity of the killer and make it even more effective when he pulls his mask off and reveals his true identity.

Torn piece on beclloth - To act as a makeshift gag to use to prevent our victim from screaming or causing any loud noises that could give away what is happening.

Handbag - For our victim to be holding to give a sense of realism and to be thrown away dramatically by our victim to show that she really is fighting for her life and that is all she cares about at that moment in time.

Planks and Chalk - Used to create our credits and titles using clever filming and inspired ideas to create good titles to flash in and out throughout the film.

Equipment:

2 Tripods
2 Cameras
1 Video Camera Dolly
2 Umbrella's
1 Clipboard

Problems

Some problems we could've faced are: as we were filming in three different locations and on two different days we could've encountered many different problems such as: different weather conditions could've drastically affected the continuity of our production, we used different trains in our production; this could've also affected continuity as the may audience may have noticed the difference between the trains, the trains were also going in different directions but quick editing has ensured that the audience doesn't notice this. In one of our original ideas we had planned to make our own train track with some borrowed supplies, we soon realised that this idea isn't viable as many problems would've arisen from making our own train track, which would've had adverse affects on our continuity. Another issue with relying on trains to film our production is that the train times could've been quite sporadic and we wouldn't be able to get the amount of shots that we wanted, there's also some health and safety concerns as we were filming on a crossroads above a live track; we could've been seriously injured if one of us fell onto the track or into oncoming traffic. As we filmed some of our shots at a cemetery we ran the risk of upsetting some mourners, our time at the cemetery could've also been very limited as there was the possibility of disrupting a funeral service.

Problems that we did face: luckily we actually faced very few of our potential problems, but there was still a few minor ones; when we got to the cemetery the weather conditions were very poor as it was raining very hard which also made the ground very wet and soft, but when we commenced our filming the rain subsided so this never really created much of a problem for us. Another problem that we faced was that we didn't know when the trains were coming and their times were quite sporadic, however we were well prepared for this and setup our cameras in the correct position for the oncoming trains, as we were at a crossroads the flashing lights and closing gates gave us an accurate indication of when they were on their way so this problem was easy to overcome. A more serious problem we faced was the poor battery life of our camera, but we prepared aptly for this by taking a spare camera with us so this was another problem we overcame. 

Shot list changes

We thought we had a fairly good final edition of our shot list on our blogs but we decided that it wasn't precise enough compared to our new edition of our thriller production. Our final shot list, as seen earlier on my blog, is 13 posts long whereas our new shot list is 38 amount of shots which shows that we misjudged how many shots we were going to have to take during our thriller production. Our new, reviewed shot list has added a lot more to our film as there are loads of new angles added in which allows the audience to see the reaction and emotions protrayed on the faces of the actors. It has also allowed us to use over the shoulder shots and concentrate more on background through mise en scene too. For example, in shot 11, there is a lot of focus on the shadow that is creeping along the back wall that shows the audience that a key event is about to occur and builds the tension up towards it.

Our misjudgement is shown clearly in the fact that our revised shot list has so many more posts that have added so much more to our production. In contrast to our starting production, our final edition has a much more intense, uncomfortable feel to it because of the extreme close-ups of the trains that we have added in throughout. These also helped to mask any continuity errors that we had in our film, giving us a way of covering up any problems that we had during the filming of our production. We also have added in a backing track that adds mystery and a sense of depression to the film. Our new shot list also shows the new way in which we have re-structured our film. Our previous shot list showed us having all of our credits at the end and Annabelle's death and mourning scenes being at the end whereas in our re-structured production and shot list, we have the mourning happening at the start, followed by a flashback of how the death occured. Also, the credits showing the actor's names are now thrown in just before each actor appears and the other credits are put in, just like the trains, to mask any errors and also because it shows a contrast between the busy and bustling film and the cuts of the silence and words written on boards which I believe makes the audience feel uncomfortable because there is such a huge contrast between peaceful and busy.

Final shot list

1. Production ident
2. Gravestone with "presents" on it. Mid close-up.
3. "Kate's Revenge" written on plank on side of train, shot zooms out, close-up to long-shot
4. Cut away shot of the train, extreme close-up
5. "Connor Marshall" written on plank
6. Shot of Connor walking through graveyard
7. Close-up of gravestone with Connor walking towards it
8. ECU of flowers being laid
9. Cut away shot of train moving, close-up
10. Fade to white - "Annbelle Potts" written on plank
11. Shot of Annabelle standing on platform, mid-shot
12. Pan shot moving on dolly towards Annabelle
13. "James Craig" written on plank
14. Front shot of Annabelle standing on platform, James comes up behind, gags her, pulls her on to ground and puts her over his shoulder
15. Long shot of James/Annabelle walking down the platform
16. "Directed by Matthew Bostock" written on plank
17. Cut away shot of train, close up
18. Low shot of James throwing Annabelle on to track, mid-shot
19. "Edited by James Parronchi" written on plank
20. Cut away shot of train, extreme close up
21. Shot of James tying Annabelle down to track, long shot
22. Shot of James tying Annabelle down to track, mid shot
23. Cut away shot of train moving, extreme close up
24. High angle shot of James getting up and running after Annabelle
25. Mid shot of James picking up Annabelle and carrying her over to train track
26. Match on action shot of James/Annabelle walking over to train track
27. Match on action shot of James/Annabelle walking over to train track
28. Mid shot of James putting Annabelle down onto train track
29. "Narrated by Henry Saunston" written onto plank
30. Over shoulder shot of James pulling off balaclava
31. Shot-reverse-shot of Annabelle looking shocked
32. Mid shot of the rock
33. Close up of James's hand moving towards Annabelle's face
34. Mid shot of James tying Annabelle to train track
35. Cut away of train, long shot
36. Low angle shot showing Annabelle's face with James jumping up onto platform and walking away
37. High angle shot of Annabelle laying on train track
38. Close up of Annabelle screaming, fade to black.

Inspiration Pictures

This is a short Prezi which uses pictures to show the inspirations that I have used for our thriller production.

Prelim Task

This is our preliminary task, we did this to adapt ourselves to the camera equipment and to get ourselves ready for our thriller task.

Inspirations For Our Thriller

We have watched many thriller films to give us some inspirations for our thriller, these also gives us the background knowledge required to produce an effective thriller. We have watched many different types of thriller, from psychological thrillers to violent thrillers. These give us a more varied knowledge so we can decide what type of thriller we want ours to be. We've watched many films, from Leon to No Country For Old Men. These have mainly provided us with an inspirtaion as they are award-winning films and are widely recognised for being at the top of their genre. Our thriller is going to be a mix of violent and psychological as we use both elements effectively to build tension, and to emphasise the fact that the victim has been murdered.

Actor Profiles

Name: Annabelle Potts
Age: 17
Role: Victim (Kate)

Annabelle was chosen for this role because she looks like the type of person who would be waiting for a train early on a morning. Annabelle's height is not dissimilar to the height of our protagonist, James, meaning that James could throw Annabelle over his shoulder without too much difficulty.

Name: James Craig
Age: 16
Role: Protagonist

James has an interest in acting, and is part of our media group, which is why he was chosen for this task. James is a similar height to Annabelle, which meant he could throw her over his shoulder easily. James was able to play the part well, and when dressed in a balaclava, looked like a traditional killer.

Name: Connor Marshall
Age: 17
Role: Mourner

Connor was chosen for this role as he has the ability to look sad, and as though he would be able to be mourning at a grave. Connor played this role very well, and enabled us to get all the shots we needed.

Filming Day Photos

We decided upon doing our credits this way when we were on set. We planned on laying them accross the tracks as if they were the actual sleepers but the sun became too much of an issue and we couldn't manage to get the still movement along the tracks from handheld or the dolly. Because of this, we improvised and decided that this could work quite well as the sun wouldnt not be an issue and the credits looked good on the front of a real life train.

This shot shows how much of an issue the sun caused because we were constantly having to be aware of our shadows being in the shot. Due to the fact that we did not foresee the sun being such an issue in the middle of winter on such a cold day, we started filming from one side and because of the sun appearing, we were not able to stick to the 180 degree rule beause the shadows of the tripod and the people filming was ending up in every sequence of film.

This image shows a complete view of our set for filming with the platform on the left and the train straight ahead on the tracks which we had to be careful to avoid seeing in our shots as another train cannot hit anyone when there is an inactive train sitting on the tracks that would be in the way of any train coming towards us. We had to use the area to the right of this shot too because the sun was behind us then and also, our film was not long enough without adding something in so we decided that adding Annabelle running away could be a nice touch and help add a little more to our production. Unfortunately, kneeing somebody in the head was hard to perform safely and it did not look too convincing on camera but we used it anyway as our film was simply not long enough without it and we did not have enough shots of other things to make it any longer without adding that scene in.

Overall, our second filming day went very well. The location was ideal, and the weather was quite like the first filming day except it was colder and the sun caused some issues for us. We managed to get all of our shots with the actors on site without too much difficulty although we probably didn't do enough filming and we did not have sufficient footage to play around with. Luckily, we finished filming in good time which this gave us the time to explore other techniques to use in our production.