Thriller Update

This week during lessons  Shelby, Ahmed and I have been inserting titles into our thriller opening. We included titles such as the names of the actors, director, producer ect. 

Film Posters

I am starting to research film posters for thriller movies. All these examples, 'Shadow of a Doubt', 'A History of Violence' and 'Children of Men' feature low lighting to create shadows across the characters face, creating an air of mystery and suspense which is a factor I will incorporate and develop in my own poster.

To begin with, I will capture film clips from the film or will take new pictures of the main actress, Shelby.

'Shadow of a Doubt'-Hitchcock

'A History of Violence'-David Cronenberg

'Children of Men'- Alfonso Cuaron

Music

After removing the lyrics from the song 'Casual Casualties' by our friend Myth, we were left with a track that was aready on youtube called '"Freedom Fighters" Heavy Angry Gangster Guitar Beat.' I then emailed the owner to ask if we could use their track and they said we could only for non- profit use.

Titles for our Thriller

We have decided to call our thriller 'Independent Law' as this title reflects what the film is about- a rogue police officer who takes the law into her own hands to avenge the murder of her husband.


The name we decided to call our production company is 'SEAscape Productions'. SEA being Shelby,Emma, Ahmed. I thought SEAscape would be a nice name, and when creating the ident, I thought I could incorporate blue into it to reflect the blue of the sea.

Call Sheet

Date	Location	Cast	Crew	Props	Costume
30/1/12	House	Shelby, Ricky	Emma, Ahmed	Keys, wallet, mobile phone, vase, decorative pebbles.	Shelby: black trousers, white shirt, coat,police hat. Ricky: hoodie, trousers.
04/02/12	Gym	Shelby, Drillan	Emma, Ahmed	Chair, handcuffs, rope, iron pole	Shelby: black trousers, white shirt, police hat. Drilon: Shirt and trousers.
08/02/12	Backstage area	Shelby	Emma, Ahmed	Iron pole	Shelby: black trousers, white shirt, police hat.
10/02/12	Backstage area	Shelby	Emma, Ahmed	Black pen	Shelby: Black trousers, white shirt, police hat.

Filming Session 4

Today, we filmed the final scene of Shelby, the police officer, circling the next victims photograph (me!) on the 'Wall of Victims'. Todays shoot only took 4 minutes and we got all the takes we needed. The editing is nearly finished so next we will put the ident that I created and titles onto the complete film sequence, and we have completed our thriller.

Ahmed and I making the board of victims

Filming Session 3

Today we got straight into filming the 'linking' shots. These are the shots that will link Shelby walking down an 'alleyway' -which is in fact a backstage area- into the shots of her walking round the corner ready to murder Drilon.
As a result of consistent filming and regular camera use we have developed when filming for our thriller; the new 'system' we have is that one person, usually Ahmed, sets up the camera and tripod while the I get the actors ready for the shots, this may include make up, hair and costume fixtures while Shelby thinks of ways which to improve the filming. 
The more we film, the less we have to stop due to outbursts of laughter, camera problems and or wardrobe malfunctions, making the filming process easier, quicker and less stressful. 


Tomorrow, we plan on uploading and editing our thriller.

Filming Session 2

On Friday we began to film the main scene of our thriller. Our co-actor Drilon and main actress Shelby spent around half an hour having makeup and fake blood applied by me.
For Drilon's make up we used a lot of fake blood because he was the victim being murdered, a fake wound and Shelby's eye makeup to create a realistic looking  black eye, to make it seem like he had been beaten up. We then used some handcuffs to attach him to a bar that was on the wall, and tied him to a chair with some rope. 
As the policewoman, Shelby's make up was subtle; we used dark eye make up and bloody fingerprints on her face to make it look like she had wiped her face after beating Drilon up. I also applied fake blood onto Shelbys shirt and grabbed her arms and parts of her shirt to make it look like the previous murder victims had grabbed at her frantically.

Once we started filming, the time passed quickly as this time Shelby was more professional and there were less outbursts of laughter and we took less time to shoot each scene. There were less disagreements about where the camera should go, how to move it, where the characters should be positioned and therefore a more productive filming session.

Filming Session 1

Today, me, Shelby and Ahmed met our co-star Ricky, and began filming the first part of our thriller opening sequence. 
We went to Shelbys cousin's house and filmed the protagonist discovering her dead husband's body in their living room. This is going to be used as a 'flashback', when we edit these scenes, so we will make it black an white to make it clear to the viewers that it is not the present.
However, we didn't think that the rooms we filmed in were the right size or what we had in mind so to make sure the opening scene looks as great as it can be, we plan on reshooting the sequence at either mine or Ricky's house this week.

Me and Ahmed setting up the camera.

Ricky being told what position to 'play dead' in.

Me, Ahmed and Ricky.