Filming the murder scene

Today we also filmed 'The murder scene' of our thriller opening.

We decided to film at Billy's house as it was closest to the school and so we wasted less time getting to the filming location, and could spend more time filming. We decided to use one of the bedrooms to film one of the murder scenes, this was because there was space for me, the murderer, to hide while waiting for my queue to appear and kill my victim with the football trophy.

My queue was when Shelby coughed, who was sitting on the bed with a laptop (in this picture with Billy, however he wasn't in this part of the scene)

My first few attempts of the murder however didn't go according to plan, the first time while getting up from behind the bed I hit my leg on the bed, and the second time I panicked and didn't 'hit' Shelby fast enough.

We then went into the dining room, as there was a desktop computer we could use when Billy was killed. This time I hid under the table, and my queue was when Billy re positioned his fringe as this was something he naturally did anyway.

There was however an incident, after my first attempt of hitting him with the weapon, Jess the camera girl said I didn't got close enough to his head, and so showed me how close to do. In the process of this however, she did hit Billy on the head with the trophy. Billy was fine as it wasn't that hard, but we made sure he wasn't hurt in any way before we continued filming.

Once again, we had the team of Jessica and Myles with their beloved camera and tripod, who once again made sure the filming went smoothly and according to plan.

Filming the park scene

Today we filmed 'The park scene'.

It had been raining a lot recently, and so the park was very

muddy, and so instead we found a sheltered area with pat

h for the main characters to walk down.

We then decided to have the murderer in our film, me, to

be spying on Billy and Shelby as they were walking together. As it is January, there was little trees with leaves I could hide in, and so I had to 'hide' in a holly bush. The fact that I was weari

ng purple clothes, and my hair being party purple, I wasn't totally hidden by the tree, which means as Billy and Shelby walk past me in the film, I will be in the background and can be seen by the audience, giving them a hint that something is going to happen. Voyeurism is also a common theme in thriller movies.

We also had our filming crew, Jessica who was in charge of filming,

and Myles the director and tripod guy.

Who both made sure the filming wen according to plan, despite them trying to get in the movie themselves at some points, and made sure we all knew what to do.

'Sent' title

I have made the title for our thriller, 'Sent', opening using livetype.

Sound effects

We have started looking into different sound effects we could use in our thriller opening.

So far we have chosen to use these sound effects,

This sound effect is for when Billy and Shelby are on webcam. This will give a subtle clue as to what is to happen next, which is that a mystery person will appear in their rooms.



This is the sound effect we will use when Billy is hit by the murderer.

Moby Gratis

Now we know exactly what our thriller opening will include, we can now find music to go into our movie, but it will have to be non-copyright music, so we signed up for Moby Gratis (http://www.mobygratis.com)

We requested a few songs, however, we probably won't be using all of them as there are too many to have in a film opening

. The reason we chose more than needed was because it is possible we will change our minds on what songs go, which may change as we edit the film. So, as it takes a day or so to get the music, we thought it to be best to get a few now, rather than panicking at the last moment as the music we had didn't go well with the film opening.

The art of the title

As part of our research into the opening of a thriller film, one of the things we have to consider is the title sequence as this is an important part of any opening, so we have looked at the website 'The art of the title' (http://www.artofthetitle.com/) in order to learn what makes a good title sequence.

What is 'The art of the title' about?

The site says that it is

'A compendium and leading web resource of film and television title design from around the world. We honour the artists who design excellent title sequences. We discuss and display their work with a desire to foster more of it, via stills and video links, interviews, creator notes, and user comments.'

Our Ident

This is my groups ident, our production company is 'Panda Productions'.



We also currently working on music to go with our ident.

Production companies and their Idents

This is the ident for the production company 'Paramount'

This is the ident for the production company '20th Century Fox'

This is the ident for the production company 'Universal'

Using these famous example of production company names and idents, we have chosen our own production company name 'Panda Productions' and are currently making our own ident.

Script for our thriller opening

Scene 1: The part scene

(Opens to people dancing at a party)

(Focuses on Shelby who is alone)

(Billy walks over)

(Billy and Shelby start talking)

Billy: Are you OK?

Shelby: Yeah I'm good

(continue to talk and flirt)

(They kiss)

-SCENE ENDS-

Scene 2:The Park scene

(Both walk in holding hands)

(Both go and sit on a bench and start talking)

(Both continues to talk, flirt and hold hands)

(They stand up)

(They kiss)

(They both walk away from each other, slowly letting go of each others hands before they walk off in opposite directions)

-SCENE ENDS-

Scene 3: The Webcam scene

(Billy sits on his bed with his laptop with his webcam on)

(Shelby appears on Billy's computer, also on webcam)

(Both are talking to each other)

(A Mystery person appears behind Shelby with a weapon)

Billy (Jumps up): Shelby, someones behind you!

(Shelby turns around, the person has gone)

(Billy sits down again)

(Shelby turns back to her computer and screams)

(Billy Turns around)

(The mystery figure appears, and hits Billy with their weapon)

(Shelby watches as the person attacks Billy)

(The mystery figure types something, then clicks 'Send')

-SCENE ENDS-

Characters in our thriller movie

Here is a list of the main characters in our movie, as well as the extras we will need.

Girl (Shelby Osbourne)

Boy (Billy Cove)

Mystery murderer (Louise Levitt)

Extras at the party dancing

Editing

In order for our thriller movie to be filmed, we need to understand how editing effects a film, and the different styles of editing.

Editing is the term given to describe the process of looking at all the footage which has been shot and then placing it all into the correct order.
Two areas of editing are:

1. Speed of editing
2. Style of editing

Speed of editing
When we watch a film, we see many different scenes joined together, some of these scenes may be a few seconds, or they may be a few minutes. The length of the scene changes with what's happening in the film, and will help determine the mood of what is happening, for example, if a relaxed mood is desired, the scenes last longer and change less frequency.

Style of editing

This is how the scenes of a film are connected together:

• Straight cut
• Fade-out, where the screen fades to black, can be used to show time passing.
• Dissolve, where one image is slowly brought in beneath another one.
• Wipe cut, where one part of the screen moves to wipe across the other.
• Jump cut, where the audience's attention is brought into focus on something suddenly.

The most used of these is the straight cut. Certain ty

pes of editing may appear in one genre more than another, for example, wipe cuts often appear in comedies.

Soviet montage

Audiences automatically join different scenes together in a logical order, for example, if we are shown a shot of a house, and then an armchair, we automatically assume the armchair is within the house we have seen.

Soviet montage is where this idea is played around with. Lev Kuleshov, a Russian filmmaker, in the 1920s experimented wit the idea of audiences putting scenes in logical order, by showing an audience a picture of a man. He then showed them a pi

cture of some food, and the audience though the man was hungry. They were shown again the man, followed by a dead woman. The audience then decided the man looked sad. Finally, the man was shown again, then a baby was shown, and the audience thought he now looked affectionate. The man's expression never changed, but due to the audience's natural desire to make the picture link logically meant the man looke

d different to them each time.

Sergei Eisentein, another Russian filmmaker, thought a film was more effective if shots were not obviously linked together, and so the audience will be more involved in the film, trying to work it out.

Graphic match
One way of joining two shots together is by using a graphic match. This is when two consecutive shots look similar.

Examples of graphic matches

Vertigo

Psycho