Casting of Characters

We came up with the idea that:

• Toby would be the protagonist and be the joint main focus of the thriller film. (Toby's character would remain with the name Toby) - The seemingly innocent and vulnerable character being followed by an intimidating hooded character. 
• Myself (Fred) would be the antagonist and be the joint main focus of the thriller film. The characters name that I play is called Holly, - the mysterious, faceless, hooded character shadowing Toby's every move. 
• Luke would be a character that only really featured at the end of the film. Luke would play the character of Harry. 

I volunteered to play the role of Holly as I would appear to play the antagonist in our thriller film until the role of the antagonist switches from Jack to Harry, almost as if there has been a shift of power and danger. I volunteered for this role as I am a tall person which can be intimidating to smaller people as I am looking down on them, causing a sense of fear which can be created effectively. I wear a hood in our thriller film to hide my identity and create a sense of confusion as to who I am, when we began to film we realized that this was effective and due to my height and build, it made me seem intimidating and feared which created a tension about my presence. We decided to have the third character of Harry in our thriller film to create a sense of confusion as then there are two possible suspects in the form of Harry and Toby who could have left me dead on the floor of the lift. This also props the question to the audience of who is the character to fear in this film. Luke is also hooded to hide his identity. 

Initially our group consisted of myself, Luke and Holly, but unfortunately Holly decided to leave sixth form therefore leaving just myself and Luke as part of our group. This meant we had to find an extra person to act in our thriller film as we had planned our film with three characters and thought changing it at quite a late stage may have affected our film. Therefore we had to find another person to play Holly's role and Tobias Jones (who is in our media class) said he would be able to help us out. This kept the tally of actors being used at 3 which is what we had initially planned and from this, we will be able to make a very well made opening sequence. 

Fonts

Thriller Shooting Schedule

Shoot one (09/01/14)

                              

Time: 2.00pm - 3.30pm

Location: Grapes Hill, Norwich

Cast: Fred Snell, Tobias Jones

Equipment: Camera

Props: None

Shoot two (21/01/14) 

Time: 9.00am - 10.00am

Location: Chapelfield Gardens underpass, Norwich

Cast: Fred Snell, Tobias Jones

Equipment: Camera, Tripod 

Props: None

Shoot Three (23/01/14)

Time: 2.00pm - 4.00pm 

Location: Magdalen St, Norwich

Cast: Fred Snell, Tobias Jones

Equipment: Camera, Tripod

Props: None

Shoot Four (30/01/14)

Time: 2.00pm - 4.00pm

Location: Anglia Square

Cast: Fred Snell, Tobias Jones, Luke Keeler

Equipment: Camera, Tripod

Props: None

Shoot Five (04/01/14)

Time: 9.00am - 10.00am

Location: CNS School

Cast: Fred Snell, Tobias Jones, Luke Keeler

Equipment: Camera 

Props: Phone, Lift

• Our aims when filming all of our different footage was to overall gather approximately 30 minutes of footage to be used during our edit which allowed us to go over all of the footage we had and choose the strongest sections of filming to suit our Thriller film. We attempted and did so successfully to gather a vast variety of shots such as medium close ups and over the shoulder in order to narrow down what would be used in our final piece and would fit best at certain points in our Thriller film. 

Thriller Storyboard

Pictured above is our original storyboard for our Thriller film.

Planning for the edit

In order to create a gripping thriller film, careful planning for the edit was needed within our film. Our storyline involves a few jump cuts in various places with the effect of cross dissolves and additive dissolves to seperate each scene and make it clear to the audience that either the location has switched or the plot has progressed. These cross\additive dissolves also help our thriller film to run in a more smooth manor and keep flow from scene to scene. Careful planning for our thriller film was essential as we have a rather complex storyline in that there is confusion as to which character is being stalked and followed and which character commits the murder., therefore with the added effect of us cutting to another scene quickly doesn't give the audience a lot of time to get there head around which character is doing what. 

To begin with I grouped all of the shots together from the library and put them together in order to establish which ones I wanted to use. I then decided which shot i should put where. This helped us to understand which shots should be next to each other and should flow together, for example when Toby recieves the text saying 'RUN" from the unknown number, we thought that the shot following this would be the image of Jack (me) lying dead in the lift to imply to the audience that Toby really did need to run as he could be in grave danger. 

In our cliffhanger shot of Toby getting an unknown hand being placed firmly on his shoulder, the sun was unexpectadley bright on the day, therefore before beginning the edit we said that we would darken the shot. This created a darker and more dismal ending for us rather than a bright ending which isnt the feeling we wanted to establish for the audience. The darkened cliff hanger at the end suggests that Toby is stuck in this high and unscapable place as he is over looking the city where there are clearly many places he could have gone but can no longer go as his only escape was a vertical 30ft jump, and now has Harry played by Luke standing directly behind him blocking his only way out. 

We really wanted to create an impact of the title of our thriller film, therefore we planned to edit our film so that it was in time with our soundtrack, we planned to do so that there was a silence before a sudden high pitched shreik, followed by the big, bold title of our thriller film which we plan to call The Pursuit. This creates a big impact as it takes up a large section of the screen and is clearly readable, it also helps the title to stick in the mind of the audience. 

Costumes in our Thriller Film

Costumes in our Thriller Film 

Costumes play a broad role in not just in the thriller genre of film, but in all motion pictures released.  Costumes are a storytelling tool, communicating subtle details of each character’s personality and history quickly and economically to the audience. They help actors leave their own personalities behind and become new and believable people on screen. A great example of this would be in the form of Sean Bean's character in the film 'Essex Boys'. The shirt that character Jason is wearing is very floral and flamboyant which creates an image to the audience of Jason that he is not afraid to be seen and portrays that he is a violent, dangerous individual. 

Sean Bean (Jason from Essex Boys)

The character I play in our thriller film is one that is set out to cause a sense of illusion and deception for the audience.  In order to establish this personality i chose to wear a hoody, which gives me the opportunity to hide a part of my identity as I was able to elevate my hood to cover a good deal of my head and some of my face. The fact that i have my hood up throughout the thriller film also establishes a stereotypical view of danger and a thug like personality. I also decided that in order to blend in with the surroundings I would dress myself in normal everyday, casual clothing, this way i don't stand out in a crowd and can blend in as a normal civilised citizen that the audience wouldn't expect capable of performing a deed that occurs later on in our thriller film. 

As shown above this is the sweatshirt worn by myself in our thriller film. The aspect of this sweatshirt helps to both establish generic thriller convention but also create deception within the audience. We chose for me to wear this specific colour of jumper as red is a significant colour in thriller films, it symbolises both love and passion and in our case danger, murder and criminality. The  fact that I have chosen to wear a bold black colour of hoodie makes the red stand out even more as I am wearing it underneath the hoody. The use of red in our thriller is to give the audience a strong colour, another contrast of colours in the fact that some of our locations having dark and dismal lighting such as the car park and underpass. Red portrays a sense of danger and this creates a sense of deception for the audience as they initially think that i am the character that could be a threat and seek murder apon Toby who I appear to be following in a sly manor. As our film progresses the audience become aware that I am in fact not the threat and leaves a sense of mystery as to who committed the murder and left me lying helplessly dead on the floor of the lift. 

Below are some screenshots from our rough cut of costumes used

This screenshot shows Jack, suited in black hoodie and vibrant red sweatshirt, along with dark denim jeans. 

Shown here is a screenshot of Toby who in our thriller film is wearing an olive green jacket with black jeans and grey faded plimsole type shoes. The fact that Toby has no part of his identity hidden by a hood like myself suggests he is a more vulnerable character in our film. 

Thriller Soundtrack

The Soundtrack

This is the piece of music that has been selected to be used in our thriller. After started the edit on my thriller film I listened to a number of different classic thriller soundtracks and practiced putting each one in with the film to see which best fit. After evaluating all of the different options I came to a conclusion that this classic thriller soundtrack named 'need blood' was best fitting. Our aim with the soundtrack was to build up a sense of tension throughout the film and to also create a sense confusion and fear. This soundtrack is very nearly five minutes long, and our film lasting roughly 1 minute 20 seconds, we thought that this would give us the good opportunity to take different parts of this soundtrack and to apply it to our film where it best fitted, for example, roughly a minute into our film we cut the soundtrack so that there is a silence when the title of our film appears (The Pursuit) and then after the pause comes a sharp high pitch shriek which really takes you by surprise and catches your attention. We feel that our soundtrack captures some of the main conventions of a thriller film in the form of tension and suspense. We also found that the name of this soundtrack 'need blood' suited our thriller film to a great extent as our whole story line is set about seeking death upon an individual almost as if they need their blood in order to feel content.

 

We also considered using this original thriller soundtrack called 'Sophias Smile'. We felt in the end that this soundtrack wasnt intense enough for our thriller film and although it created an eery tension it wasn't the right one for us