Changes to Storyline

We have decided to change our storyline after watching further thriller opening sequences. Our new idea we believe will create more drama, as the opening shots show action, rather than our beginning at the moment having to wait a long time to get into the film.

As we made a group decision to cut the first flashback, we believe that our new opening will keep the interest in the opening before the main action of the flashbacks start. There will be no real loss if we take out the first flashback, and replace it with a completely different opening.

We have decided to instead start with the main character showing an attempt to kill herself in the bath. To conclude the first shot the character will be shown not going through with the suicide and shooting up from under the water, panicing and catching her breath. This idea has been influenced from the beginning of the film ‘What Lies Beneath’. After this sequence we will start from the end of the first flashback, from the girl sitting in the corner after the suicide attempt. This will then continue with the rest of the film, with the radio flashback being the next in sequence.

Changes to Rough Cut

We made a rough cut for our thriller project so that we could look at it after the first edit and make changes to improve the final product. We showed our first rough cut to our teacher to see what he thought we can improve, we also reviewed our first cut as a group and planned possible changes that we thought that we should make.

Here is our Thriller Rough Cut:

Changes:

• Opening- there is a slight pause before Chloe opens the bathroom door. This can easily be rectified by cutting of a fraction of the clip so it begins when Chloe is moving rather than when she is still standing still.
• Add a close up shot of Chloe opening the door. This will have to be done when we film the ‘pick up’ shots as we do not have this footage at the moment, although this is a quick change that can be made.
• Flash back periods to be made longer. This is important as it will make it more obvious to the viewer that Chloe is having a flashback.
• The Use of titles and director names. We need to add in titles to the opening sequence as this is a convention of a film opening and we need to follow certain conventions in the opening.
• Cut the first flashback where Chloe is sitting on her bed and the lights mysteriously go out. We made a group decision to cut this first flashback out completely from the opening because we felt that it was an unnessesary section that was not aiding the plot in any way.
• Add in other noises over the top of the soundtrack. This will aid to the production as it will make the viewing more enjoyable and add to the thriller experience.
• Cut a few frames off of certain shots in the beginning of the sequence. Some shots are too long, to change this we will just drop a few frames off of some shots which will make the production flow better.
• Enhance Flashback. Add shots of random memories in between the flashbacks as this will make the flashback more believable, also make it clear that Chloe is having a flashback -  for example show her looking at the object that forces the flashback so the audience are aware that this is the trigger.
• Remove fade at 0.32. This fade was unintentional and is not needed as no time has passed between the two shots.
• At 0.42 add in jump cuts and zooms to speed up and also enhance viewing. This should create more tension for the viewer.
• Frame Chloe’s face at 0.45. We will need to re-film this part to create better framing of Chloe, this will allow the viewer to focus more on Chloe’s heavy breathing and therefore increase the fear.
• 0.48, remove Chloe’s first head turn. Chloe turns her head twice which makes the second time less effective.
• 0.55, speed up Chloe turning her head. This is important as we need to create a sense of urgency for the viewer which at the moment is not there as it is too slow.
• When Chloe turns off the radio, there should be complete silence as this will add to the editing through the absence of sound- will add suspense.
• Move Chloe’s shocked eyes to after she turns the radio off. Re-film to make an extreme close up.
• 1.16, remove taps. Here we break the 180 rule and also the shot is not needed as we already see Chloe washing her hands, it is insignificant.
• 1.17, cut out speech. Somebody is talking in the background of the shot, we need to cut this sound out from the thriller.
• 1.51 add close-ups. Here we should add in some close-ups of Chloe’s hands on the wall, Chloe’s hand in her hair etc, this will create a wider shot variety.
• 1.56, when Chloe gets into the bath her legs are jumpy, we will need to sort this out before our final edit.
• At the end, we need to turn up the volume of Chloe’s heartbeat. In the rough cut it is too quiet so we need to make it louder and more pronounced.
• Overall we need a wider range of shots- we need many more close-ups as at the moment most shots are mid shots so we need more variety.

These changes above will be made for our final cut as they will improve the project and make it more enjoyable for our target audience.

Rough Cut Thriller

Name The Characters:

• Dr Jefferson : Mr Parry
• Aimee : Chloe Shepherd
• Coletta : Molly Clifton

Outline Of Thriller:

Aimee (protagonist) has been attempting to drown herself. She does not go through with it. She is being haunted by Colletta (antagonist; Amiee’s conscience). Amiee cannot get rid of Colletta haunting her. Everything she does a flashback of Colletta comes back to haunt her. Aimee can’t take it anymore and results to commiting suicide to kill her conscience.

Thriller Conventions:

• A narrative pattern of establishing enigmas which the viewer expects to be resolved. The flashbacks makes it obvious to the audience of the experiences Aimee is going through, which give a reason behind her actions at the end of the film.
• A protagonist who is systematically dis-empowered and drawn into a complex web of intigue by the antagonist. Aimee is being pulled down by Colletta, there is no way she can be stopped.
• Themes of mirroring. The first part of the sequence shows the protagonist’s attempt of suicide, this is mirrored at the end where she takes our her actions for a second time.
• Themes of voyeurism. The protagonist is being watched throughout the film by the audience and the antagonist. References to mirrors are used alot to catch the action of the main character without making it obvious someone is watching her.
• Protagonist with a ‘flaw’ which is exploited by the antagonist. The protagonist’s thoughts of her conscience is being exploited by the flashbacks that are occuring with the power of the antagonist.

Editing Process/Programmes

 To edit our Thriller Opening Sequence, the main program we used is Serif. This is because it is the only editing programme that everyone in the group is familiar with. However to create the titles we also used Sony Vegas 9, this encouraged us to use different effects that we aren’t able to use on Serif. The special effects offered by the programme helped us produce an effective title which ties in with the meaning of our title and storyline.

The main features of the program that we used is cut, fade, text, audio properties and pan and zoom. {Click picture to see larger.}

These properties helped us create the mise en scene we wanted which we weren’t able to create when filming. Also using these effects created new ideas for us, changing the perception of the film in some way, for example zooming into a part of the picture on screen helped emphasize the importance of it to the story.

Being able to add sound to the film increased the atmosphere. Sam created a soundtrack which added the extra ambiance to increase the obviousness of the genre. On serif we were able to cut the soundtrack when needed, also to change the volume on parts of the film where the sound wasn’t needed. Finally we were also able to mute the soundtrack when organizing the other sound included in our film for example; sound effects and the diegetic music from the radio.

Thriller Shooting Experience

In preperation for filming our Opening Thriller Sequence, we arranged a date that all group members could attend. The way in which we organized ourselves varied in different ways:

• Risk Assesment: First of all, we decided on different risk assesments that we would take into account when flming. As a group, we discussed what risks we would have to think about and we wrote them down and put the ideas onto our blogs. Our risk assesment ensured we would be safe during the process of our shooting experience.
• Costumes: We discussed what costumes we would need for the characters in the Thriller. We assigned each person with an item of clothing to bring with them on the day of filming. We also made sure we had back-up costumes prepared just incase there was a problem with the costumes.
• Props: In terms of props, we worked out everything i already had at home as this was the setting we used for filming. We wrote down everything that i didn’t have, within the group each person bought different items we were using for the props.
• Setting: We had decided that we would be using my house as the setting, as my bathroom was very minimalistic and this was what we needed for the setting. We made sure that my house was ready for use for the filming. 
• Storyboard: We made sure our StoryBoard was planned out perfectly and that our whole group agreed on the shots we would be using.

During filming, we faced a few problems:

• Our actress was late as she had other commitments. The way in which we solved this problem was we decided to plan what order we would film and set up the background, so it was ready when she arrived.
• One of our camera’s ran out of battery so we had to waste time waiting for it to charge. If we’d of planned it better we should of made sure they were both charged.

Apart from a few little things that went wrong, the majority of the filming went really well.

Storyline/Setting/Title/Roles

Roles;

Acting-

• Chloe will be playing a teenage girl, who is haunted by her conscience in a ghost form, and the ghost is from a past life.
• Molly is playing the ghost, who haunts Chloe.
• Sam is playing a doctor in one of Chloe’s flashbacks.

Camera work -

            I think the camera work will be done mainly by Rachel and Alex as they aren’t acting in the scenes which gives them the time to film it, and this way they will always remember what they filmed.

Editing -

            We are all going to edit the video ourselves, because we all have different editing styles that we would like to use.

Soundtrack -

             Sam will be making the soundtrack using, Freesound.org and other sound effects and music sites.

Story Title;

            To start out we weren’t sure on our title, until we developed our whole storyline for the thriller although we wont be filming it all. Our title is ‘Mort De Conscience’, the reasons we choose to use french is because something happened to Chloe the main protagonist in a past life, hence why her conscience is haunting her, and to try get away from it she moves to france but it doesn’t help her for long.  Mort De means death in french because Chloe kills herself, and Conscience because Molly is Chloe’s Conscience in ghost form to show that she’s in her head. Another reason we used french is because we looked at other AS media thrillers and the titles were boring or dull for example: Tracker, Redemption,  Unworthy and Illegal Justice.

Setting;

          Main setting of our thriller opening will be mainly in Alex’s bathroom because thats where Chloe kills herself. She also will be sitting in the bathroom before she has her flashbacks. One of the flashbacks is into a school toilets, for this we will use the lower school black as its easily accessable. Another one of the flashbacks is into a doctor’s surgery, for this we will use the medical room because its the closest thing we could get thats like a doctors. And the last flashback is  of a creepy house down Alex’s road. We also have a shot of Chloe walking down a road, for this we will use the road Alex’s lives down which is Burnway.

Risk Assessment

Item	Level Of Risk	Methods of Avoidance
Chloe doesn’t arrive at location	2	We will text her or call her the night before we are due to film to make sure that she remembers and that she arrives on time.
Camera Doesn’t Work	3	We will take two cameras to the location to avoid the risk.
Camera Runs Out of Battery	4	We will fully charge the battery for the camera and take a second spare battery incase the first one runs out of charge.
Chloe drowns in the water	1	We will not allow her to be under the water for longer than necessary and we will check with her that she is able to breathe.
Unable to use the bathroom location at Alex’s house	2	Check with Alex and her family to assure that the location will be available for the entire filming time.
Chloe scared of being under the water	1	Check with Chloe that she does not have this fear and if she does, hire another actor.
Sam unable to join the group filming because of the location (girl’s toilets)	5	Film in the location after school times so that he will be able to join the group as everyone will have gone home.
Cameraman or actor becomes ill	2	Make sure that we have a backup camera man and actor to ensure that we can stick to the deadlines
People getting in the way of filming.	6	Film at a less busy time (e.g. after school)