Further Influences

 While we were watching Saving Private Rayan we spotted the camera shot that they use which is hand held shot, this has a big influence on us because in our thriller we decided to use hand held shots where the mercenaries are running and prepare to attack Ted. We want to use this because it helps us to give a sense of realism and tension. With the camera shaking and moving about, itbrings the audience closer to the action than if it was just a fixed shot filmed from a tripod.

 

Shooting Schedule

We estimate that the process of filming will take up a large portion of, if not the entire day that we have, so we have given ourselves from 9am to 5pm to shoot our sequence.

 

Shooting Schedule:

9.00 – 10.00: Arrive at destination, set up cameras and costumes and prepare make up.

10.00 – 10.30: Rehears with actors what they will do and story line, apply makeup to actors and set up shooting area, i.e. where, when and who will be on set at times and were actors will go.

10.30 – 11.00: Firstly aim to film all close ups of mercenaries, weapons, shooting and fighting.

11.00 – 12.00: Secondly we will aim to focus on tracking, panning and tilting on the mercenaries and fighting sequences to add different emotional effects in further editing.

12.00 – 1.00: Focusing on the car, filming in it to get more realistic views on specific action shots, for example the driver getting shot.

1.00 – 2.00: Wide shots + Long shots of all aspects of thriller. Travelling further away from main ‘battle ground’ with the cameras to film certain shots.

2.00 – 3.00: Then we will focus on the firing of the guns on how they will look when we edit. Using POV shots and close ups to make this seem more realistic.

3.00 – 4.30: Extra shots and takes to fill in the gaps.

4.30 – 5.00: Start packing up ready to go back to school to download our footage to FCP.

Title Font

 

 

After we looked at the opening sequence of the Expendables, we noticed the font that they use and think that it might be useful to us because of the genre of our thriller and plot are quite similar. It is a stencil font, like that which is used on army uniforms or equipment, which suggests that the film will have war-related themes. The font we want has an army/millitary look to it, which suits our purpouses as our thriller is an action thriller about mercinaries. Above is an example of the type of font that we want for our titles.

Script

Our opening sequence doesn’t include a lot of talking, shouting, screaming or any sort of dialogue. The only aspect we want to focus on is delivering interesting and well devised shots. Breathing will be the closest to dialogue as possible, however the only dialogue we will include will be the sequence’s ending line of Yuri before he kills his victim showing that he is the main character within our sequence. A line hasn't been confirmed yet, as we are currently in the porcess of finding one that is badass, rather than extermely cheezy or cliched. When the line is uttered, Yuri must hold all the power, if the line is bad, people will lose all respect for him when he kills Ted.

Pilot Description

From filming a preview of our thriller, our pilot, we can now see which shots work effectively and which wont, also we can clearly see which shots are going to be easier to film, and thus take less time on the day, and those which take longer.

Firstly, the tracking shots of the mercenaries running, could be one which we can either get right first time, or it could take a long time. We think that this could be the most effective shot and it would really add to the suspense and the tension of the sequence, showing these men running, about to attack Ted and James.

Secondly, the shots of the sniper, the close-up and medium shots, look good on our first previews, and will look even better we hope when we can get costumes, a gun, etc. all sorted, we do not think these shots will take too long, but they will hopefully look good.

The point-of-view shot from Ted looking up at Yuri from a low angle, looked especially effective when we filmed our first preview, it looked very good with sunlight, giving the effect of blurred vision, which we are going to try and re-create for our final shot.

We have filmed a shot which we are very happy about and looking forward to seeing how it will look with a real car. We are leaving the camera on the floor, and getting the car to drive as close to it as possible, this will hopefully create a sory of eerie feeling and tense moment, as tthe audience will know that the car is being followed alongside by these mercenaries, but Ted and James will not know, so this will emphasise that they are being followed.

The Dakota Stars

The Dakota Stars are a Brighton based band who originally formed in 1992 and were active until 1995, before reforming and returning to gigging in 2007. They were signed to Popcor records and released a single, "It's Not The End Of The World" in 1994. We are going to use the music from this band in our thriller, as the rock sound suits the type of film we are making, many action army/mercinary films have a rock soundtrack (The Expendables/Black Hawk Down). Rock is an agressive form of music, yet has a good-times feel to it, so it makes perfect sense that fighting men would listen to it before going into battle. There is a very famous scene in Apocalypse Now in which the American soldiers play Ride Of The Valkaries very loudly from their helicopters prior to an attack, and since then, warfare and loud music have been commonly associated. The music will be added into our thriller during the editing process and will be mostly non-diagetic, perhaps a little bit of diagetic music playing on the car radio before the attack. We have been given permission by the artist to use their music in our film.

Simon Wood - Vocals
Alex K Milanian - Guitar
Nick Pook - Guitar
Toby Clarke - Bass & Vocals
David Pound - Drums

Ted Swerving When Tyres Are Shot

This is our test shot of what will happen inside the car when Yuri and his band shoot thye tyres on Ted's car. This is Shane's attempt at perdicting Ted's reaction when the tyres are shot. Please note, I was not in the room when these were taken.

Close Up Of Yuri

This shot is when Yuri is watching Ted's car approach, as he and his men ready up for the assault. We put this shot in to help establish Yuri as the main character and shows his focus and his professionalism.

Close Up Of Weapons

Ted Driving, Medium Close Up

Sound

For our thriller, we are going to need many various sound effects, most of, if not all of which will be done in editing. The main diegetic sounds required are going to be for the guns, the sound of the guns being cocked, fired, shells ejecting and hitting the ground, and of course the sound of bullets hitting metal and punching through a body. A lot of the diegetic sounds we will need depends on how good the mics on the cameras are or if we will get a separate boom mic or something simmilar. In terms of non-diegetic music there has been much dispute as to what kind of music should be used, some (myself included) in favour of going a bit more expendables/apocalypse now with some classic hard rock like Jimi Hendrix or Thin Lizzy whereas others want to go in a more serious Bourne Identity direction. It is an important point, because the music we use will set the tone for the film. I think that the general consesus will be in favour of using the rock tracks, seeing as they will be a lot easier to create, though we may already have some original material.

Props List

 

- Guns

- Car

- Cigar

- Russian army uniforms

- Fake blood

Location –

Altering The Cast

Originally we wanted to have a group of Russian A2 students to be the mercinaries in our thriller, but due to them not being able to be pulled out of school for a day (bogus) we are unable to use them as our mercs. This has meant that we have had to find new AS actors. It also means that rather than four soildiers, we now have two, Mike Azaurturov and Raffique. Again, we have picked them because they are both older looking Russian speakers who, on camera at least, would just about be able to pass for mercinaries. We still have Ted Jackson and Richard Hartman as planned in the roles of the bad guys who get shot and killed by the Russians. Although the main cast has been altered, we may also be able to get a few more additional soldiers for a few hours in the afternoon to shoot a few takes.

Practice Shots & Altered Storyline

We have now filmed a few practice shots of the real shots that we will use in our final thriller. Having seen what they looked like by playing them back on the computer, we can see that we are happy with our new ideas, especially our final shot of the low angle looking up at Ted pointing the gun, and the tracking shot of the mercenaries running. We think these will be especially good and effective shots and we hope that we can pull them off on the day.

Also, we have now realised the difficulties due to conflicting ideas with our teachers, on what we both think will look most effective. In our initial storyboard we were showing that Ted was likeable and also that he was drunk, rather than giving the camera time to Ted, we want to spend more time with the mercenaries, as they and Yuri, are the main focus point of the whole story. At first, our intial ideas for our shots were making Ted look like the one who we wanted the audience to sympathise with and support, however this is not what we want, we want Yuri to be the one who the audience lieks and support. Finding the balance between showing these mercenaries as good men who the viewer should follow, and just cold blooded murderers who are just killing for no reason.

Changing The Storyboard

Throughout the process of making new ideas for the film and adjustments to the old ones, the story has almost entirely changed from the original idea. For example, Ted was originally going to be driving drunk and alone, now he is sober, armed and has company, perhaps a bodyguard. We are still on the side of the mercinaries though and most of the camera time will be on them. These changes have improved the storyline, but it means that I have to re-draw a large section of, in fact most of the storyboard. We have also filmed small test segments from the new ideas and edited the shot by shot list.The new story makes a lot more sense than the old one, but it is kind of a pain to re-do a lot of what we already have.

The Terminator (1984)

This poster is one of the more obvious ones in terms of its target audience. The main image shown on this poster is that of a leather-clad Arnie wearing wrap-around shades and brandishing a Colt .45 longslide with a laser sight. The background of the poster is black with red laser looking lines which indicate that the film will be futuristic, along with the title of the film 'The Terminator' in a futuristic font.

The Further Altered Story

The scene starts off with an important man in car with (two?) bodyguards (or cronies), there are soldiers lying in wait. As the car approaches, they take out the tires (or something else to get the car to stop), the car stops and two of the guards get out and retern fire. They get riddled with lead. One of the guys gets out to fight and Ted grabs a handgun from the glovebox and starts shooting. Eventually everyone in the car is dead apart from Ted. He runs out of ammo, so the soldiers move in and waste anyone still alive. One of the bad guys is on the ground, shot but still reaching for a gun, but is swiftly killed in cold blood by a soldier as he runs past. Ted gets dragged out and shot in the face. 2-4 Mercs vs. 2-3 Important baddies. Expendables-style intro scene. The segment is filmed from the point of veiw of the soldiers, they are the good guys even though they have just killed about three people in cold blood. We have changed to this plot rather than have a group of high end mercs taking out a drunk guy, that seemed a little excessive. We also introduced more bad guys, so as to even out the fight and also mean that we can put a lot more action into our thriller, with the old plot we wouldn't really be able to use the guns too much, which would be boring. It also makes a lot more sense, for example, why would the important man be drunk and if he was drunk, why wouldn't the mercinaries just wait untill he crashed his car by himself and kill him then and make it look like an accident (assuming he's not already dead).

Shot By Shot Breakdown

1. Close up of Elite group 's weapons and equipment
2. Closeup of Yuri's facial expression, symbolising his power and status within the group
3. low angle shot with a static camera of the car approaching then passing by
4. medium shot of Ted driving the car, introducing who the driver is
5. high angle shot of him trying to change gears, and him swaying - signifying he is drunk
6. longshot of the sniper setting up to make his shot on the tyre of the car
7. closeup of the shooter looking determined and aggressive
8. Close up of the shooter in front of him preparing for the aim of his shot
9. scope shot, we can see where the sniper is aiming at (POV), at Ted, then his aim drifts off to the tyre of the car
10. Close up of the sniper actually firing at the tyre and held at this shot for longer, for the viewer to hear the tyre puncture and not see it to avoid complications in post editing
11. Medium interior shot of Ted swerving
12. close up on Teds facial expression looking worried, disorientated and puzzled
13. POV with a slow shutter speed of Ted indicating he's drunk used until he gets out of the car
14. In the same shot he stumbles and falls
15. Half way through his fall an over the shoulder shot of an elitist is used to see the remainder of Ted's fall to the ground
16. OTS shot of Yuri looking at Ted, and then we see Yuri turn round and look past the camera, towards his group of elitists to tell them to move in
17. tracking shots of the group running towards Ted
18. closeups of each man and their facial expressions indicating who they are and their order of importance and them all communicating to each other
19. cuts to Ted, his drunk and blurred vision is what we see on the screen through the POV of Ted, there is a clear contrast between the shots we see of the elitist group running and Ted being vulnerable
20. cuts to a black screen, with muffled sound then the sound becomes clearer and you can distinguish the sound of footsteps coming closer and closer
21. camera shot opens up looking at the sky, then we see Yuri's face and he points a gold Desert Eagle in the face of Ted
22. as he pulls the trigger the screen cuts instantly to black then we hear the sound of the gun shot and the name "YURI" slams onto the screen with a metallic sound
23. for the dot on the "I" there will be a gun shot and the dot will be like a hole made from a bullet with a metal sound.

More Story

At first we wanted to have a car travelling down a dark road, alone, with children in the back. A man was going to appear and shoot them. We rethought our idea and realised that we probably would not be able to encorporate this into an effective thriller sequence. We then decided to change our idea but still keeping the car idea that we originally wanted.

We have now decided to change our idea completely. We are going to have a car (Black Range Rover) driven by Ted, driving down the road, we will be showing closeup cross cutting between Ted, the car, and a group of elitists army soldiers from Russia, hiding down the road, waiting for Ted.

The main reason for changing our idea was that we thought we could more successfully put together an action scene rather than trying to film in the dark and successfully build up suspense in a way in which we had not really thought of. So by doing this new idea, we have now decided to name the thriller "YURI" because the film will be based upon the leader of the army group, who is called Yuri, and it will be about how they, being mercenaries, go around murdering anyone they are told to.

For our main character Yuri, we are going to use one of the A2 students who we believe will be a very effective actor for playing the role of a Russian leader.

 

Props N' Stuff

Firstly, we have decided to use a black Range Rover for our car. We wanted to have a car which symbolised the driver's class, upper class - successful businessman type of man, who is probably an important figure, the reason for him being murdered.

Secondly, for our costumes, we are going to dress Ted, the driver, in suit but with his jacket off and his tie off and top button undone, this is becuase we want him to look quite rugged and drunk, which he is. For the soldiers, we will try and get some Russian army-type uniforms for them to wear, and for Yuri, the leader, we want him to be wearing a different hat, to symbolise his importance in the group and so we can distinguish which person he is.

For the weapons used by the soldiers, we will use airsoft guns of the same type, to show how the members of the group are equal, however Yuri will have a large pistol, showing his importance, and signifying how he is different from the others in the group.

Basic Outline

1. starts off with an elite group of army soldiers
2. camera showing their weapons - closeups, then showing there rugged faces and emotions
3. closeup of fake blood on knives of the men and on their faces
4. then a black range rover approaches from the distance driven by Ted
5. as the range rover approaches, the elite gorup prepares for action
6. closeup on a sniper scope which is aimed at Ted, then leads off to the tyres of the range rover and fires
7. Ted swerves the car off the road and skids to a holt
8. Ted gets out of the car, confused and very drunk
9. POV shot of Ted showing his vision very blurry and distort
10. whilst this is going on cross cutting between the elists faces and movements, and Ted
11. MOA when Ted drops his bottle of Whiskey, whilst he goes to pick it up, the elitists take their moment to pounce
12. the elitists professionally move in with lots of fast paced cutting showing the leader communicating with the other soldiers
13. then Ted is surrounded as he stumbles back up onto his feet
14. one of the Russian soldiers hits Ted to the floor with the butt of his rifle
15. the elítísts or leader then stands over Ted, very high angle shot the the man standing over him, looks intimidating
16. he pulls out a Desert Eagle, the camera focuses on it
17. the leader quotes, "я Юрия, иметь хороший сон" (I amYuri, have a good sleep).
18. then screen blanks as we hear a gun shot and the title "YURI" slams onto the screen

Kyle Cooper

     Kyle Cooper is a director and designer of title sequences for movies and games. Throughout his career, he has directed  one hunderd and eighty four title sequences and has founded two design companies, Imaginary Forces and in an attempt to scale back his operation so that he could be more involved in the creative process, Prologue Films. Titles he has worked on in his career include 'SE7EN', 'Arlington Road', 'The Mummy' and 'Mission: Impossible'. The movie 'SE7EN' quickly established Cooper as one of the best title designers in Hollywood. He sites Saul Bass and Stephen Frankfurt (To Kill A Mockingbird) as his primary influences.

Thriller Idea 1

Jurassic Park (1993)

By looking at the poster for Jurassic park, it is relatively easy to tell what kind of audience the movie is going to appeal to. It is a simple design, a black background with the contrasting 'Jurassic Park' logo outlined in yellow. The logo itself is pretty much what gives the game away for this particular poster. There is a red circle with the black silhouettes of a jungle or rain forest of some kind at the bottom and of course the skeleton of a roaring Tyrannosaurus Rex. This design is one that is likely to appeal to a wide, slightly younger male audience, including (but not limited to) six year olds to late twenties.

Thriller

A Thriller is a genre of film that by definition contain some form of exitement, suspense, anxiety or uncirtainty. The objective of a thriller lies within the name, it's purpouse is to provide the audience with a series of 'thrills'. Usually in a thriller there is a main character who is put into a dangerous, often life-threataning situation, sometimes because of his own actions, but usually by some powerful outside force or sinister organisation. There are several subgenres of the thriller catagory, some of the most important ones are listed below:

Conspirary Thriller:
     In a conspiracy thriller, the main character is usually being chased by a shadowy government organisation because of something that they unknowingly stumbled upon, or they know a secret that they shouldn't. A classic example of a conspiracy thriller is The Bourne Identity. In this movie, the character (Jason Bourne) is shot and wakes up with no memory of anything that happened before then. It is his mission to find out what happened, why the government wants him dead and who he really is. In this sequence, he escapes from a swiss bank using his skills as a trained assassin.


Political Thriller:
     A Political thriller is a thriller that deals with various political scenarios, scandals and disasters. Especially with this particular form of thriller, the movie generated is often based on a true story, and are often closely linked or intertwined with the conspiracy element. Assasination is a popular subject for political thrillers, as in 'The Jackal'. Bruce Willis stars as an assassin known as The Jackal, whose assigned target is the first lady (unbeknownst by the viewer until the movie's climax). It is the job of the FBI and a reluctant former IRA sharpshooter to stop him. In this scene, the jackal is given his target.

Espionage Thriller:
     An espionage thriller, or more commonly a spy film Most espionage thrillers tend to follow a very similar pattern.


Psycological Thriller:


Techno Thriller:



Supernatural Thriller:

Preliminary Task Reflection

For our prelim task we shot in the studio, the set being a single room with two windows and a door to the left of the camera (in keeping with the 180 degree rule). During the shoot, I mostly operated the camera whilst Richard directed and Shane kept record of continuity (the original idea being to rotate roles, but proved to be too complicated). As well as filming the required material, we also filmed an additional sequence including myself and Richard as actors. During the time we spent in the studio I learned much about the operation of the camera, as I was behind it for the majority of the shoot. For the main task, we bought in two actors (Charlie, Shane) so that Richard other Shane and myself could always be behind the camera, making the process of directing, filming and continuity much easier. In terms of the script, we had the actors repeat the scene as closely as they could from different angles (we only had one camera). The list of different shots on the storyboard seemed colossal before the shoot commenced, but most of them turned out to be the same shot, and would have more to do with the way the sequence was to be edited (but that's another story). We went through the process of physically filming it, operating the camera, recording and working out the shots with relative ease, the hard part was positioning the actors, as no matter how much tape we put down, the positions of their bodies and the way they held themselves was always different. Once we had copleted our preliminary task, there was some time left over, so we made a short sequence in which we explored close up shots, low angle and different types of camera movement, although our actors had left at this point.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Poster Analysis

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

This poster is mainly dark, which already tells us much about the kind of film this will be. The blackness represents evil or perhaps hiding. There is also the red silluette of a dragon. The dragon itself is a fearsome beast to be reckoned with whereas the red represents danger, blood and perhaps lust. The face of the girl is partly shrouded in darkness and what is exposed is very pale. The darknes simplies that she may be hiding herself from someone and the paleness and contrast from the background shows that the film is about her. It could also show her innocence or fragility.

The Shining Poster Analysis

The Shining

It's Very clear that there are two distinct sides to this poster, good and evil, light and dark. On one side, there is Jack Nicholson as the killer, with a demented look on his face. His face is surrounded by darkness and is also quite a dark red colour, representing the dangerous and insane character he plays. He has an elated, euphoric look on his face, which further adds to the sinister effect this poster already has. On the other side of the poster is the victim, cowering in fear and horror away from the axe that has just broken through the deviding wall. The expression on her face is one of sheer terror, a stark contrast to the manic smile just across from her. She too is holding a weapon, although defensively, a knife which looks quite insignificant compared to the axe that has just burst through the wall. To further add to the contrast between two worlds, the background around the victim is white, to express goodness, innocence and perhaps above all, sanity.

AS Thriller Analysis

I have been gifted with analysing one of the videos made by AS students last year. Sadly it is impolite to refuse a gift. I chose to analyse one called 'Retrieval'.

C.L.A.M.P.S

The man who is tied to the metal bed frame is dressed in military looking clothes. The interrogator is also wearing military style clothes (camouflage) but looks more as if he is part of a militia or terrorist group rather than an army due to the mis-matched nature of his uniform. There is another soldier towards the end, wearing a complete uniform, presumably american.

The room is lit with two visible lights, a single bulb hanging from the ceiling on its wires (perhaps for intimidation purposes) and another more harsh strip light near the floor, casting dark shadows across the room. It is quite dark inside the cave, giving it an imposing and foreboding feel.

The  Interrogator speaks with a foreign accent, but speaks in english throughout, so that his victim can understand every word he says. The prisoner says nothing during the sequence. The interrogator tries to persuade his victim to talk by way of reasoning and torture.

Set in a dark cave, interrogation equipment is scattered around the room, car batteries (electrocution), a jerry can and towel (water boarding) as well as a radio and a handgun. This gives the room a very sinister feel. The lighting is very low inh the cave and there is an ambient humming sound in the background. The inside of the cave has a distinct echo.

The props used for the scene include A bare metal bed frame, water containers, a rag to cover the prisoners face, a car battery with clips and two handguns.

The sequence is set in a small, dark cave (of a small section of a bigger cave or network of tunnels), presumably somewhere in the middle east (Iraq, Afghanistan). The location can be determined by the accent the interrogator uses, he speaks english, but with a strange accent.

The sound used in this sequence is mostly diagetic, with one non dieagetic distorted sound as the title appears at the end of the sequence. The diagetic sounds include a humming sound in the background (generator?), ambient cave sound, metal furniture scraping the ground, pouring water, choking, the sparks created by the car battery, the flashbang being thrown, hitting the ground and exploding, ears ringing after the explosion and gunshots. Before the grenade exploded, all sound stopped breifly to increase tension by making everything sound unnatural.

I have also embedded the video below, so you can watch it if you want.

The Life And Times Of George Hill So Far

Hey dude, as you no doubt by now have established, I'm George. My main aspiration in life is to be a lead guitar player in a rock or heavy metal band; my goal being to reintroduce proper music into the the hearts and souls of young people such as myself, for too long have the minds of my generation been poisoned by today's 'hits'. Not that the extent of the problem ends with the bogus music, but one has to begin somewhere. This has much to do with why I chose to study media. I am totally interested to see how different thing have affected generations over time as, in general, the people whom are most suceptable to the charms of adverts, TV and film are young people. No doubt this is why other similarly aged dudes have forgotton what killer music is. My three favourate bands are Guns N' Roses, Skid Row and Megadeth.

Guns N' Roses
(Steven Adler, Slash, Axl Rose, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan)

                                                                   

                                                                                  Skid Row
                                                      (Scotti Hill, Rachel Bolan, Rob Affuso, Sebastian Bach, Dave 'The Snake' Sabo)      

Megadeth
(David Ellefson, Marty Friedman, Nick Menza, Dave Mustaine)