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.