Research Into Making Our Victim Look Dead

Here is the sort of knife we are looking on having through our victims head. It doesn't have to be particularly professional or too realistic as our camera angles and lighting will only get a gist of it there will be no gory close ups. Therefore a knife such as the above is perfect.

As a group we researched various different ways of making our victim look bruised and dead. This is one of the tutorials we found. We will use all of this information on the day of the shoot to create a realistic looking dead victim.

Script Information

Everything that the detective and intern say are with a russian, eastern european accent, or in their language. They say very little to each other, instead they communicate with looks or gestures which are proceeded by the intern writing something down or nodding etc. 

So far, the only line that seems necessary is the detective, after opening a cupboard, saying

"This is where the drugs were hidden".

We thought it would be good to put in a line of their mother tongue when the detective can turn to the intern and say: 

"Lets go." (In their language.)

Evaluation of our Shot List Pilot

Making our shot list pilot really made us realise how we have many more shots in our new idea than in our original. Whilst doing it we came up with various new things such as the checking of the watch and the creation of the intern character. Just by making images, we realised how long it was going to take just to get a few shots and that you have to stay focussed. We discovered that a few shots such as the circling of the head with the handheld camera were going to take a while as they may be difficult. We realised, unfortunately for the person playing the body, that they were going to have to stay in the seat for the majority of the time incase we got a shot where they were in the background, this happened in a few of the pictures and we had to crop out the empty chair however we cannot do this while filming, therefore will have to choose our actor for the body carefully.

In conclusion I feel more confident with the idea after doing this, there are are plenty of things that we can improvise on the day of filming, to create more shots and help portray an interesting view of the characters.

Sound

We decided not to put in any non-deigetic music till the end of the piece, when we would have one beat getting louder and louder until the door slams. This beat will create a crescendo, dramatic, suggesting that the detective has some sort of anger towards the killer in a previous event allowing suspense as a storyline appears.

But throughout the scene we don't any music, if anything we want all sounds of footsteps, talking, writing etc. to be particularly clear and possibly over exaggerated therefore everything else must be very quiet. This is to make everything seem very secretive and discrete.

To end the scene we want the detective to scan the room one more time then slam the door, here we will need some diegetic door slamming sound to emphasise this. To make it a clear ending to the first scene, and alike the beat will show his anger towards the killer, revealing a dramatic storyline.

Props, Costumes and Location

Props list:

• A knife that looks likes its lodged into the back of the corpses head

• Some police equipment, such as radios badges maybe a pocket gun

• A watch for the detective

• Notepad for the intern

Costumes:

• detective- long black coat, leather gloves, scarf, possibly a fur hat to continue the siberian theme.

• Intern- very similar with coat, scarf, dressed for warmth. Without the fur hat.
• The dead body will be dressed for warmth also but in slightly shabby clothes. we are also looking into having some makeup done to make the actor look more "dead".

Location:

• Apart from the arrival of the car, it will all be filmed in a studio. 

We are aiming for it to have this sort of feel and look:

The window would have to be very foggy to demonstrate the cold outside.

We need old boxes and some sort of 'forgotten cargo', and a cupboard left open for the drugs to be.

The arrival of the car and the getting out, will have to be near a large but abandoned looking building.

New Story

Our new story consists of a drug murder scene. It will open with a wideshot of the detective driving to the scene of the murder. By viewing the sequence we will understand that the detective is the protagonist and that he is about to embark onto a drug cartel case, and this murder is just a minority of problems that he will have to face. This will be shown by the mise-en-scene and the mannerism that the detective has. Mainly as he enters the scene he will be examining the body shortly and he will be able to crack the case by seeing the motif of death being, drugs, stolen drugs. He leaves the scene after only spending a brief amount of time analysing it. The way he leaves is key to establishing the scene. This is because he will leave, as he already knows the case is bigger then this small murder. He will leave the scene by saying something as “I am leaving for business”; this will establish the characters strong attitude and lock the audience into the sequence wanting to know what happens. 

Shot list/pilot

 

we see an old rusty car arriving

 two men, detective and his assistant intern get out

medium close up of dead body on chair

zooming out to a wide shot so we can properly see the warehouse like place

we then see the detective and his male assistant intern entering down some steps from the cold our side.

there is a close up of the detective looking down then checking his watch

we then see the dead body again

the detective starts to walk around the body and it then cuts to his eye-line match and we hear the footsteps, this will probably be done with a hand held camera.

as it goes around the head we see that there is a knife lodged into the back of the murder victim

we see him going behind the dead body then crouching down to show he is looking past the body and its eye-line.

we zoom into the side of the head then..

it zooms into its eye-line and we see a prominent place that has been left open 

he walks over to the place looks inside then says in his language, that this is where the drugs were hidden.

we see them both walk out through the door and the detective looks back

we see a wide shot of the whole room, with the body in the middle. and some curious non-diegetic music starts

Castings

In our thriller we have three main characters, our detective, his assistant intern and a dead body.

considering that we are having a cold siberian theme, we need the actors to be dark features witha  russian sort of look.

our detective needs to be in his mid thirties, witha serious face. he needs to look rusty; therefore we ould like to have a stubbly face, making him look slightly cooler.

his assistant needs to be in his late teens eary twenties, goodlooking- to appeal to audience, and also serious looking and again dark features

our dead body is less specific, we need an older person, who looks worn out and who will be able to stay still with his eyes open.

Update of Thriller

We decided that our thriller opening didn't say enough about the movie and there may have been few too many shots to create a long enough sequence. Therefore we decided to change the sub genre slightly and add in a few other characters.

We decided to change the sub genre to a conspiracy thriller. We wanted the main character of the movie ( a downtown detective) to come and investigate a dead body with his intern, who throughout the film would become a more prominent character.The detective would immediately find where "the drugs" had been. This would suggest to the audience what sort of scheme would be unravelled. 

We want the detective to be a "cool" but cold man, which would give him a mysterious edge, suggesting that his past will unravel along with the storyline. Therefore when choosing our actors we have to be specific. The intern would have to be a good looking young boy to appeal to the audience. 

Thriller Analysis Without Sounds

Audition

The trailer of Audition, we see some typical features of a thriller. For example when the woman’s scars are revealed, we are expecting something sexual as she has previously removed her bra, therefore shocking us. The pulling up of the sheets has been edited and sped up, making it jolty, stopping the sensual and making the revelation more sudden. The contrast between sexual and shocking also emphasizes the scars. The scars imply some violence and the shock suggests secrets, both often featured in thrillers. The lighting is often blue and cold, giving a ‘shivery’ uneasy feel. The blue is used in a sexual scene, which are usually meant to be ‘heated’; therefore we feel that something is not quite right. We see a body bag, giving the impression of murder, a common theme in thrillers. The stabbing which constantly speeds up, giving an impression of obsession and insanity, as if someone is getting carried away or has been wound up, backing up the theme of murder. 

Thriller Sub-genres

What is a Thriller?



They are typically known to create excitement and suspense, a high level of anticipation and severe wracking tension. A successful thriller will keep the audiences 'on the edge of their seats'.the characters usually have some form of conflict related to an event, someone or even themselves. However this subject is usually fairly shadowy or abstract.

Types of Thrillers-


1.Conspiracy thrillers

Also known as ' Paranoid Thriller', it usually includes an amatuer journalist/ investigator who accidentatlly unravels a serious happening or conspiracies, then attracts a lot of attention and usually ends up a hero. It generally includes 'goodies' and 'baddies' and occasionally a love story along side. There are lots of lies rumors propaganda, physiologically interesting audiences.

EXAMPLES OF CONSPIRACY THRILLERS:

• The International
• North by Northwest
• Valkyrie
• The Assassination Bureau

Conspiracy thrillers will usually feature the police or some sort of security organisation e.g. MI6 or CIA. They also feature rumours, propaganda and lies which will create tension between the main character and the other characters. 

2. Political Thriller
These are closely linked to Conspiracy Thriller, however they tend to have more of larger scale backdrop, such as the government. they are based around power struggles, common themes include terrorism, corruption and warfare.

EXAMPLES OF POLITICAL THRILLERS:

• The Man Who Knew Too Much
• JFK
• City Hall

3. Spy Film
Spy films deal with the theme of fictional espionage either in a realistic way or in a fantasy way. The British film industry is famed for spy films with the most famous being the James Bond films and a lot of spy films are based around the British Secret Service.

EXAMPLES OF SPY FILMS:

• 007: Casino Royale
• 007: Die Another Day
• The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

Spy films will usually feature government agents and missions. There is always a strong risk of being found out by the enemies and there is always a main enemy in spy films. Spy films offer a mix of escapism, technological thrills and exotic locations e.g. James Bond films. The spy is the main character and is portrayed strongly as a hero figure. There also tends to be a woman involved and a sub-plot of romance between the spy and the woman. 

What We Learnt From The Analysing Credits

From analysing the credits we can learn some things

 

Who should get the credits:

Director 

casting director

film company

actors

director of photography

title of the thriller

music by...

editor

writer
 

It helped us to consider the order of the credits in our thriller. We felt that the title should come at the end, in front of the face of our killer, to start the story of how he got to this point, as the opening sequence will be a flash back.

 

We need to create realistic name for a film company. For example ' Smithy Works'

 

We realised that when filming we should leave areas in the shot for the credits to appear, and if not we should have seperate backgrounds especially for credits.

 

The British films feature the actors names lower down in the list, while an American film may feature the actors first as they are more likely to sell the film.

Analysing credits

We analysed the openign scene of Se7en, Kidulthood and Blue Velvet. We noted when the credits appear, what they were and how They contributed to the movie. 

SE7EN

0.03- Newline Cinema Presents 
0.06- An Arnold Kopelson Production

0.11- A Film By David Findher

0.13- Brad Pitt

0.18- Morgan freeman

0.26- Se7en

0.29-Gwyneth Paltrow

0.33- Richard Rowntree

1.11- Casting by Billy Hopkins

1.16- Music by Howard Shore

1.23- Edited By Richard Francis bruce

1.36- Director of Photography Darius

1.54- Written by Andrew Kevin Walker

KIDULTHOOD

0.11- Directed By Menhaj Huda

0.16- List Of Actors

0.22- Written by Noel Clark

0.27- Kidulthood

 

BLUE VELVET

0.00- Produced By Fred Caruso

0.02- Directed By David lynch

Narrative Action of Our Thriller

1.     Establishing, wide, almost birds eye view shot of a suburban road. Non-diegetic music playing. The road is bright and hyper-real coloured. There are a few cars, houses on either side.

2.     Wide pan shot down the street, giving more perspective to the scene.

3.     Wide shot of the back of a boy walking on the street.

4.     Close-up shot of the shoes of the boy, as a non-diegetic voiceover begins.  He may begin by saying something freakily normal, such as “Today, I had Weetabix for breakfast.”

5.     The voiceover continues as the shots shatter in and out from each other. We see a wide shot of the boy from the side, still walking.

6.     Wide shot of the boy from the other side, as he continues walking.

7.     A shot of some plants or other suburban features.

8.     Extreme close-up of the hand of the boy, twitching and bloody fingers.

9.     We now see a mid-shot of the boy, from the front, for the first time.

10.     The shots continue to shatter in and out of each other, this time pausing on a slightly closer mid-shot of the boy.

11.     An extreme close-up of the lips of the boy, strangely red (bright) and twitching.

12.     A close-up of the boy’s face as he bites his lip.

13.     A tracking shot, going behind the boy from left to right, shows him continuing down the road.

14.     A mid-shot of his feet/legs as he trips, walking on to the curb.

15.     The shatter effect cross cuts to more brightly coloured flowers.

16.     An extreme close-up of his fingers, twitching and drenched in blood, is shown. 

17.     The shatter effect is used again, now switching to an extreme close-up of bright flowers and plants, maybe a mailbox or two.

18.     An extreme close-up of his eyes is shown, also a bit twitchy, showing his nervous disposition.

19.     The screen blanks out as he turns a corner.