Going into Production...

I believe that our Thriller introduction is almost ready to be filmed.

What we need to do:
- Decide on a time that we can all film
[Tuesday that we have off ?]

- Decide what we are filming and when
[Film it all in one day to get i t out of the way? The weather may change...]

- Ask Travelodge if we can film in a spare room
[Must be done before day of filming]

- Buy Coffee + Snacks.
[Can be bought on the day of filming]

- Get Camera + Tripod
[Will be brought on the day of filming]

- Get Shirt for filming close-up
[Must have the shirt before day of filming]


Huzzah !...

Update: "Focus"

Title: Focus
Genre: Thriller

Actors:
"Camera Man" - Undecided.
"Man with Shirt" - Undecided.
"Extras for street" - Undecided.

Props:
Camera - Supplied by Chris
Tripod - Supplied by Chris
Coffee and Snacks - Can be bought from the local shop
Shirt with Pocket - Can be supplied from home or bought cheaply
Pen - Can easily be found/borrowed.

Locations:
"TraveLodge" - For the filming of the camera man taking pictures and the camera man walking down the corridor.
"The High Street" - This can be anywhere in a busy street as long as there is enough room for people to walk from all sides of the shot.
"The High Street" - We can get close up images of 'urban like' areas. These shots will make up the clips being viewed down the camera lens.

What is happening:
The opening starts with a sequence of pictures that look as though they are being viewed on a camera. There is a man with a photographic camera who is watching the street below him. It is not clear why in the introducion. He is in a badly lit room with the curtains slightly drawn. As this is happening, the screen goes black as though the man is taking a picture. We will put the titles against this black screen. We see a short clip of a man's feet walking through the street. The view goes back to that down a camera and it focuses on a man putting a pen in his pocket but we are not sure why. Every now and then a 'snow storm' effect comes up, as though a TV has no signal. This leads the viewer to wonder why the man taking pictures is being viewed through a TV. We see a video of the photographer leaving the room and walking down the corridor. As he walks down the corridor we get a view of his feet. They are the same as the man's in the street.

I put this on the blog as i believe a few members of the group have got a bit confused as to what is meant to be happening.

The Details

For the Thriller, we were thinking how we could film the hotel parts in the Cambridge Travelodge. If we have to pay to film for a few minutes then so be it. Also, we could do the corridor in college grounds using some clever clever editing, or we could simply use the Travelodge if we get permission to film. All the shots using the photographic camera that the detective-like guy does, can be done in the Travelodge. The "camera" pictures can be filmed in the street round about outside H&M...from john lewis window if we can do it as it will be good for the high angle shots and so when we put it all together it will appear as if the cameraman is watching from a high up window (travel lodge) down onto the 'H&M' grounds.

Our Animatic

Here is our animatic



This is a rough idea of what we want to do. Hopefully the titles will fade in and out so it looks good.

We weren't sure of what it would look like so we put it in a slightly different order on the animatic. We got feedback from the class and we now know that this order is kinda confusing so we will change it.

i am legend ideas processed

how we could help the audience get an idea of the character just by his surroundings and some aspects of mise on scene, like Ryan discussed in a previous blog about i am legend, is by having little things like family photos or something sentimental like that, also the clothes and hair style of a character, for example if he was a nasty villainous man, we could have him in darker clothes and a mean sharp hairdo, gelled back or something...or spiky, like his personality...yea

animatics

we're nearing the end of making our animatics, we had to swap the story board images over to another computer using loads of memory cards and precious time. we put it along with the moody piano soundtrack and have me, Chris and Ryan have told him what parts we would like where and our constantly giving out opinions and constructive criticism. fingers crossed.

Some ideas from i am legend

When watching an illegal copy of I am Legend, we spotted some usful ideas to nick for our opening.

These background images give details to the viewer without having to explain them. This way of progressing the plot quickly is something we will use in introducing the character of the detective

Final Pre-pro Blog (probably)

The working title for our thriller introduction is Red Harvest (though obviously it will be changed later). The movie is about a detective being placed on a stakeout over a suspected criminal. However, the detective is disturbed by an event from his past, and over the course of the film apparently goes mad, noticing things that may or may not be there. The conclusion of the film discovers that his partner is actually selling counterfit jeans out of his garage, whilst the criminal is actually an accountent.

In the opening sequence we begin with subtle shots of streets and elements of a camera, before the scene pans up to look through a hotel window, in which the suspect is doing various things. We then introduce shots of the detective, who is obviously bored and starts looking at the tv through another window. After a short while, the suspect leaves the room, and detective walks out room to get some water before coming back. He then sits down really looking depressed, head in hands, and quiet echoing sound around his head. Then his partner comes in with food.

In terms of music being used, with feel some sort of piano thing would be good, as it sounds rather bleak, reflecting the detectives boring job. We also have some diegetic sound, with the camera shutter and maybe running water.

For the outside sequences, we shall film in cambridge city centre. The indoor parts will probably be filmed in college somewhere.

Props needed include a camera/tripod, water cooler, television, and a snappy detective for the two cops (and a business suit for the suspect).

We'll do casting later.

Some problems we might face would be creating the stakeout room in college (we can't film in a house as its meant to be in an apartment. Also, I don't want them to know where i live).

We'll film it in the filming week.

stakeout

After reliasing that shots of the sun melting peoples faces off might be a little difficult to produce, we have decided to change it to a psycological thriller involving the detectives assigned to a stakeout. To research this idea, we found the following openings from movies invloving stakeouts;





These intros allowed us to refine our ideas.

Our ideas

The idea for our thriller opening is that the sun has grown very hot (for some reason) and people are forced to hide inside there homes. The intro will show the effects of the boiling earth, before going into one of the homes, and we see all the images are from a television which one of the dudes is watching. Bob Marley's Sun is shining is playing over all of this, as someone is listening to it. When this is turned off it is replaced with gunshots, but this turns out to be coming from a game someone is playing. Then there is a knock at the door, its opened and the room is filled with white light

Joe and Ryan's thriller

Here is like some thriller shizzle we made to plan our thriller movie.



First off, here is an intro to 'Matchstick Men' that we cobbled together from stock footage and bizzare 80's sounds. I feel that if the music was consistent it would be much better, though what music we have used works well in creating a mood typical of the thriller genre, and blends well with the city footage and fading tranistions. It was also a valuble learning experiance in terms of using final cut.




The actual intro we choose is from Basic Instinct 2. This is darn effective because it draws the audience in with the hypnotic light/breathing effect at the start (which mimicks a heart beat) before cutting to a nighttime city scape and speeding car, typical stylistic elements of thrillers. The haunting sound track also provides a dramatic field

Thriller test.

This is our test title sequence for the film 'Matchstick Men'

by doing this we gained some knowledge of how to use new software like 'Final Cut' and also got some more practice using more familiar software like 'garage band'...
Some of the techniques that we learnt are how to import the video into 'garage band' and how to add a soundtrack to the video.