Account Of Shooting Day

On the 20th of January my group and I shot our Thriller called Mute. There was lots of preparation for the shoot day to make sure that everything was ready. Firstly, we had split the group up so that we all had equal amounts of responsibilities. I was to create this list and to sort out everyone’s roles, the budget of our film, the cast list and the props we would all need to bring in for the shoot day for example I had to bring in a metal bed. We also investigated locations to find the creepiest place to film, however we decided that we would film in the studio and create the set ourselves so that it was exactly like our vision. The mise en scene was the way we had planned it to be and all the props needed were there on our shoot day we also got a makeup artist from Madam Tussauds to come in so that the cast would look dead and so that all there wounds would look more realistic. I was also in charge of costume so I brought in lots of T-Shirts which we covered in fake blood and cut up and we made them look warn and used.
Set: As I said earlier we filmed in the studio and our set consisted of two rooms. The first consisted of a metal bed, which we hit with a hammer and broke the boards to make it look broken, a window with wooden boards and a light. The walls were fake stones to make it looks old and eerie. The mise en scene of this room was set up in this way to appeal to our target audience of horror fans to make them know the main protagonist was in danger and was a victim. The two rooms were connected together by a door which our main protagonist falls threw. The second room consisted of an empty room or what the target audience thought was an empty room. The lights were off but once the main protagonist finds the torch and flashes it around the room the target audience will be in shock once they discover that on all the walls there was blood, hand prints and a several dead bodies. We chose to do this as we felt that fans of the horror/thriller genre need a degree of suspense and excitement in most scenes and this we felt provided that.
Shooting: Our shoot day and the story line were not very different to our storyboards. The only difference was that in the end when the main protagonist takes of the tape from our “dead” bodies there lips were not sealed together by needles, this was hard to do in makeup. There were lots of close ups to create suspension for our target audience. We had one tracking shot which showed the main protagonist falling threw the door to get to the second room. I filmed a hand held shot of the dead bodies to make it seem like it was the main protagonist looking at them with closer detail, to do this we also filmed a point of view shot to show what the actor was looking at. We all had a go at controlling the set and I checked all the camera shots and helped place the dead bodies. I mostly filmed close ups of the dead bodies and made sure that all the shot were working with the rule of thirds. I was the second director so I had to make sure that everything was in the right place at the right time and that everything went according to plan.
Casting Choices: I was in charge of the casting choices so to make sure we had all our cast on the day I made them sign a contract telling them what they would have to be doing, when and how. As our main protagonist we chose as a group to cast Rory because he was a good actor and his look fit the part perfectly. We also felt he would appeal to our target audience of mainly 15-25 year old male horror fans as he is within that age range and would help appeal to them by being one of them in the film. For the “dead” bodies we had a variation of boys and girls to be more appealing to our target audience because it was mainstream. I also chose technically “good looking” people to appeal to a wider audience.
Costume and Props: I was in charge of the costume and props list. The props were very simple, we needed a bed and some duck tape to go over the mouths of our actors. The costume was simple as well lots of T-shirts (white, blue, black), jeans, shorts and ripped tights. This was all done to make the thriller look realistic and to make the cast look dead and tortured.
Lighting and Sound: The only sounds we used while filming were heavy breathing, smashed glace and a table falling on the floor. The lighting was also simplistic it was dark and most of the time, especially for the second room, we only used the light from the torch to create a realistic effect. In the first room we used a light shinning threw the window onto the bed to illuminate our main protagonist’s face we did this to create the effect of suspense which is essential to the thriller horror genre.
I am extremely pleased with the organisation of our group and how well the shooting, the props and the set all the came together. I was very pleased with my choice of cast because they all played a good part and the acting was very good. As co-director I can say I played a big part and helped with everything in check and made sure our shooting day was up to its highest potential.

Final Discussion Of The Effectiveness Of The Pre-Production

Due to all the work our group has put into the pre-production we were one of the most organized groups because we did not change our story or our ideas when it was our shot day. From the beginning our group never had to change our idea unlike other groups. We had finished our film treatment relatively early making us ahead of the game. Once we had planned out our group roles we all did the tasks we had set each other to do which proved to make things a lot easier so that when we all came together we were organized. This has made me learn that when your making a film a lot of pre-production is very important to make sure that on the shoot day everything runs smoothly and if something goes wrong you are prepared for it and you should be able to fix it.

However, i do believe that we would of got our costumes a lot earlier because we wasted some time in the beginning of our shoot day ripping up costumes and putting fake blood on them to make them look more realistic.

Shooting Schedule

The shooting schedule is one of the most important documents you need on the day of your shoot because it keeps everyone organized and you know how long you have to be to take a certain number of shots. The shooting schedule always tells you when you need the cast and how many people of the cast you need.

Our shooting schedule for Mute was very simple,

In the morning:

1) We had to get all the cast members in hair, makeup and costume.

2) We needed to organize the set

3) We filmed the main shots with all the "dead" bodies, close ups of the dead bodies

4) We then filmed the start of the main protagonist in the first room

In the Afternoon:

1) We finished filming the main protagonist in room 1

2) We then filmed establishing shots, pan and over the head

3) We then filmed close ups of the light bulb

4) Then we recorded sound effects like glass breaking and the table being pushed over

Account Of Props and Costume

-Wooden Planks
-Wall Paper
-Red Paint
-Black and White Paint
-Fake Blood
-Screwdrivers
-Knives
-Syringes
-Metal Framed Bed
-Grey Tape
-Ripped T-Shitrs
-Ripped Trousers
-Ripped Shorts
-Scary Makeup


It was my job to create this props list and to give each one of the group memebers a prop. For payment, over the holidays the group memebers will buy there props bring back the bill and we will devide the total of the bills by 4 (which is the number of group memebers)

Cast and Cast Contract

This is our Cast list, as our Main Protagonist:
-Rory Skeoch
We have used rory because he was easy to ruff up and to make it look like he had been abducted. He is also relatively attractive wich would attract a larger audience making our thriller more main stream by attracting a secondary audience which would be females.

Victims:
-Elly Sams
-Gabby Meech
-Lottie Tolhurst
-Lukas Dressler
-Oscar Mitchell-Heggs
-Cate Hoare
-Bea Campbell
-Gemma Dyer
-Lainy Black
-Jamie Hajigeorgiou

All our cast memeber needed to sign a contract:

I ……………………………,

Accept to take part in the Thriller Mute which will be filmed on the 20th of January 2010 between the times of 8:30am and 6:00pm. Exact times to be agreed nearer to shoot date. Directed by Tom Warhurst, Editors JJ Benzimra, Alex Roberts and Produced by Tamara Middleton. I accept my role as a dead body in a scene. I agree to have fake blood in and around my mouth (cherry flavoured if the blood is inside the mouth) and to have my lips taped together.

Signature:

…………………………………….

Group Roles

Roles on Shooting Day:

Tom Warhurst: Director
Tamara Middleton: Assistant Director
Joachim Benzimara: Camera Man
Alex Roberts: Assistant Camera Man and Director of Lighting.

General Roles:

Tom Warhurst- Director
1. Props List
2. Costumes
3. Sound
4. Location
5. Set Design

Joachim Benzimara- Editor and Camera Man
Equipment
Lighting
Final Editing
Logo of RedRum Productions
Film Poster

Alex Roberts- Editor and Director of Lighting
Storyboards
Shooting Schedule
Sound
Final Editing

Tamara Middleton- Producer and Assistant Director
1. Props List
2. Costumes
3. Cast List
4. Shooting Schedule
5. Group Roles
6. Creating Folder

Location Requirements and How they were found

For our thrilller we are going to film it in the studio because it would be simpler to manipulate the lighting, build the set and get all the props.

What institutions would produce my film?

I believe our thriller would be produced by a film company such a Lionsgate which is the studio with a key presence in the production of films and television programs. Lionsgate made the saw franchise this showed me that the firm had links to the horror industry and was experienced in producing them. I believe that lionsgate would produce my film because it is very much like saw for example in the first saw the two main characters wake up in an abandoned and grotty bathroom and in my thriller we had the idea of our main protagonist waking up in an abandoned bedroom.

Our Production Logo- Redrum Productions

We have called ourselves Redrum productions because Redrum spells murdeR back wards. We thought this would be a good idea due to the fact that the genre we are doing is Thriller.

Mute Treatment

ACT I·In the first sequence we are introduced to our tragic protagonist, Deacon, he is distressed, he finds himself in a delirious state on a medical bed, inside a dimly lit room, barely alive and heavily drugged. The only light he can see is coming from a nearby furnace. He decides to get up. He stumbles, drunk by fatigue, into a table. This is where he bumps accidently into a light chord hanging on a metal chain. He pulls the chain, and the light hurts his eyes. For the brief second he can see, before the lights flash out, he sees blood and scratches on the walls. He panics and starts to breathe heavily. He stumbles around, and finds his way into the next room. Here the floor is wet. He bumps into another table. On this table he finds an old torch, which is barely working. He shines it briefly on what appears to be a corpse. He approaches the body, and gets close to the body’s face. Suddenly the bodies’ eyes flash open. We realise that there are more than one body in the room, then all the bodies’ in the room try to scream although, they do have their mouths stitched closed. Suddenly he is hit on the back of the head, and he lapses into unconsciousness.ACT II·He awakens in the same state as before, on a bed, in a different room. Now he finds himself hooked up to all sorts of aged medical equipment. He attempts to pulls one of the needles out of his arm. Suddenly a deep, evil and ominous voice comes from somewhere in the room: that says “Baaaad idea”. Deacon is increasingly stressed, again he begins to breathe heavily, he is wild eyed and sweating. He tries to scream: “MMmmmmmm!!” but is unable to and discovers that his mouth is stitched together also. Some of the stitches rip open and Deacon exclaims “Who Are You?!” To which he gets no apparent answer. Although he doesn’t want to, he pulls several needles out of his arm. Blood begins to pour out of his veins. And he lapses into unconsciousness once more, and as his eyes begin to close, a looming figure walk awkwardly towards his bedside.Act III·The sequence opens with Deacon awakening, he is alive, barely. He is on a chair, but he is not attached to any sort of equipment, although he has a large gash in the side of his head. He is in a windowless, door less room. The only furniture inside is an antique wooden dining chair and an antique lamp. He surveys the room; he sees something written in one corner of the room. He stumbles over there, on his hands and knees. This message read: “Her blood will tell the way” and then some arrows pointing to back to where he was sitting. Behind his chair, he sees the feint outline of a dead body. He sees a wedding ring, and note clutched in its hand. He crawls over to the body. In his stupor, he grabs the note out of the hand. On the note it read “Love is boundless, get out whilst you can”, he then saw that the ring on the body was that of his wife. He screams and begins sobbing violently. He then sees his wives face and closes her eyes with his hands. He shifts his wife’s wait and underneath her there is another note that reads, “Adultery is a sin. The path of redemption begins here” he then grabs the lamp and repeatedly hits his wife’s face. Blood begins to come out of her head. It falls on the floor and lights come up in the whole room, revealing a trap door in the corner. He runs up to it and opens it. He runs frantically through a tunnel and breaks open the door at the end. He falls through. As he looks up he is greeted by the moonlight. He is now at a roadside. On the sign, in blood, it reads, “Take the hard way out” with an arrow pointing downwards. Underneath it lays a shotgun. He stumbles over there, still hysteric. He picks it up and sees that it has one round in it. He cocks it. The screen goes black, and all we hear is a gunshot.

Account Of Who Your Target Audience Is

Our Target audience is mainly teenagers from sixteen to early twenties. We do not direct our film to any specific social class because we do not have any characters from any specific social class because all our characters are meant to be on the verge of death. Following the stereotype of men prefering the thriller genre, our thriller is mainly aimed at men because it has lots of blood and has lots of action. Our thriller is aimed at people who want to shock, scraed and hang at the hedge of their seat with the hairs on the back of there necks standing up.

Storyboards

Research

The Grudge is the 2004 American remake of the Japanese film Ju-on: The Grudge, and the first horror film in the Ju-on series, Ju-on 1. The film is the first installment in the American horror film series The Grudge. The film was released in North America on October 22, 2004 by Columbia Pictures, and is directed by Takashi Shimizu (director of the original series)while Stephen Susco scripted the remake. In the same tradition as the original series, the plot of the film is told through a non-linear sequence of events and includes several intersecting subplots.
The film has spawned two sequels: The Grudge 2 (which was released on October 13, 2006)and The Grudge 3 (which was released on May 12, 2009).

Account Of The Research Sources

Saw is a 2004 horror film directed by James Wan and starring Cary Elwes, Leigh Whannell, and Danny Glover. The plot of the film was conceived of by James Wan, while Whannell wrote the screenplay. It is the first installment of the Saw film series. The film's story revolves around two men who awaken kidnapped and chained in a dilapidated industrial bathroom. They are given instructions via a microcassette recorder on how to escape by following the "rules" of their "game". Meanwhile, police detectives investigate and attempt to apprehend the criminal responsible - "Jigsaw".
Adam (Leigh Whannell), a photographer, and Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), a doctor, awaken at opposite ends of a grimy, disused bathroom, Adam in a water-filled bathtub. Both men are chained at the ankle to the pipes. Between them lies a corpse holding a revolver and a microcassette recorder. Adam and Lawrence discover tapes in their pockets; the men learn from both tapes that Adam must escape the bathroom, while Lawrence must kill Adam before six o'clock, or he'll lose his wife and daughter and be left to die. They find a bag containing two hacksaws, though neither is able to cut through the chains. Adam breaks his and throws it at a mirror in frustration; Lawrence realizes that they are meant to be used on their feet.
Lawrence tells Adam that their captor is the Jigsaw Killer, whose name is a misnomer; he never directly kills anyone, instead putting victims in situations where they must go through physical and/or psychological torture to survive and escape with better appreciation of life. Flashbacks show that while Lawrence was talking with some students and an orderly named Zep Hindle (Michael Emerson) about the terminal brain cancer of a man named John Kramer (Tobin Bell), he was approached by Detectives David Tapp (Danny Glover) and Steven Sing (Ken Leung) about his penlight being found at the scene of a Jigsaw "game." He viewed the testimony of Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), a heroin addict, who is the only known survivor of Jigsaw's games; she risked having her jaws ripped open during her game by a "reverse bear trap" and believes that her experience made her a better person.
Meanwhile, Lawrence's wife and daughter, Alison (Monica Potter) and Diana (Makenzie Vega), are being held captive in their home by a man who is watching Adam and Lawrence through a camera behind the bathroom's mirror, while tormenting Alison and Diana. Their house is simultaneously being watched by Tapp, who was discharged from the force. Flashbacks show that he became obsessed with the Jigsaw case after viewing Amanda's testimony, and that he and Sing illegally entered a warehouse they knew to be Jigsaw's lair and saved a man from being killed by drills aimed at his neck. Jigsaw managed to make a run for it after slashing Tapp's throat, and Sing was killed by a shotgun booby trap while pursuing him. After being discharged, Tapp began stalking Lawrence.
In the bathroom, Lawrence finds a mobile phone that can only receive calls and a cigarette and lighter; he and Adam use the latter two to try and stage Adam's death, but an electric shock through Adam's ankle chain foils this plan. Following these events, Adam and Lawrence recall their abductions; they were both ambushed and knocked unconscious by a stranger wearing a gruesome pig mask. Lawrence receives a call from Alison, who warns him that Adam knows more than he is telling. Adam explains that he was paid to take pictures of Lawrence for the past few days by Tapp, and shows Lawrence a pile of pictures of him from the bag containing the hacksaws. Lawrence berates Adam for invading his privacy, while Adam shows Lawrence evidence that he was cheating on Alison. Adam then notices a picture of a man in Lawrence's house; Lawrence identifies the man as Zep the orderly, and the two deduce that Zep is their abductor. Adam then points out that it is six o'clock, the deadline. Zep moves to kill Alison, but she frees herself and manages to overpower Zep, gaining Tapp's attention in the process. He arrives in time to save Alison and Diana from Zep, allowing them to escape, and chases Zep to the sewers.
Lawrence, who is only aware of gunshots and screaming, is zapped by the ankle chain as well and loses reach of the phone; in desperation, he saws off his foot and shoots Adam with the revolver. Zep, who shot Tapp during the chase, enters the bathroom intent on killing Lawrence, only to be blindsided by Adam and beaten to death with a toilet tank cover; Adam had only suffered a shoulder wound. As Lawrence crawls away with the promise that he'll return with help, Adam searches Zep's body for a key and finds another microcassette recorder. He learns that Zep was another victim of the game, following rules to obtain an antidote for the slow poison within his body. The corpse rises to its feet and reveals itself as John Kramer, the real Jigsaw Killer. He tells Adam that the chain's key is in the bathtub, which was drained when Adam accidentally kicked the plug out. Adam then grabs Zep's pistol and tries to shoot Jigsaw and is zapped by his hidden remote control. Jigsaw then turns off the lights and leaves the bathroom, sealing Adam inside.

Account Of First Production Group Meeting

In our first production group meeting we were finalising Tom's idea and were trying to figure out how some of the ideas would work. For example he had the idea that all the victims lips were sealed together with pins or staples wich would of been highly diffucult to pull off so we came up with the idea that they would all have tape on there mouths. The plot of the thriller is outlined in the treatment. In our first meeting we also appointed everyone their roles and what they have to do, i was assistant director and producer, Tom was director, JJ head of photography and Alex as editor. I was also in cgarge of appointing everyone with their roles.

Account Of Giving Presentations For Possible Thriller Ideas

My idea for a thriller was based on a, apparently, true story. It would be set in a house, the characters would be two middle aged adluts to play the roles of a mother and a father and a female teenager aged around 16-18 to play the role of the nanny, a babby and a middle aged male to play the role of the killer.
The parents would be standing by the door explaining to the nanny what time the baby has to go to bed and they would explain how the baby monitors work how there is one in the baby's room and one in the living room so the nanny could hear if the baby woke up and started crying. After the parents had left the nanny puts the baby in the bedroom to go to sleep. after a few minutes the baby would start crying making the nanny leave the living room and go a check on the baby the second she arrived it stoped crying this goes on for about 3 times untill the nanny decides to call the parents explaining what is going on. She tells the mother she thinks the baby is crying because she is scared of the human sized clown toy on the rocking chair amongts all the other toys. In absolute horror the mother screams saying there was no clown toy and orders the nanny to get the baby out of the room. The nanny then has to go in the room pretending like nothing was wrong and the last shot would a mid shot on the nanny holding the baby facing the camera her back at the clown and the clown standing up and smiling.
My target audience would be teenagers from the ages of 15 to 21. this would include all the horror and thriller film lovers. It would be mainstream because my thriller has very stereotypical characters such as the female nanny.