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.