Test Footage

As a group we went to our location and took some test shots so we were prepared for our three filming days.

We decided that to save time and keep on project that we would test the shots that we were not sure would actually work when actually filming.
I has two shots that i wanted to test, these were the close up phone call shot with the antagonist and Charlie, and the tracking shot of Charlies feet running. 
I felt that i needed to test these out as I have never used a dolly before and felt that I needed to practice and see whether it is effective. I was also worried about the close up as i felt that it may be difficult for me to capture the scariness of the antagonist and capture the fright of Charlie.

Looking back at the process I believe that we came up with a very effective way to combat the problem with how bumpy and uneven the floor was. We decided to place one of the wooden boards on the ground and that created a smooth surface for us to use. I then experimented with the dolly:

After playing around with the dolly I felt that I was comfortable with my handling of it and that I was happy to keep it in my scene.

I also tested the close up shot. I found that it was surprisingly easy to capture facial expressions and that I was actually worrying over nothing. However I realised that although the angle in which I was filming here was effective as it made Winn seem more powerful, I felt that I would prefer to have it be a straight on shot because I feel it would come across as more menacing. 

I also decided that I wanted to see how a worms eye view would make the character look. After filming I came to the decision that it made the character look too powerful and dominant when I want them to look vulnerable and scared, to achieve this I decided that I would film it from a birds eyes view to make them look small and vulnerable. 

Kirsty also wanted to test one her her shots. This was the one where there is a help face shot of the character and a shadow falls over their face. We wanted to see how we would go about creating the shadow. We experimented with different types of shadows for this.


Personally I experimented with different density of of shadows to see what ones I felt were most effective. 

I felt that the denser the shadow the more of a creepy effect it gave and decided that I wanted to incorporate it at some point in our final piece. 



Over all I feel that the test footage day helped us realise what worked and what didn't making our overall opening more professional   and effective. 

Film Title Decision

https://www.goconqr.com/en-GB/p/8068905

Film Titles Ideas

https://www.goconqr.com/en-GB/p/8068905

Location Scouting - Engine Room

Location Scouting - Abandoned WW2 Control Room

Location Scouting - Castle Farm

Castle Farm is a farm that is owned one of my family friends, so we have permission to film in the main barn and all the other subsequent storage areas and sheds. 

The barn that we are planning on filming in is very large and old looking both on the outside and inside, with ivy and moss growing all over it giving it a run down and decrepit look to it. 

The inside is very similar, with lots of old furniture, doors, planks of wood, lawn mowers and ladders (these make it seem like the perfect place one would play hide and seek in adding to the realism of our piece).

Looking at the farm on a whole i believe that this location would be prefect for the setting of our opening not only because it we have permission for it, but also because I feel that on the whole the look of the barn and farm is exactly what the group was looking for and that the atmosphere of the area is very chilling and neglected which adds to the overall spine-chilling feeling that we want to capture. 

Location Scouting - Torrells Hall Farm

Torrells Hall Farm is a farm that is a two minute walk away from where I live - making it a very practical place for us to film. In addition it is in a very isolated location which is perfect for a thriller. 

However after looking around the location we felt that it was not what we ideally wanted as it did not look that abandoned and run down, more-over it did not give a creepy vibe at all. I also believe that we would not have got permission to film there as it is a functioning farm and is still active. 

As a group we decided that Torrells Hall Farm was not ideal for our location and decided to keep looking. 

Costume Ideas Mood-board - Tyler (Mood-board 2)

During our test footage we realised that the costume for Tyler was not effective as it was generally very dark and it was difficult to see the characters. So we changed the costume to a larger variety of colours. 

Costume Mood-board - Antagonist

Costume Mood-board - Tyler

Costume Mood-board - Charlie

Selections for Actors

Audition - Tyler Munson (Second Audition)

Tyler

I was very happy with Tyler's original audition, however we wanted to have a closer look at her acting skills.

Although Harry Jones(the person she auditioned with) was able to distract her, she was able to make him feel more comfortable about his acting and bring out a better overall audition. 

In this audition i did not like the fact that she was sitting down and not using body language to her best abilities, however from her previous audition i know that she is skilled in this. 

Her performance is outstanding and i was very happy with the idea of working with her.

We decided to cast her.

Auditions - Harry Taylor and Lydia Terry

Lydia 

I felt that Lydia was very confident, expressive and was able to very quickly get into the mindset of the character we had created. 

Unfortunately Lydia had other commitments and subsequently couldn't make our filming our filming dates. 

We decided that we would not cast Lydia.

Harry

Harry was professional, expressive and was happy to be a part of our piece. 

However after looking at the filming dates we found that the dates he was filming for another group clashed with our dates.

As a result of this we decided not to cast him. 

Auditions - Tyler Munson

Tyler

I felt that Tyler's audition was one of the strongest out of everyone that was auditioned. She is hugely expressive and and i felt she was very excited about being a part of it. She was also available for all of our dates as she had no other commitments.

The only thing I can fault about Tyler's performance is that they were very short. 

After taking all of this into account we decided that Tyler is perfect for the role of Charlie and we are very interesting in casting her. 

Auditions - Cydney Purcell

Cydney

Cydney is very charismatic and natural actor, she was excited about being a part of our opening and we felt that as a result of this she would be prefect for the character of Tyler. 
However she was very giggly and unable to stay serious for a long amount of time resulting is having to do a lot of take for only one little scene. In addition she was unable to do many of the dates that we had set out. 
After taking all of these aspects into account we decided not to cast her in out two minute film opening. 

Auditions - Luke Adams

Luke Adams

Luke was very enthusiastic and confident in his acting skills resulting in that coming out in his acting. He also easily made the character his own.

However i felt that Luke was not suited to the character that he had originally auditioned for. In addition we feel that he would be prefect for our antagonist character.

We decided to cast him.

Auditions - Charlotte Barclay and Sophie Painter

Sophie

Sophie was very professional, pronounced very well and given that we had only just given her the script she was able to very quickly get into character and make it her own.

Unfortunately she could not make our filming dates.

We decided not to cast her.

Charlotte

Charlotte was also very confident and comfortable acting in front of a camera. She was also very professional as it took one shot to get the audition done.

However she could not make our filming dates, in additions she didn't really want the part.

So we couldnt cast her.

Auditions - Lauren Ramsden

Lauren

Lauren read clearly and stayed to the script.

However she did not make that character her own and she wanted to be able to focus on the behind the scenes work. 

We took this into account and did not cast Lauren.

Auditions - Samantha Le Roux

Samantha

Sam kept to the script and tried her hardest.
However she was not very confident when acting in front of a camera, she also kept laughing and coming out of character.
We decided not to cast Sam.

Auditions - Sarah Scott

Sarah

Sarah had extremely good pronunciation of her words which I really liked.

However she was not good at getting into the role and was not committed to the role enough. 

As a result of these elements we decided not to cast her.

Auditions - Sam Mullins and Daniel Dean

Sam

Sam was very confident and happy to act in front of the camera, he was very expressive and worked very well with Dan.
However he didn't take the audition very seriously as he stated that he only auditioned for fun, in addition he could not make our audition dates. 
This caused in him not being cast. 

Dan

Dan's audition was very enjoyable as he was very over dramatic and took on his role very well.
However, similar to Sam, he only wanted to audition for fun and couldn't make our dates.
We decided not to cast him.

Focus Group - Pre-production

What we took from our focus group:

 - The group all felt that individually all of our plots had very good aspects to them, however they all felt that if we took those elements and created a new idea it would make it very effective.

 - They felt that all the logos and production company names were at a high standard (although a few felt they were rather boring and stereotypical), however they felt that 'Conundrum Co' stood out due to the alliteration of the C's and also that the word conundrum related to the thriller genre. They felt that my logo for Insidious productions was very effective as it gives a contrast and the colours are what you would associate with the thriller genre (dark).

 - They all had a mixture of preferred sub-genres however they all felt that for our opening the sub-genre Psychological thriller would be the best option for our opening.

 - The expected to see low-key lighting, jump scared, complex narratives, quick shots and fast pace.

 - The felt our Location needed to be isolated, abandoned and rural to make it feel more like there is no one who can help the characters.

 - They had a few ideas for our location such as abandoned warehouses and abandoned farm houses. 

 - The felt that Sam and Sarah did not take the auditions seriously and advised not to cast them, however they felt that Yoli, Tyler and Cydney stood out and that we should consider them. 

Questionnaire Results

I gave the target audience questionnaire to 15 people in our target audience and I got back a series of interesting results that have helped me through out the pre-production and production stage.

The first question was "What three words would you use to describe the thriller genre?". This got back a variety good good answers such as intense, fast-paces, complex, tense, underrated, mentally-stimulating, suspenseful, interesting and scary. These were very interesting and useful as it gave me an idea about what people are looking for in a thriller. 

The second question was "What is you favourite thriller film?" this got a a mixture of answers;

These answers allowed me to see what people like and gives me an idea about what people will want from our thriller film.

The third question was "Do you prefer a tense opening sequence or an opening sequence with more backstory? (Tense        Backstory)" 10 of the group said 'tense', 4 of the group said 'Backstory', and 1 of the people said that it should 

be 'a mixture of both'. 

The Forth question was "What makes you want to watch certain films?

•   Celebrities

•   Popularity of film

•   Film trailer

•   Poster

•   Other________________"

 

The 'Other' included 'The story' and 'The movie topic'. 

The Fifth question is "What thriller sub-genre appeals to you the most?

• Supernatural Thriller
• Crime Thriller
• Mystery Thriller
• Psychological Thriller
• Action Thriller
• Romantic Thriller
• Other___________"

Here I can see that Psychological thriller is the most preferred sub-genre of thriller.

The sixth question was "What do you find builds up suspense in Thriller films (Circle all that apply)?

•   Music

•   Lighting

•   Costume

•   Setting

•   Sound Effects

•   Dialogue

•   Other ________________" 

As shows above 'Dialogue' builds more suspense and that one person who said other was 'Silence'.

The seventh question was "What don't you enjoy from Thriller films (Circle all that apply)?

•   Story line

•   Jump scares

•   Crime scenes

•   Characters

•   Complex ideas

•   Other _________________" 

As shown above the thing that people hated the most was 'jump scares' and the one person who said other stated that 'lack of disobedience' was the least thing they enjoyed.

The Eighth Question was "What location are you more interested in when watching Thriller films?

•   House setting

•   City setting

•   Abandoned setting (forests,fields etc.)

•   Other __________________"

Here it is obvious that hardly anyone liked the idea of a house setting, but they did both like the ideas of a city location and an abandoned location. 

The ninth question was "What lighting would you prefer to watch?

•   Low key lighting

•   High key lighting

•   Lots of shadows and silhouettes

•   Other __________________"

This shows that the majority of people liked both the Low-key Lighting and Shadows and Silhouettes. 

The tenth and final question was "What do you think is the most important part of Thriller films?

•   Costume

•   Props

•   Lighting

•   Setting

•   Story line

•   Sounds

•   Other ________________"

Here we can see that more people felt that the story line was the most important element of a thriller. 

Overall the results I obtained from the target audience questionnaire had helped me understand what people want to see in a thriller and will help me when deciding what to create.