Similar Products: Films

Similar Products: Films

In order to understand the codes and conventions of the thriller genre I researched certain films that may not be thrillers but share narrative or characteristics similarities to our media text. From our group, these were what we found:

Shutter Island is a mystery thriller that was made by the big six studio, Paramount in February 2010. The film was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Laeta Kalogridis based on the book written by Dennis Lehane. Shutter Island stars Leonardo Dicaprio, Emily Mortimer, Mark Ruffalo and Ben Kinsly. Scorsese had a budget of $80,000,000 and grossed an estimated $127,968,405 in under 4 months.
The film is primarily about a man who refuses to admit to the crimes of his past and becomes mentally disturbed by the events he carried out and by the people who try to bring him to accepting his past life.

Salt is an action/crime film that was produced by a subsidiary company of another big six

studio, Columbia Pictures. This Phillip Noyce film was released on the 23rd of July in 2010 starring Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Daniel Obrychski. The film had an estimated budget of $110,000,000 and grossed $118,311,368. The film is about a CIA agent who grew up as a Russian Spy. She turns against both the law and the ghost leaders of her childhood and creates chaos in order to protect the world. She is an extremely strong character and subverts stereotypes against gender saying that men are stringer than women. She is put into extremely harsh conditions both running from and confronting danger. 

‘Hanna’ is an action thriller film made by a small production company called Focus Feathers. This Joe Wright film was released on the 8th of April 2011. The film stars Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Vicky Kreips and Cate Blanchett. The film had a budget of $30,000,000 and grossed $40,247,512.

The film is about a young girl with extraordinary strength and stamina who is sent into the world by the father and trainer who was an ex-CIA agent. She tackled extreme obstacles and defeats anyone who crosses her path in an attempt to stop her.

Girl, Interrupted is a biographical drama produced by Columbia Pictures in December 1999. This James Mangold film was written by James Magold, Lisa Loomer and Anna Hamilton Phelan based off the book written by Susanna Kaysen. The film stars Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea DuVall and Brittany Murphy. It had a budget of $40,000,000 and grossed and estimated $28,871,190.

The film is about the life of a woman who was briefly placed in a mental institution. We see how the lives of many of the other women were corrupted by the asylum and how for a few of the residence, it;s a living hell. Their determination to get out are unparalleled but are they actually ready to leave?

Similar Products: Video Games

Similar Products: Video Games

There are two video games that I feel are similar to our thriller. These are Lara Croft: Rise of the Tomb Raider and The Last of Us extend addition: Left Behind.

Lara Croft: Rise of the Tomb Raider

The game was written by Rhianna Pratchett and developed by Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montréal. It was initially released only on Xbox One and Xbox 360 in 2015 and later released on PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows.

Lara is a strong, young independent explorer who both runs and confronts the danger of the legends that her father left unresolved. On her journey to preserve the legends' secrets she faces many obstacles but like our main character, doesn't let these stop her. 

The Last of Us: Left Behind

The Last of Us Left Behind is the expansion pack of the series 'The Last of Us' developed by Naughty Dog and eventually released on PS3 and 4 in 2014.

The game is about a girl who ventures alone desperately trying to help her friend Joel who was badly injured in an attack. She's young but strong and determined. She must fight her way through the infect to get back to her friend safely to try and save him.

Similar Products: Music Videos

Similar Products: Music Videos

When looking for similar media products we didn't think that we'd be able to find one that links to mental illness or that links to our protagonist however, Harry stumbled upon this music video for a song called Fire Away by Chris Stapleton.




The music video follows the life of a man who's partner suffers with a mental illness. It starts off quite nicely showing happy memories of their relationships but every now and then showing signs of her mental deterioration. As the video continues, you see her disintegrating and becoming more and more corrupt. This links to our thriller because we imagine that if we were to carry our thriller on and make a film, we would structure it in a fairly similar way, showing how she becomes more and more ill eventually reaching the extremes.

Similar Products: Books

Similar Products: Books

The only book that I found distinct similarities with was Girl, Interrupted which I also used as an example of a similar film because the book was taken from page to screen in 1999. The novel was written by Susanna Kaysen in 1993 and became best seller. The book presents the experience that a mentally delicate character endures when she is placed for a short while in a mental institute. The other women in the asylum alone cause her to change and almost get worse mentally despite what she may think. I think this is a really good example to look at to help develop our narrative and develop our protagonist as the things that are experienced in the institute in the book could easily be experiences our protagonist experienced before escaping.

Location: Research

Location: Research

Our first choice in terms of what location we use would be in a car park, preferably the top floor. Organsing and booking an entire floor of a car park is hard on it's own but we also have to make sure that the car park we go for has everything we need. 

As there will be two other groups filming in a car park we have to agree that we are all happy with the chosen location because we will all have to film there. We would likely have to book out more than on floor of the car park to not only cater for all three groups  but also because there would be the potential issue of having the sound of other cars and people in the car park interrupting our shoot. 

We know that what ever car park we decide it will have to be in Guildford because that the closets city that not only offers us a variety of possible locations. We could look at possible car parks in towns like Cranleigh however, unlike the other two groups filming on the day, we will use the cityscape to establish our location and also help with our narrative, so somewhere like Cranleigh is simply too small. 

We will also have to consider the practicality of the car park in that we will be transported to Guildford in one of the mini buses that will probably be too tall to fit in any car park so we'd have to find a suitable location nearby. 

Bedford Road Surface and Bedford Road Car Park:

Bedford Road Surface car park wouldn't be suitable because it's simply an open car park with no levels. However Bedford Road Car Park has a few levels however, it wouldn't fit the mini bus and there are very few nearby places where we could park it instead. The car park doesn't have a huge amount of levels so it would be hard for us to all shoot at the same time on various levels.

Castle Car Park:

Has the capacity to fit a mini bus and isn't too hard to get to. However it's in quite an isolated part of Guildord so any shots of the cityscape won't be as grand as we'd like. There also isn't an open top level, the top level of the building belongs to a different company.





York Road Car Park:


Has a reasonable amount of levels and is very spacious so we could easily all film on one level. However, we want to achieve quite an isolating and trapped atmosphere and a car park that's as large and open as this wouldn't have the same effect.





Farnham Road Car Park:

Although this car park is very grand and we would likely be able to book more than one location within it so that we can all film, we wouldn't be able to capture the cityscape particularly well because there is no open top level. We could of course film on a roofed level but we would really like to have an open level because it would present the girl's desperation much better and would help not only comply with the connotations of a thriller but also help establish tension.



Leapale Road Car Park:

The top two levels are open with very easy access to one level just underneath that is also partly open offering us with three good options. It is in a fairly busy part of Guildford so the cityscape would be quite grand. The colours in the car park are quite cold which would suit our thriller. There is a small surface car park just opposite so it would be easy to park the mini bus. 

Leapale Road Car Park seems to be the best option and the teachers are confident that we'll be able to book it and because the 10th, 11th and 12th floor are all in some way conjoined we'll easily be able to film all three thrillers at the same time. 

Props: What We Need

Props: What We Need

We need:

- 4 guns                                          - Media Department
      - 1 12 guage SG
      - 3 MP5's
- Fake blood                                   - Amazon 
- Fuzz light                                     - Mike

Costume: Research

Costume: Research

For the boy, the only makeup we'll need is some very pale powder to make him look like he's loosing blood and dying and some fake blood. Our intention is to have about two to three stab wounds from when the girl attacked him. We'll need a reasonably large quantity to pour over his t-shirt to depict the blood loss. As well as that we may well need it to spill slightly on the floor under the corpse. I've researched various different types of fake blood, here were some of the results:

Although all of these seem suitable, I think the second option would be best because, according to several reviews, it has quite a thick consistency meaning that it'll spread easily over the corpse's body and clothes and has a syrup base so, if we do spill some on the floor just by the wounds, it wouldn't spread too far helping us keep the continuity. If we decided to put any by her mouth, the mint flavour would make it more convenient for the actress.

In terms of the police uniforms, we know that our police officers will be armed so it's only fitting that they have the correct uniform and protection. For this I researched several bullet proof vests. This is what I found:

 1)

2)

3)

If we had a large budget for our film, we would probably buy number 1 or 3 because they look the most formal. I would choose option 1 over option 3 because although option 3 looks formal and would offered everything we would want, it looks almost too extreme for our thriller. In a realistic world we would have to go with option 2 due to financial concerns but by adding a police badge or label, it would do everything we would need.

Costume: What We Want

Costume: What We Want

The Girl: Simple black leggings or tracksuit bottom, with a black t-shirt and jumper. Shoes
              should be dirty. Maybe an oversized jacket. Overall, the colours should be
              neutral i.e black, grey and white. All should be somewhat dirty and clearly worn
              out. The aim is to make her look as simple as possible to denote that she's
              escaped from an imprisoned area and has found and stolen simple clothes. The
              black contrasted with the lighter colours should connote both the dangerous and
              feeble innocent side of the girl.
              In terms of makeup, our cast is predominantly male so we won't need any makeup
              apart for Molly which will be very natural. We'll use some concealer to even out her
              skin tone, some mascara to define her eyes better and some eye liner on the top
              water line of her eye to give it further definition.

The Corpse: Similar to the girls costume due to the assumption that they would have
                     found and/or stolen the clothes together. We were debating a a white t-shirt
                     for him because it would show the blood from where her weapon had
                     impaled her. 

The Police: Although they're not standard issue officers, their uniform would be allowing
                   the audience to instantly understand who they are and their general
                   intentions in the scene.

The Detective: Wearing black shirts and suit trousers with a grey tie, a dark grey to black
                        scarf and a long leather trench coat.

Change in Narrative

Change in Narrative

As we've been planning our thriller something that I realised we'd never really touched on was my Molly's victim is dead before the police get there and why her victim was female. We came to the conclusion that she was female because it would make more sense seeing as we originally claimed that they'd escaped the asylum together and it would make more sense if they were both female because they would be in the same ward. However, by making him male, it would create a really interesting contrast because we would then be subverting gender stereotypes making it far more unpredictable which would entice the audience more. 

When discussing why we assumed her victim would be dead we couldn't find a substantial reason but when discussing the pros if they he was still alive but simply close to death, the list was endless. One of the main intentions you have to have when making a thriller is how to create tension and build suspense. By having our victim on the cusp of death we would be creating a far great sense of suspense and it would give the detective and police officers a much greater need to gain control over the situation to help him. 

So we officially changed the gender of the victim and we altered our narrative so that he's now dying rather than already dead. 

Cast: List Of Characters Draft 1

Cast: List Of Characters Draft 1

Character Breakdowns:

The Girl:  A young woman to who had escaped from an asylum. Extreme paranoia and
               mistrust riddle her mind hence her first imprisonment in the asylum and her
               actions towards her fellow escapee. 

The corpse: Also an asylum escapee. Weaker than the girl both mentally and physically.
                  The only reason why he's there with her is because he's easily manipulated
                  and frankly quite scared.

The Policemen
and Detective: Not standard issue policemen due to the weaponry they
                       possess. This would help identify to the audience that the girl is no
                       ordinary killer but truly dangerous. 

Location: First Ideas

Location: First Ideas

Our initial ideas for the location, as seen in our test shoots, was the view point in front of the main house of our school. However, when we started making changes to our narrative we knew that we'd have to change our location. It would have to be high up and fairly secluded and the only place to that on school grounds whilst still complying with health and safety regulations, the rooftop of the Pavilion, a building just by a large field, would be our best option.

We agreed that the Pavilion would create more suspense, increasing our adherence to the thriller genre connotations and have the view point as a backup.

Cast: Backups

Cast: Backups

Girl: Molly la Fosse

Molly would also approach the role well and would be easy to work with however, she may look slightly younger than what we planned in our pitch that's why she's not our first choice but we know agreed that we'd be happy to use her if Sophie's unavailable. 

Police:   Mike        (maths teacher)
             John        (theatre teacher)
             Lee         (theatre teacher)
             Steven     (theatre teacher)
             Nicki       (english teacher)



When it came to thinking about back ups for the Policemen it was hard because the number of staff who'd be able to take nearly all day off for the filming is limited but we thought of some other teachers who do also satisfy the requirements of the characters. As you can see one of the members of staff who we have named is female. Nicki is an english teacher but is also very theatrical and would be a valuable asset to the cast but our initial plan was to have just male police officers to satisfy the stereotype that men are the ones to handle the dangerous work. When I suggested Nicki to the rest of my group, they were hesitant but when I explained that I knew she'd be good and that we may not have any other options, they were quite happy to include females within the authoritative roles.

Detective: Nicki  (english teacher)

When it came to thinking of a back up for Mike, we struggled because we're so limited. Of course theres was always the option of hiring actors from outside of school but that also presents problems in case they cancel. We agreed that Nicki could also be the back up for this role. We chose her rather than any of the other back ups above because we thought that if we have a detective, they're already going to be wearing different costume, it wouldn't hurt to exploit that difference further and have them played as a female. 

Cast: Who we want

Cast: Who we want

The girl:  Sophie Jackson

We picked Sophie because we know that not only is she a good actress and would approach the role well but also because she looks the right age and would comply well with our narrative.                

Policemen: Phil     (media teacher)
                 Adam  (media teacher)
                 Chris   (theatre teacher


We knew that we wouldn't be able to use students for these roles because they would look far to young. In the industry, they almost always use people far older than the character to play the characters because its more practical financially and in terms of hours. Because of this, it's become the norm to see actors older than the characters in nearly all media text. This is why we simply wouldn't get away with using students. So we knew the easiest option would be to use teachers. However, the problem presented with this was that our shoot would be on location and would likely take most of the day and it would be hard to get 6 teachers out all day. We decided to try and narrow this down and be think more practically as to how many teachers we'd realistically be able to get out of school. Phil and Adam are also media teachers and as they've been used in previous thrillers, it's likely that they'll be available. Chris is more of a gamble in terms of his availability but if he can we  would definitely want to use him. 


Detective: Mike Niland

Initially we wanted Mike to be one of our Policemen but when discussing the characters we realised that it may not be suitable to have him playing a policeman because he has rather long hair which simply wouldn't comply with stereotypical policemen. He suggested that he may play a detective, giving us more variety within the cast as well as then being able to have a larger cast, getting us closer to our original aim of having 6 officers.

Cast: Confirmation

Cast: Confirmation

Cast: First Ideas

Cast: First Ideas

Possible actresses for:

The girl:

- Sophie Jackson

- Molly La Fosse

- Flora Macangus

- Jenny Lewis

- Cecily Thomas

- Mia McCallum

- Elise Bugeja

- Emily Burn

Policemen:

- Mike Niland

- Dave Fonseca

- Phil

- Chris

- Adam

Corpse:

Andrew Jensen

Aidan Murphy

Mood Board

Mood Board

This is the first mood board that I created based off of our opening. This collage of photos represents the asylum and the mentally unstable nature of our main character trying to disorientate the viewer all in one still image. It will be interesting to compare mood boards with the rest of my group to see how each of us approached the task and also see what elements of our thriller each of us have explored.

Storyboard: Final Work

Storyboard: Final Work

Here is a video compiling all the drawing for our final storyboard.

Storyboard: Process

Storyboard: Process

Creating a storyboard can be quite a hard and stressful process when trying to do it as a group. It's always best to organise the work into sections, dividing the work load between us. Our first idea was to split the narrative up into three sections so we all did some of the drawing and writing. However, neither Hale Hoe or I felt confident in the drawing so we found other ways to divid the work. Harry was happy to take on the job or illustrating our storyboard whilst Hale Hoe and I did the writing and annotations of the narrative so that when on set, we understand what the drawing represent. Whenever Harry finished a page of drawings, Hale Hoe and/or I would annotate it.

I also made lots of notes on other aspects of the written work, this included props, cats, costume and location. The notes that I made summarised each conversation about the said topics that we had, allowing Harry to be able to continue with the storyboard whilst still being able to keep up with the groups written work.

Storyboard: What is it?

Storyboard: What is it?

Storyboarding can seem like an unnecessary extra step when creating a film but is actually one of the most useful tools when it comes to the production of your film.

One of the reasons why it's so useful is because its the bets way to share your vision. A storyboard is a visual mock up of you film that allows you to share your ideas with others without any misunderstanding so the idea is clear and visually exciting. When you have a storyboard, you can

show people exactly how your video is going to look like. This makes it much easier for other people to understand you idea correctly.

Also, when you storyboard a film, you're essentially setting up a plan for production and post-production because your storyboard includes all the shots you'll need, the order that it'll be laid out in and how the visuals will interact with the script or general plot so you know exactly what you'll need to film on the shoot avoiding any chance of forgetting shots and how you'll piece it together according to your vision.

Storyboard: Shot List

Storyboard: Shot List

It is important to have a storyboard as a visual representation and organisation of our thriller and the shots we will take but a shot list is just as valuable. The shot list includes all the shots that are needed in an order that allows us to get the most amount of work done in the shortest amount of time. It wouldn't make sense to film a long shot of the police's entrance, break all the equipment down and move to a close up of the girl because that's far too time consuming. So, the shot list would not only state types of shots needed but also the order that they'd be filmed in mist efficiently. The shot list was a collaborative project within our group, Harry, Hale Ho and I all pitched in.



- Number of Shot
- Location
- Shot Type
- Camera Movement
- Shot Description (subject, action, lighting, etc.)

Shot 1
Carpark
Mid-Shot
Handheld
Woman starring into the distance surrounded by cityscape

Shot 2
Carpark
Close-Up
Handheld
Profile of woman’s face, she is panicking and looking down

Shot 3
Carpark
Extreme long-shot
Drone
Above woman, reveals a dead body

Shot4
Carpark
Extreme long-shot
Drone
See woman facing forwards still in panic

Shot 5
Carpark
Establishing Shot
Static
Fuzz light, and police siren

Shot 6
Carpark
Close Up
Static
Police running up stairs

Shot 7
Carpark
Long Shot
Tracking
Move towards the door, go to the left

Shot 8
Carpark
Close Up
Handheld
Police Officer Kicks door

Shot 9
Carpark
Close Up
Static
Woman turns her head to look at police

Shot 10
Carpark
Long shot
Tracking
camera walks through the door towards the woman pans left toward the standoff between police and the woman

Shot 11
Carpark
Longshot
Handheld
Police aim at woman and woman aims back 

Shot 12
Carpark
Close up
Handheld
man in shock, looks towards the dead body

Shot13
Carpark
Eye-line match, close up
Static
Foot of dead body in foreground, girl and police officer in background

Shot 14
Carpark
Close Up, straight on 
Handheld
Girl aiming gun at police officer panicked

Shot 15
Carpark
Midshot, profile
Static
Police officer, aimed, reassuring girl she is going to be ok

Shot16
Carpark
longshot
tracking
Camera travels between the police officers and girl

Shot 17
Carpark
Close up
Handheld
Girls gun, shaky hand

Shot 18
Carpark
Close up
tracking
getting closer to police mans gun

Shot 19
Carpark
Close up
Handheld
Girls face, crying, nervous

Shot 20
Carpark
Over the shoulder
Static 
Policeman reassuring the girl she is going to be ok

Shot 21
Carpark
Profile, Close-up
Static
Girl begins to calm

Shot 22
Carpark
Long shot
Static
Girl’s face in bottom corner, calmed

Shot 23
Carpark
extreme close up
static
carries on into next shot

Shot 24
Carpark
extreme close up
Static
Girl closes her eyes

Shot 25
Carpark
Close up
Static
Girl lower her gun (close up of the gun)

Shot 26
Carpark
Close up
Static
Girl Puts gun on the floor

Shot 27
Carpark
Close up, profile
Static
Girl accepts her fate, she is enlightened

Shot 28
Carpark
Midshot
Static
Puts her hands behind her head

Shot 29
Carpark
Longshot
Static
Police in the foreground, she has her hands behind her head

Shot 30
Carpark
Extreme long shot
Drone
Like police helicopter shot of her