Cast: List of Characters Final

Cast: List of Characters Final

After deciding to change our characters here is another brief breakdown of our characters:

Character Breakdowns:

Molly: A young woman to who had escaped from an asylum. She suffers with mental health issues and extreme paranoia. She used the boy, Matt, to help her escape the asylum but when she no longer sees his value, the only solution in getting rid of him is killing him. She has the ability to penetrate the minds of others such as Mike by being extremely observational but also because she knows things about Mike that the audience are yet to find out. Throughout the sequence she tries to convince the officers that she's innocent and scared in an attempt to distract them to escape however when this doesn't work she attacks Mike far more personally revealing her antagonistic manners.


Matty: Also an asylum escapee. He's weaker than Molly both mentally and seemingly physically. He's extremely easy to manipulate due to his dependance on others that spurred from being thrown into an asylum. He doesn't want to die but cannot get passed the likes of Molly.

The Policemen: 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. For the most part they're quite cautions being very alert of any sudden actions Molly make tai win either escaping or harming Matty further. There are moments in some of the close ups that we got where it seems that they too are scared of her especially when they see Mike, the character who's meant to be in charge, fall vulnerable to her. 

The Detective: A seemingly mentally stable character who instantly asserts him authority and is portrayed as one of the protagonists. As an able character he contrasts to Molly's sudden outbursts by stay rather calm and collected trying to seem that his priority is to get Matty to safety when his true priority is to gain control of Molly because he suspects that she had leverage over him which he soon discovers she does. He subverts the stereotype that able people are stronger and more stable than disabled because he falls vulnerable to her.

Shoot Day Reflection

Shoot Day Reflection

The day began with everyone from the three production groups filming that day, meeting in the edit suit to gather all our costumes, actors and equipment and have a safety briefing with our teachers. The plan was to leave between 9 and 9:30 however one person from another production group didn't get in to school until quite late so we ended up not leaving until at 9:45 or 10. This meant that we were already behind on a rather tight schedule so we would have to be very quick setting up when we got the car park.

As our thriller involved the biggest cast, we couldn't start filming straight away because some of our actors were required in the other who thrillers being filmed meaning that we would have to wait until they were no longer being used to film the majority of our thriller. So, we had a lot of time at the beginning of the day to choose exactly where we wanted to film within the car park. We all travelled in one of the school mini buses with one of our teachers, whilst the other teachers all drove their cars in to be used in our thriller. The location we chose had a grande city scape with some up hill roads which, due to the weather were very misty and gave a some what creepy aura which we thought was suitable for our thriller. Instead of wasting the time waiting  we decided to start filming some shots of the landscape that we could use to open our thriller to establish the setting and also to place credits over. After shooting these we decided to try and film as much as we could with our main character Molly so that when eventually the rest of our cast became available we could move straight onto their shots. We took in turns standing where we planned to place Mike and reciting some lines for Molly to feed off so we could capture some of her dialogue. This will mean that we'll have to edit the audio quite precisely but we needed to make sure we made the most of our time. Matt,

one of the boys from the other group filming, was chosen to be the boy of which Molly tries to kill. Our teachers felt that he had lead a substantial amount of the filming for his thriller so he had the time to come and be in our thriller. We got him into costume and were about to start to cut a couple of holes in his jumper to make the stab wounds but our teacher told us to consider using the makeup artist that one of the pother groups had hired and do something more intricate like a cut on Matt's neck. I didn't particularly agree with this because I thought that the wound was quite small and I didn't feel that it created the sense of tension and the desperation that Mike and the other officers should have had to rescue him however, Harry and Hale both wanted to use the makeup artist so my opinion was outnumbered. The wound did look realistic but it didn't seep blood as we would have liked but it was still effected in complying to the connotations of a thriller. 

Whilst filming these shots with Matt and Molly, we realised that the way we were going to end our opening hadn't been completely finalised so we came up with another line that would make the narrative more interesting and well as presenting Molly as far more disturbed and perceptive than we'd planned. The new line was, 'we leaped and we landed into the fresh fallen snow'. The significance of this line is that it is her mentally piercing weapon against Detective Mike Niland and in this situation may well be used to escape from their custody. We though that if we continued our film, the true meaning of this line would be that it was from a line from a book that Niland's mother used to read to him, hence why he is quite moved by it and why it increases the tension and danger because the detective alongside the audience would have to figure out how she knew that would effect him in such a way.

At about 12:30, we left to go out for a quick lunch and to warm up from the terribly cold weather. After lunch, we didn't really have anything else to film other than the shots with

Mike and the other police officers, so we had to wait. However, due to weather, we huddled in the back seat of one of our teachers cars to keep warm. When all our actors finally became available, Harry and Hale went to the level in which we were filming and alongside some of the other teachers and organised their cars for the shots of the police blockade . We had to make sure it looked as busy as possible to show that Molly really had no escape as well as trying to prove the expanse of their efforts in order to portray the extent of Molly's crime. Meanwhile, I worked with our actors ensuring that they knew the dialogue, came to a conclusion as to which coat would best suit Mike's character and checked on Matt and Molly's costumes and makeup to ensure it was as similar as possible to how it looked before we broke for lunch to ensure that the continuity wouldn't be effected. Before beginning the shots with the police 

officers, we put a fuzz light on top of Mike's car to make it seem more authentic as well as assigning guns to the officers. We actually ended up having a larger cast than expected but we didm't have enough guns. However, Adam was already wearing a suit and a smart jacket from the other thriller that he was in, so we had him use his phone as his prop making him seem more like Mike's deputy rather than a police officer like the others.

When we finally started we began by filming simple static shots, gaining all the footage we needed but then we decided that we wanted to film some more unique shots. We removed the camera from the tripod and started filming some handheld shots of Molly and Mike reciting the dialogue as well as filming close ups of the officers. These shots created an unstable and tense atmosphere and actually fit the genre conventions of a thriller better than we expected. 

Overall, I felt that the shoot was successful as we retained more than enough footage to make an effective thriller eating everything planned done and more. Despite the 

extremely cold weather, our actors were exceptionally patient and worked as hard as they could to get everything we needed as quickly as possible. There was the issue that we notice in some of the close ups that we took of Matt because he was genuinely shaking due to the cold. As soon as we realised this, we wrapped him up in blankets to try and warm him up which meant that some time was lost but his safety had to be our priority. Although we never intended for anyone to become that cold, it actually seemed to play an advantage in Matt's performance because the shaking made him seem genuinely scared and helped increase the tension as it clarified how close to death he was. I left happy with the footage that we got and felt confident that our thriller will pan out to be quite successful. Now all that's left to do is edit our footage together which we're eager to begin.

Props: Why We Need Them

Props: Why We Need Them

For our thriller we will need need 4 police issue riffles for the police officers and one shot gun for the girl. These will help add to the identification of the character and their status within the scene for the audience. The reason why we are sung rifles rather than pistols is because our thriller is obviously set in London and typically, only American police departments use pistols. The girl will have a shot gun because it would be difficult for her to find any other bigger weapon.

Video Essay

Video Essay

When it comes to the pre-production process of our thriller, for the most part we have written posts outlining our ideas and discussions however we decided to make our post about the overall mise-en-scene that we'll be using in a video.

Cast: Last Minute Change

Cast: Last Minute Change

A few days before our shoot day, Sophie, the girl whom we'd asked to play the main girl, informed us that she could no longer partake in our thriller because of a controlled assessment that she had on the day. We were all quite shocked and stressed about this mainly because we didn't have too long reorganise however, we couldn't help Sophie's unavailability so it was an obstacle we had to overcome and fast.  

Whilst Harry and Hale were finishing the final organisation of costumes, the role of reorganising the actors fell onto me and over a few emails, conversations and chats on Facebook, I informed her on our shooting schedule, the narrative, her character and her costume. Fortunately Molly is also a media student so she understood what needed to be done which was helpful and because I also have theatre studies with her I already knew her acting capabilities so I wasn't worried about her participation in our thriller.

Shooting Schedule

Shooting Schedule

Our shooting schedule is slightly different to other groups because we aren't the only group filming in the car park on that day, there will be two other groups that we'll have to work around.

  8:50- We'll meet in the editing studio to gather all the equipment needed and the actors.

  9:00- Go to the car park and depart for Guilford.

  9:30- Arrive at the car park and begin set up. Prepare actors makeup and costume wise
           and rehearse for shooting. Dependent on how much time this takes, we may help
           groups who are filming that day.

12:00- Begin filming.

Shooting Day - 25/01/17

Shooting Day - 25/01/17

Today we found out that our shooting schedule for all the groups in our year had been finalised and that our shoot would take place on the 25th of January giving us just over two weeks to make our final arrangements. I feel confident that we'll be able to achieve everything we need to because we have a lot more time than anticipated. Due to the particular class that my group is in, we were under the impression that our shoot would be much sooner. It's quite a relief to know that we have a bit more time because I was slightly concerned that we wouldn't be able to acquire all the necessary costumes and props. 

However, we now have plenty of time our new priority is to discuss how as a group we will organise our day so that we make the most of our time. The reason why this has to be organised quite precisely before our shoot is because on the same day there are two other groups filming in the car park and due to the extremity of our set, we will have to go last meaning that depending on how their shoots go, we could b left with either a lot of time or barley anytime to film. We need to be ready for the worst so that we can still get all the footage we need on the day and more if possible.

Location: Potential Problems

Location: Potential Problems

The only obvious potential prelims with our thriller shoot would be with weather and our actors. As our filming date is in January, the possibility of rain or even snow are quite high which would cause us problems on set because our planned location is the top floor of a multi-storey car park. If it snows, it would be very hard to get to our organised location and a drone shoot wouldn't be possible so we would have to film at our back up location. If it rains, there would be the issue of getting camera equipment wet however, there's a simpler solution. As there is more than one production group filming that day, the second to highest floor is also booked. So, in the event of rain we would film on a different floor.

The potential problems with our actors is the possibility that they're ill or unable to commit to the filming. This would be avoided by ensuring that our back ups are available or by using some of the actors or group members from the other production groups who will be there on the shooting day.

Cast: List Of Characters Draft 2

Cast: List Of Characters Draft 2

After deciding to change our characters here is another brief breakdown of our characters:

Character Breakdowns:

The Girl:  A young woman to who had escaped from an asylum. Suffers from extreme paranoia and mental illness. She is desperate but fierce, seemingly innocent but truly targeting and violent.


The Boy: Also an asylum escapee. Weaker than the girl both mentally and seemingly physically. The only reason why he's there with her is because he's easily manipulated and she used him just to escape.

The Policemen: 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. 

The Detective: A seemingly mentally stable character who instantly asserts him authority and is portrayed as one of the protagonists.

Location: Transportation

Location: Transportation

Now that we've decided we were filming in Leapale Road Car Park in Guilford, we were presented with the problem of transportation. The first and easiest solution that came to mind was taking one of the mini vans that brings the boarding students in and out of school each day, into guilford. Seeing as there will be the three of us from our group, about 4 to 5 actors, a couple of teachers and all the equipment, a mini van would be the most practical solution as we could probably fit at least 12 people in the van leaving space for the camera and other essentials.