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.
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.
