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

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

We need:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.