Locations for shooting our thriller

We came up with various ideas for locations for our thriller. For our first idea we thought of the following locations:

-The park

-Hillary Gardens by the alleyway.

We were going to use these two locations predominantly for our first idea, to show the two girls walking home from school being followed by the stalker.

However, after changing the idea slightly we came up with the following new locations for shooting our film:

- Mr Darby and Mr Heimens' Office and the school corridor.

-Crowshott avenue

- Chloe's house

These locations better suited our improved storyline for the film. The office conveys an idea of equilibrium in our theme, as it represents a normal , every day working environment. It also enables us to reveal Lucifer's character (the stalker) more.

Crowshott avenue was also used to show a state of equilibrium, as the stalker takes his normal route home after work. It is quite a quiet road, and there weren't any pedestrians around at the time we chose to shoot, therefore we could shoot the continuity of the thriller effectively without interruptions.

Chloe's house also proved to be a good choice of location as we could adapt a room (the study) in her house to lucifer's character as a stalker. Adapting the room would convey a sense of suspense, mystery and weirdness.

Overall our final three locations proved very effective for the filming of our thriller.

Soundtracks

Film (1965)-This is a silent movie made by Samuel Beckett. Although there is no speaking in this film, we found that the soundtrack to be interesting because we feel that something like this would suit our opening perfectly. The soundtrack has a fairly high pitched quality which gives the piece a sinister tone, which is something we would definitely try to capture in our opening. The other reason that we would like to use something like this for our soundtrack is because the soundtrack is played over the top as a shot which is panning over an area, which is exactly how we will be using our soundtrack in our opening.

The Godfather(1972)- Another piece that we looked at was the soundtrack to The Godfather. The elements from this soundtrack that we will take for our own, will be the very orchestral sound that this piece has. This piece has shown us how we do not have to use a piece of music that would necessarily be scary on its own, to still achieve an opening that the audience will find frightening. As a group will also liked it because it was quite and we felt that if we were to have a more quite soundtrack then it would suit our piece better.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)- We also listened to the soundtrack from the thriller movie Silence of the Lambs. What we liked about this soundtrack was that the mood of the music changes throughout the piece and this is something that we want to do with our piece so that it will fit with what is happening at the different points in the opening. We also liked that with this piece of music it felt scary without any footage, which helps add to the tension when it is eventually added to recording.

The Shining- This opening is very different to the other ones that we have listened to. This one has a sense of irony because although it is a thriller, the soundtrack isn’t particularly scary. We don’t think that something like this would work in our film as we think we need our soundtrack to be more obviously scary and something that will create suspense.

Jaws- After listening to this soundtrack we decided that we wanted something that was more instrumental then this soundtrack, however we have taken inspiration from this soundtrack because we feel that this soundtrack creates tension, which is something we want to do for our piece.


Posted By Chloe Barnham

Group Meeting 2

After conducting more research into people’s motives behind stalking we decided that the plot that we had previously discussed could be improved. We also decided that we needed a more convincing story line which would not only establish the stalkers character, but also gave our piece more enigma codes then our original idea had. The research that we did into why people stalk has also given us reasons to change the plot. Now the plot starts with Lucifer at his desk at work. He has OCD and when Lily walks past his office window, Lucifer watches her walk past. This creates an enigma code because we want to know why he is watching her. Lucifer leaves his office and goes home. When he arrives home he goes straight upstairs, where he goes to look at a wall full of photographs, which are all shots of Lily. It ends with a shot of the photographs.

Using the new script we decided that between now and the next meeting Charlotte and Sadaq would work on the storyboards for our opening and then show them to the group at the next meeting. They would use the plot line that we had discussed in the meeting to do so. Chloe would think about the different costumes we would need for the opening. The costumes are for the two main characters Lily and Lucifer, who both work in an office so they would both have to wear office wear. Rahul was given the task of finding a suitable location for our opening to be set. He would also find out what permission was required if we were to use the different settings. As a group we would also research soundtracks from films to give us an idea as to what our soundtrack would be.

By Chloe Barnham

Group Meeting 1

During the first meeting we decided on who would play which role in the filming process. Chloe and Sadaq- Camera. Rahul- Actor. Charlotte- Actor. We also decided on the order of our shots and what our plot line was.

Plot: We start with a girl (Lily), at college, talking to her friend about how she is paranoid that she is being stalked. The friend dismisses it but in fact Lily is right someone is following her. On her way home from college she becomes aware that someone is following her at that moment. We see a shot of the stalker (Lucifer) from the back and we also see shots of different parts of his body, which helps us build up an idea of who the stalker is. The scene ends with Lily and Lucifer coming face to face.

Between now and the next meeting we have decided to do further research into peoples motives behind stalking, which will hopefully gives us a better insight into why our stalker would be stalking Lily. We will also research different films which involve stalkers.

By Chloe Barnham