I am not giong to use many props, but the ones I will use are:
Knife - This is probably the most important prop, as it is the murder weapon. It will only be revealed at the end, when Guy/Martin opens the door. This means that John/Chris does not have to carry the knife whilst walking down the street as this could cause problems. I will use one of my kitchen knives for the knife. Of course, we will all need to be extremely careful when handling it to avoid injuries.
Toothbrush - The toothbrush is only shown briefly, in the shot when John/Chris brushes his teeth. For this, hopefully Chris will be able to bring his own toothbrush. Therefore it will be more hygienic. If this is not possible, I will purchase a cheap disposable toothbrush.
Glass of orange juice/water - This is needed when John has a drink before leaving the house. For this, I will use one of the glasses in my house and orange juice/water from my house.
The primary location will be my house. This is a suitable location as the setting is meant to be an ordinary house. I am going to use my house for both John's house and Guy's house as it is the only house available to me on that day. This is a minor problem, but there are two possible solutions. I could make sure that when John/Chris leaves the house, I use a close-up or mid-shot so that the exterior of the house is not clearly visible. The other solution is that I use the back door of my house as the door which John/Chris leaves by. This would require a couple of extra shots of John/Chris walking down the alley at the side of my house in order to maintain continuity. This decision will likely come down to the day of the shoot, where I will try each solution and see which one works the best.
For the costume, I have asked both my actors to wear clothes they would normally wear. This is suitable for the characters as Guy is an ordinary person and John is meant to appear like an ordinary person. I have not been specific about exactly what clothes they wear, as this would require the knowledge of all the clothes they own and I think that would be too intrusive. For the first few shots of the sequence, when John is waking up/brushing his teeth, he will need to be wearing pyjamas to show that he has been sleeping. For this, I am going to ask Chris to bring a white t-shirt and pyjama bottoms or similar along to the shoot.
Risk: Injury from the knife Risk Rating: Medium-High Measures to be undertaken: I will make sure that no-one handles the knife that doesn't need to as the only people who need to handle it are Chris and myself, to show him what I want him to do. I will also make sure that it is only used for the shots that it is required for and then put it away.
Risk: Camera gets damaged Risk Rating: Medium Measures to be undertaken: The camera will not be used in rainy weather. I will make sure that I am the only one using the camera and I will be as careful as possible with it by not running or doing anything stupid whilst I am holding the camera or the camera is nearby.
I am planning to film on the 23rd February. I have chosen this date as it is when both the actors are free. I am hoping it will not rain on this date as the exterior scenes require it to be not raining and I do not want to damage the camera. If it does rain on this date, then the 28th February is another possible date.
Filming Date: 23rd February 1.00 - 4.00 Actors Required: Chris Gray, Martin Smith Amount to be filmed: All Equipment Needed: Knife, Toothbrush, Toothpaste, Glass, Orange juice
I am planning to shoot the film in the chronological order of the storyboard. However, I will adapt this to the weather, as if it is not raining initially, I will shoot the exterior shots in order to get them done in non-rainy weather.
I think that Chris is a good choice for the part as he is currently studying A Level Drama and therefore has some acting skill. He looks quite ordinary which is perfect as the murderer is meant to seem like an ordinary person. However, he is also quite physically intimidating which works well as it looks believable that he could be a murderer.
Guy (the murder victim) - Martin Smith
In my opinion, Martin is a good fit for the role of Guy as he is smaller in height than Chris and therefore it is believable that John would be able to get the better of Guy and kill him. Martin has had no proper acting experience, but his role is minor and I am sure that he will do a good job.
Brainstorming proved to be a somewhat mixed bag. I initially came up with four ideas which I believed to be quite creative and which also fit into the thriller conventions. However, when I thought about these ideas further, each one had potential problems. In the end, I decided to go with the idea of a person going about their morning routine who is set up as being the protagonist. At the end of the sequence, this person is shown murdering someone and therefore is not the protagonist and instead the villain of the movie. I chose this idea because it will be quite easy to produce yet it also, in my opinion, has an interesting twist and is therefore fairly original. Out of the four ideas, I believe it is the one that will look the least amateur, as with the others, I was being perhaps too ambitious, and without the correct resources, they could end up looking poor. I also think that the sequence could be part of a larger movie as the remainder of the movie would show the detectives tracking down the serial killer.
Thriller films date back to the 1920s and 30s with films such as M (Fritz Lang, 1931) about a serial child killer. During the 1940s, film noir was a very popular genre, with the most notable being Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944), The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) and The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941). Orson Welles was a prolific director during this time and his films Citizen Kane (1941) and Touch Of Evil (1958) are now considered classics. During the 1950s and 60s, the thriller genre was dominated by Alfred Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense. He was responsible for many classics, with Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963) just a few of his masterpieces. His films often featured an ordinary person put into a life-threatening situation. He also used techniques which were considered innovative at the time, including extreme zoom and cross-cutting. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, different variants of thrillers started to emerge. These included crime thrillers such as The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971), and horror thrillers such as Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) and its sequel, Aliens (James Cameron, 1986). In the 1990s, thrillers included action-orientated films such as Speed (Jan De Bont, 1994). Mind-bending stories and plot twists also became common, with The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995), Se7en (David Fincher, 1995) and The Sixth Sense (M Night Shyamalan, 1999). From the history of thriller, I have learnt that the genre has evolved and is still evolving as directors try to find a way to be creative and original. This has inspired me to try and add something creative to my own thriller opening. Note: I used Filmsite for the majority of my information.
A thriller is generally classed as a film which 'thrills' the audience and keeps them on the edge of their seats, whether they are excited or nervous. Thrillers contain a lot of tension and suspense, which usually occurs when the main character is involved in a dramatic and usually life-threatening situation.
Thriller is possibly the most encompassing of all film genres, as there are many different variants and hybrids. These include: sci-fi thrillers, action thrillers, crime thrillers, mystery thrillers, film-noir and occasionally comedy thrillers. Horror also sometimes overlaps and is closely linked to the thriller genre as they both share the same purpose of creating tension.
Characters in thrillers can also be widely varied. The main character(s) is usually someone the audience is encouraged to empathise with. Many thrillers contain some version of a 'love interest', a member of the opposite sex who accompanies the main character throughout the film. Romance may or may not occur between them. Many thrillers also contain criminals, who are generally the villain of the film.
Note: I used filmsite.org/thrillerfilms.html for the majority of my information
GoodFellas varies from Hitchcock slightly in that although the titles are still shown, the film also jumps straight into the action. The titles are the first thing to be shown, white font on a black background, accompanied by the ambient sounds of cars driving at high speed. The titles themselves whoosh onto screen as if they are cars, almost passing out of shot again before snapping back to the centre of the screen. The first shot proper is, as the small title sequence suggested, the back of a car travelling rapidly down a road. It is visibly night-time, as the surroundings are cast in darkness. This fulfils the convention of a thriller and also creates tension as the audience It then cuts to inside the car and three men are shown; the driver, the front-seat passenger who is asleep, and the back-seat passenger. All three men appear to be smartly dressed. This is intercut with more title screens including one saying 'New York, 1970' which makes the setting and time period clear to the audience. The sequence also fits into other thriller conventions as it has violence later on in the sequence. It is also heavily suggested throughout the opening 2 minutes that the characters are gangsters of some sort, as they use profanities and violence.
One of the thriller openings I have chosen to research is Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
Rear Window's opening is similar to many other Hitchcock films in that it immediately starts with the titles. The tone is set up as deceptively cheerful, as light-hearted music is used throughout. The titles are in a white font with an orange outline, which has quite a positive connotation. Simple fades are used to transition between the different titles. The location behind the titles remains the same throughout and is that of a window with the camera on the inside. Initially, the blinds are closed, but as the titles progress, each blind raises, revealing an alleyway/courtyard. This image of the window links directly to the plot of the film and also piques the audience's interest into what is happening in the room the camera is in. As the weather is sunny outside and there is no immediate threat, it is a classic example of showing ordinary life that will later be disrupted. After the titles finish, the camera zooms into one of the windowpanes and the shot changes, through a simple cut, to what is happening outside. A high angle shot is used as a cat walks up some steps. The camera pans to follow the cat walking before tilting upwards. A man and woman are seen briefly on a balcony (the first people shown so far in the extract) as the camera pans across, showing the apartment windows. At the moment, the setting still seems innocent and there is no sign of any threat. The camera then pans back to the apartment it started in. However, this time, a sleeping man's face is shown, who is visibly sweating. This is the first element that hints at a thriller, as it adds a hint of mystery and the audience is likely to be interested about who this man is and why he is sweating. This is the start of the narrative, and thus the ending of the opening sequence.
Rear Window's opening, as with many other Hitchcock films and thriller films of the time, is innocuous and not easily categorised as being a thriller opening. The high-key naturalistic lighting, ordinary setting and jaunty music all help to provide a (false) sense of security for the audience. The ideas that I can take from this is that an innocent opening could be a good one to choose as it makes the thriller elements more dramatic when they are introduced.
