Friday 23rd January - Planning Lesson and Presentation

For the first half of the lesson the whole group (Faruk, Andy, Kassi and Me) sat down together and brainstormed some final ideas of what was going to be our overall idea for the opening of our thriller. we all had different ideas of what we wanted within the opening so we tried to combine all of the ideas and incorporate them into one collective opening for the group. We came up with many vague ideas like using a church, graveyard, dark alley way etc but then realized that these ideas were a bit cliche so at the end we decided to film the opening of a girl inside her house just being normal and then he gets into her house and is watching her. This is the idea that we are going to film and edit to become our opening. With the thriller we decided that we wanted to be creative and show the ending as if the whole film was being made and then kind of go back in time and show what happened in the events leading up to that point. After getting an initial idea we then decided what sort of shots we wanted to add to the opening to make it interesting and appealing. we ran through a shot by shot scheme where we planned what was going to happen in each shot and the camera angles/ movement that we was going to use so that when we decided to film we would be totally prepared.
When the thriller opening was planned according to shot types and content, in the second half of the lesson we then had to pitch it to the class and teacher to see if it was ok to start the process. We presentated our idea in a powerpoint presentation telling the class everything that they needed to know about the opening (Some brief Examples of what we pitched in the powerpoint):

• The Basic Plot - Simple and effective, Based around a girl being watched, show the ending at the beginning to create speculation...
• What we wanted to achieve in the opening - Add an element of weirdness, physco, portray storyline and tension without dialogue but through mainly music and camerawork. We dont want to add to much information to the opening that tells the whole story but add enough information that the audience want to watch on and ask questions.
• Quick run through of what the 2 minutes is going to contain - Expained the storyline as above
• Some Camerawork and angles included in the opening - Extreme close ups to highlight specific parts and show emotion, Zooms to add a sense of revelation, through shots for example through doors, cupboards to add an element of being watched, Handheld camerawork to show that the camera is conveying the mans eyes that are watching the girl, an establishing shot to show the location and setting of the opening, low angle shot to show the vunerability of the character in the situation she is in and we are going to keep the camerawork quite close and compact to create tension etc.
• Basic name ideas for the film - They're already in, watched, watching, Alone, Enter, They are back etc. These were just some names that popped into our head whilst planning but we are going to continue to think about the name of the film whilst filming because it is crutial to the film and its content.
• Location, setting, Characters - location of filming is my house in the EC1 area in an esate but the actual filming is taking place in my home because that is going to be where the girl is 'living'. Some settings we are using to film is the living room, kitchen, bathroom, front door etc, so typical household settings.
• Elements added from already existing thrillers - variety of shots, tension, hanging questions, dark lighting, suspense, credits and title etc.
• Key Images we want to create - Framing the girl alot on her own to show isloation and the sense of being alone in a situation, we want to make the camera his eyes, shots through things and around corners so to create a real sense of being watched and also to make the audience feel really involved with what is going on.
• Lighting in the opening - we want to use dim lightingto create a dark, weird, scary mood in the opening, house lighting and street lamps will also be used because of the location and setting we are filming in.
• Music used - music is going to be a key part of our opening as it is going to set the pace of the opening, set the mood, feeling, and gather character emotion. we are going to stop and start music at certain points in the opening to highlight specific parts of the opening or just to show the importance of somethings. we also want to convey thoughts, feeling and atmosphere, tension through music which means it is going to be a major factor within our opening.
• Audience - we want this to appeal to audiences that enjoy thriller movies already and also people over 15 because thats probably what the rating would be on the movie if it was actually being released because it contains death, blood, stalking etc.

Above is a few points that i included within my presentation to give the class a real feel of what i wanted to create in the opening and what its content was going to be.

After we finished the presentation we watched others pitch theirs to class which was good to see what others ideas were and how they were going to portray this when filming. As a group we then created a schedule of times and date we were going to film. overall we had 21 shots to film so when knew we had to get started straight away. The group decided to start filming at 3 on moday afternoon and at 3 on tuesday afternoon at the location that was my house.