Final product

Below is our final product which we are extremely happy with it and hope you enjoy it. There are of course things we would change and do a little better but we will go into that more in our evaluation blogs



By Michael Holttum, Harvey Young and Anthony Wilson

Audience Feedback

In all, after showing people that we believed to be our targeted audience (15-20) we felt the feedback we received was extremely positive, we were praised on not only our use of camera angles and many different shot types, but the way in which the music matched them, and how well everything fit to make a fantastic opening to a thriller film.

We all were fairly worried about the bold move of turning the opening into a chase scene, but thankfully the audience were fascinated by this, and were extremely entertained by the chase, as usually they can be seen as fairly tacky and in some ways quite humorous, we went for the more brutal approach, and made sure the scene was as close to a thriller as we can possibly get it. Our targeted audience also liked the setting of our film, the windmill helped give off enigmas and a creepy setting at that, to help the thriller become more and more entertaining for our targeted audience. Along with the setting, the masks were also well praised as the audience believed that it helped give that deranged feeling to the film, that as a group was what we wanted to put across to the audience, a more shocking feel to everything.

Along with the brilliant feedback we received, we also requested for some negative feedback, and we were told that in some places the dialogue was somewhat hard to hear, we took this on board as opposed to shaking it off, as we felt we could keep this in mind if we create another film. In all as that was the only piece of negative feedback we recieved we felt we did extremely well as a group, working together as a team throughout, to help ensure that our thriller film is as good as it could possibly be.

By Anthony Wilson

Evaluation Activity 7

Bellow is Our commentary on our preliminary task.


By Harvey Young and Anthony Wilson

Evaluation Activity 6

Bellow is a video of me and Michael discussing everything that our group used to create our thriller as well as support our blog.

By Harvey Young and Michael Holttum, post notes made my Jade Smith

Evaluation Activity 5

By Anthony Wilson

Evaluation Activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our potential audience is those who are within the age range of the rating of our film, which is 15 so within the age range of 15-20 is the audience we're looking towards to view our media product, Deceit.

Name: Stacey Phillips
Age: 19

She is interested in the more physoclogical side of thrillers and television shows, enjoying films like Saw and Se7en which could be considered as sub-genres making phycological thrillers, which in some ways is very simular to our film itself, as it makes the reader think what could happen next. She is a student with a part time job so has the social grades of "lowest level of substance" and so could perhaps relate to some of the characters within our film Deciet, this in-turn could also intrest some of her friends to come and see the film, as well has herself. Stacey is into the music in the charts and very much enjoys keeping up to date with her music so she can socialise with friends about it. Stacey shops at the usual shops a teenage girl would go to like Topshop and Primark.

However, we believe that our film would be enjoyed more by males, due to its brutal nature, so we decided to research a boy as well as a girl to get a clear picture of who our audience will be for the film Deceit.

Name: James Smith

Age: 17

James similar to Stacey is also a student with a part time job so has the social grades of "lowest level of substance", so once more we hope he may have some relation to the characters in this way, and not just gender. James often enjoys going out with his friends to the cinema to watch his films, as he feels they have a much greater effect on him, but will buy the occasional film he is interesting in, in his case, thrillers, as these are his favourite genre of film. James enjoys the more brutal side to thrillers, with a lot of violence and action that will keep him on the edge of his seat throughout. He enjoys music of a more rock/grunge nature with bands such as Led Zeppelin and Pearl Jam being his favourite. James likes to shop at shops like Topman, similar to most boys in his age range, but he also likes wearing shirts with his favorite bands on.

The main reason I have chosen these two people is because of the simple fact that they are both in the targeted age range of our audience, 15-20 and also due to their differences in genre we could help establish who is more likely to both see and enjoy our thriller film Deceit.

By Anthony Wilson

Evaluation Activity 3

Below is a commentary that me and Anthony made for our final product:


By Harvey Young and Anthony Wilson

Evaluation Activity 2

Bellow is a picture of Jack Windsor, the actor that played the role of the pig. The pig was an extremly important character in our thriller because he represents the crazy and wreck-less member that every famous gang posses.

Below are a few examples of wreck less and crazy gang members that inspired the pig.

Above is Joe Pesci who plays Tommy DeVito in the film "Goodfellas". Tommy is crazy and spontaneous which is what we wanted the pig to be like. Tommy is more of a mad dog rather than an intelligent member of the gang. The uncertainty of what Tommy will do next contributes greatly to the impact that the film has on the audience.

Above is James Remar who played Ajax in the film "The Warriors". Ajax is more of a rogue member of the gang and can even be seen as more of a hated icon rather than admired. An example of a moment where Ajax could be seen in bad light is when the gang are running to catch a train and Ajax stops because he sees a women that he plans to rape. Obviously this shows him as a bad man but also shows how he is in his own world and doesn't really care about anyone else including his fellow gang members. This idea of anarchy within the gang is exactly what we wanted to incorporate into our own thriller with the pig.

By Harvey Young

Evaluation Activity 1

Title of our film: One of the main issues we had with our thriller was giving it a title, we all came up with different titles we felt could fit our film. At first the title Faces of Nightmares was a title we all agreed was perfect for the film, as the deranged masks would in fact be the whole reference to the title. However, we then felt the original title was a bit self explanatory and also was a lot longer than we wanted, so Harvey Young came up with Deceit which we all felt left many enigmas for the audience as it could in fact have a hidden meaning behind it, this combined with the fact its short and simple, which we felt was effective

Setting/Location: The opening few minutes of our thriller is really based around the location of our film. We chose the mountnessing windmill to first of all create an enigma for the audience to help establish the genre of our film, and also, the fact that the character is being chased towards the windmill suggests that the chaser could perhaps be related to the windmill, as it is in shot often throughout the scene. In order to establish the windmill we first had to come up with a shot that would grip the audience. After many different tries of different shots the one we liked best was a low angle which was slightly tilted, not only did this appear to be an extremely effective shot, it also helped establish the personalities of the villains, that they are perhaps slightly off and maybe even deranged.

Costume and Props: In order to keep the typical conventions of a thriller we felt it was justified to use props that would fit the category, in this case weapons like knives and even baseball bats. We felt the use of the baseball bats would help give off our own approach to the thriller genre, in an attempt to make our film a lot more different than others. In terms of costume, we took an extremely bold move by using the farmyard animals masks as initially we wanted to go for plain white masks as all of us thought they would be extremely creepy and in some ways more shocking than just a persons face, and it also kept a hidden identity for the villains in the film, to both create enigmas and also create some twists in our film. Bearing all this in mind we came up with the idea of farmyard animal masks just simply browsing websites, we felt they were extremely creepy, and once more, created many enigmas, and the bold move really paid off we felt.

Camera work and Editing: Throughout the film we were always thinking of different ways to test ourselves on camera work, as we felt this would make the film so much more interesting for the audience, for one shot we wanted to show the villains over the victim as though they have the power, we decided to do it from a point of view of the victim at a low angle to show their dominant power over him, also with the shakiness of the camera and the heavy breathing helped give off the fear and emotional trauma the victim is going through.

Title and Font style: Choosing a font style for our film was fairly tricky, the main aim we had was to make our film very unique, so in trying to find a unique font style we had to test the majority and see if it fit nicely. When we finally found a font which was both mysterious, fairly unique and that we all agreed would fit, the task of deciding how the credits will appear on screen began. After watching many different films of the thriller category like Taxi Driver we found the more effective way to make the credits appear was during the film itself, as the words can sometimes relate to the images being shown on screen, and this is exactly what we wanted to achieve. In order to make sure the attention isn't taken away from the film itself we chose and extremely neutral colour of white, which can be scene, but not enough to take the focus away from what really matters.

Story and how the opening sets it up: One of the main things as a group we wanted to create was unity between the three villains, in order to create this we used numerous three shots and two shots throughout the film to create some kind of link between them as this can help make it more intimidating for the victim and in turn, the audience itself. We also wanted to establish the power of them by using different camera angles like low angle shots, to emphasies that they are all in control.

Genre and how the opening suggests this: The genre of a film is a thriller, and what we really wanted to achieve is to thrill people, so we took the bold move of making the opening of our film extremely fast pace with a chase scene, this supported by the fast paced music ensures that our audience will be gripped in from the start. Another thing that could suggest the genre is our use of costume and props that are typical conventions of a thriller with the baseball bats and the unique masks it helps make our thriller stand out.

How characters are introduced: There are many different ways we introduced our characters in our film, and all this really depended on who the characters were, for instance when we first see the victim in detail it somewhat breaks up all the slower long shots as it is an intense close up shakey camera, with extremely heavy breathing, this is a fairly memorable shot as apose to the ones before it. Another way we introduced a character was with "The Pig", we felt as he was in control of the situation at one point, we would use a steady camera to show he has no fear at all and is not only in control of the situation, but also the shot, as the close up is used on the masks features.

By Anthony Wilson

Our target audience

Our media product is aimed for people aged 15-19. These people have particular tastes, for example they would enjoy films such as Strangers, they might like TV programmes such as Spooks.

Our target audience would choose to watch our film because their interest for a thrilling storyline whilst at the same time slightly graphic but not too graphic to disgust or offend.

The target audience our thriller is aimed at would have different music tastes and shop in different places in comparison to a target audience of a romantic comedy. Our target audiences taste in music would be diverted away from the mainstream popular culture, this is the same for the types of clothes they wear.

This target audience should watch our film because it is not predictable and is clever with a few enigmas, a clear one in the opening where the masks are in the boot of the detectives’ car. Our film does not follow popular cultures or social trends, something which the type of people our thriller is aimed at are interested in seeing in a film.

By Michael Holttum

Demographics

The dominant ideology of our thriller is white middle class and able bodied, although Ant is being harmed in our thriller, the dominant ideology remains the same.

Demographics are the study of population, and variations in it. Demographics have to be considered when creating a film as for example it would be a waste of money spending a huge budget on a film which only demographically only appeals to a minority part of the population.

For our thriller we have to consider psychographics. Psychographic variables are any attributes relating to personality, values, attitude, interest or lifestyles. We have decided on this that our target audience is white middle class age 16-25, mainly males.

By Michael Holttum

Other ways we promoted our Film

As a group we all decided that we should promote our film in many different ways. We did this because we wanted our film to reach the biggest possible audience.

One way we promoted our website was by designing a website. The internet is such a great tool for promoting and therefore we all thought making a website was a good idea. Jack created the website using a program called Dreamweaver that had various links going to other pages. Obviously the website wasn't actually avaliable from the Internet but looked like a realistic website. Below is the picture of the front page of our website. We used a similar colour scheme as the poster as we felt red and black were very effective and made the title stand out.



Jack Windsor

Problems we encountered during our project

Through our project, we came across problems. To resolve these problems, most of the time we took the best options to solve them, however sometimes problems kept coming back and got on all of our nerves therefore lowering the teams morale.

Problems we encounted included:

- Kids football practice at the windmill
- A splodge on the camera lense
- Camera running out of battery
- Didn't talk loud enough so the camera didn't pick up the sound

Michael Holttum

Deceit: Script

Cast:
The Sheep – Michael Holttum
The Bull – Harvey Young
The Pig – Jack Windsor
The Victim – Anthony Wilson
The Detective – Michael Holttum

Script:
Detective : Tell me everything.
Detective : How did they catch you?
Pig : (Screams)
Victim : (coughs)
Detective : Do you have any idea as to why they would do this to you?
Victim : I have no idea.
Detective : are you sure?
Bull : You tell daddy, to give us the fucking money. (shouts)
Victim : (nods) .
Detective : If you need anything, Get in touch.
End Of opening

By Harvey Young

Final Poster

Below is our final poster design. We all decided on the photo we were going to use and Jack designed the poster. We came across one problem when designing the poster and that was the website we were using to design the poster only had the choice of including US movie ratings. Because of this we have to find and add the correct rating.

Below is another take on the poster. As a group we all decided we didn't like this one as much as it was to basic and the blood on the poster may scare or put off potential viewers.

By Jack Windsor and Harvey Young

Editing diary

The entire group contributed towards the editing of our film but me and Jack found it interesting to talk about and compare with others so instead of a written diary we all thought it was a better idea to just record me and Jack talking about everything we went through during the editing process.

By Harvey Young and Jack Windsor, recorded by Michael Holttum

Focus Group

Me and Group decided to go and grab some random people, a few boys and a few girls. We showed them our film twice and then gathered them around a table and asked them a few questions. Before we started asking them questions we told them to be completely honest and as brutal as they wish, their were no rehearsals at all, we used the first take.

By Harvey Young, Michael Holttum, Anthony Wilson and Jack Windsor

Music Choice

For the opening scene of our thriller we felt that for our film to have the explosive introduction we wanted we had to find the perfect music choice.

On the website freeplaymusic.com there was a wide range of search types we could do so we searched for key words that we felt would fit our opening scene, words like "Dark, mysterious and eerie". After testing many different songs one appeared called Notica after listening to the song several times we felt that the song was perfect for a thriller, with an extremely fast pace at the beginning of the song to suit the chase scene, and the occasional drops in both pace and volume which we felt would go well with the interrogation scene, even for the parts of which we wanted the dialogue to appear in our film we could simply change the volume of the song in the editing suite, so both the images being shown on screen and the music fit nicely.

The biggest issue we had with the song was that of its length, the song itself is 1:08 long where as our film is around 1:30 long. Fortunately, we were able to put the same song on twice, and simply cut the part of the song we didn't want so they both run very smoothly, we felt it all went well as you can hardly notice the two copies of the song.

By Anthony Wilson

Poster Influence

Me and Jack worked closely together for the process of poster creation. Me and Jack had always been fascinated with movie posters purely because it is a single representation of the entire film itself. Below is some of mine and Jacks personal favourite posters;




The posters above represent everything that we wanted to interpret into out own poster.We wanted the essence of fear and mystery factor found in the poster of the Joker from The Dark Knight but also to have the dramatic and emotional effect of the Shawshank redemption poster. We also wanted the cool factor that is found in the Fight Club poster. Me and Jack worked closely to try and produce a poster that is product of all of the above.
By Harvey Young and Jack Windsor

The rating of our product

The rating of our film

Over much discussion, as a group we have decided that our thriller will be certified as the rating 15. This means that the film can only be viewed by people over the age of 15. We have decided this upon many factors, our film is not graphic and physically disturbing enough or sexual natured enough to be an 18.

The BBFC website states that 15 rated films may include; “strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualise” as a group we believe that this fits our final product perfectly.

Our target is audience is people aged between 16 and 24, however older should be attracted. This is replicated in our final product, it is appropriate for our audience.

By Michael Holttum

Credits Influences

For our thriller film we were asked to complete a opening credits sequence, we all had different ideas of what we thought would make the credits as good as we could possibly make them. One group member suggested we placed the credits at the end of the opening of our film, we tried this and felt it didn't have the same effect that a thriller would have, as it somewhat slows the film down, as we didn't want to forget the fact that the film has to continue after the opening.

After much consideration and watching other films we felt it would flow at a much faster pace if we were to place the titles within the shots, prehaps to link them to what is going on, on the screen. After viewing the title sequence of JCVB we thought this was extremely effective, as the film is never slowed down and is constantly flowing.

One of my favorite films Taxi Driver also had an influence, the fact that it somewhat starts slowly and builds up, revealing the title on a fairly blank screen with smoke, so the attention isn't taken away from the movie title, with whats going on in the background, whilst the people who worked with the movie somewhat link to the images being shown on screen.

After coming up with the idea we then had to think of the way in which the typography would appear on the screen, we decided to make the typography appear on screen with a both eerie and somewhat scary font with neutral colours so once more the attention isn't being taken away from the film itself. We then felt that at the end of the opening when the car drives away from th camera, that this would be the perfect opportunity to fade into the title of the film, Deceit, with colours that relate to both danger and maybe even innocence, giving a more psychological feel to it, and perhaps suggesting that the film itself is a psychological thriller.

Anthony Wilson

First days shooting

Our group was late producing a story board which gave us very limited time to film. Because we was so eager to start filming we rushed our story board and Decided to spend the weekend filming. Our original plans changed due to certain members having work so we ended up going out on just the Sunday. Our original plan was to stop go to Romford and film at the windmill we had all previously agreed on however one member noticed the Mountnessing windmill and the entire group deemed it more appropriate because it was closer to where we all live as well as all round better looking.

The first day started out badly and consisting of arguments within the group.The fact that our story board wasn't well planned out had a huge effect on our production. We managed to get some shorts but by the time we were starting to get into it, the camera ran out of battery so we went home and charged it then when we returned a kids football game took up the entire field so we had to retire for the day. The next day in school we uploaded the footage and edited some of it and relieved that we were not at all happy. It was at that time we realised we had to create a more detailed plan and go out for another days filming.

By Harvey Young

Character Choices

This is our main protagonist, our choice Anthony as our "Average, every day, normal guy", who represents the majority of the people in the country, and therefore represents the dominant ideology of the film. We feel that this is extremely key for our film, as not only can the audience relate to the him. One of the main reasons we chose Anthony as we felt he would represent a victim a lot more than the others in the group, also, due to their size we felt it would be fitting that they were in control, therefore making it more scary for the protagonist, and hopefully for the audience. Our thriller is about putting a normal person in an abnormal situation, to create fear for the audience, and we felt Anthony could represent this.

By Anthony Wilson and Jack Windsor.

Story Board Initial Ideas

We were having some trouble with our story board because we all found it very difficult to all contribute our Ideas own ideas on one sheet of paper. Because we all felt strongly about our own individual ideas, a lot of arguments emerged. We all decided that we had left it too long to produce a story board so we all got together one morning and took a free class room and used the big white board to write down and draw all of our ideas. This worked really well because we could see everything coming together in front of us and each members ideas were incorporated into the final story board. Everything seemed to work out easily from there. Below is a video of each member going through the stages of our story board;



By Harvey Young and Anthony Wilson

A few poster ideas for our thriller

The images bellow are some pictures that we are considering editing and making our thriller poster. The images you see have not been edited in anyway, when we decide what picture we think is appropriate for our thriller poster we will play around with paint shop pro and make some thinks darker, some thinks lighter, and some things bloodier for that dramatic effect.

By Harvey Young Jack Windsor, Anthony Wilson and Michael Holttum

The double over the shoulder

For one of our shots we decided to be a bit more adventurous and Jack Windsor suggest a "Double over the shoulder shot" that he claimed had never been done before in the history of cinema. Of course this shot is a basic over the shoulder but we had fun filming it and decided to video us on set just before we took the shot. enjoy!

By Harvey Young, Jack Windsor, Anthony Wilson and Michael Holttum

Mask discussion and final decision

I ordered some masks and when they arrived we had a bit of a problem with he size so Jack came round my house and we sorted everything and decided what masks would best suit our characters different personalities. Below is a video of me talking about the masks and why we chose them;

By Harvey Young and Jack Windsor

Production Company

After studying many different production companies we have come to the conclusion that Warner Bros. would be the most appropriate in producing our film, after producing other great thriller films like The Shinning and A Clockwork Orange, which both had some what of an influence on our final thriller opening.

Warner Bros. is part of TimeWarner, one of the biggest entertainment conglomerates, this could alone be what persuaded us to choose them, but the fact that many thrillers have been produced by them, so it somewhat gives our potential audience a good impression on our film straight away, just by recognising their record.

By Anthony Wilson

Final Location and Filming

After doing more research into the Upminster Windmill we decided that it wasn't really suitable for our film. The windmill was perfect but the land that it was on was too small, and there was a road right next to the windmill which would distrupt out filming. As a group we loved the windmill idea and decided to check out the Mountnessing windmill instead. We did some minor research into the the windmill and there was more than enough land for us to use.

On Sunday at 9:30we arrived at the Mountnessing Windmill to do some filming. Because we had a faultly charger that only worked when held in place we only had 90 minutes of filming time. Because of this we got about 6 shots in before the camera ran out. However these shots were all perfect so we decided to come back later that day. After an 1 hour and a half of charging we arrived back at the windmill. Unfortuneltly there was a childrens' football match going on and we couldn't film. Because of this setback we will be filming the rest of the scene on Tuesday.



By, Jack Windsor

Finished Preliminary

Below is our finished Preliminary Task. Overall we thought it was very successful and were told many times that it was very humorous.



By Anthony Wilson and Harvey Young

Coming up with a Name for our Thriller

As a group we briefly discussed what we were going to call our thriller. We found this extremely difficult as we all had different ideas on what it should be called and couldn't really agree on anything. As of now we still do not have a final decision on the name we are going to use. Below is a list of some of our suggestions:

• The Watchers
• Deceit
• South of Heaven
• Masked of Death
• Masks of the Dammed
• Faces of Nightmares

By Jack Windsor, Michael Holttum, Harvey Young and Anthony Wilson

Influences for our choice of Antagonists

The film Goodfellas is a huge influence on our thriller film. We loved how each of the three main characters had a distinctive personality that made that character unique. We really wanted to do something similar to this in our thriller film.

One of the main characters in our film known as "The Pig" is heavily based on Tommy DeVito from the film Goodfellas. Tommy DeVito is seen as the crazy, unpredictable one of his trio and kills innocent men though out the entire film.We want the Pig character to be very similar to this. However none of the villains have dialogue so this will have to be shown through Jack's acting.

Another character known as "The Horse" is based upon Henry Hill from Goodfellas. He is the smart one who has ocassionally outbursts of rage. Harvey Young will be playing the character of the horse and through his acting will have to show that he is the smartest one of the group who does all the planning.

The last of our villains is know as "The Bull." He is based upon Jimmy Conway from Goodfellas. We want the Bull to be seen as the leader who makes all the decisions about what our trio will do. The Bull will be played by Michael Holttum and is the only masked character that reveals his face.

By Jack Windsor and Harvey Young

Final Decision on Masks

When trying to find the perfect masks we had a lot of trouble. At first we wanted to use plain white masks because of their simplicity, however after discussing it as a group we realised we might be plagiarising other productions such as 'Regent House.' Harvey Young as a joke thought it would be funny if Jack played the role of 'The Pig' and after more discussion we thought it would be a good idea if the villians wore the masks of farmyard animals. Harvey Young would play "The Horse" Michael Holttum would play "The Bull" and Jack Windsor would play "The Pig."

We found a suitable mask set which came with 6 types of animal masks. These masks are still very simple as they are made for children. Below is the mask set we purchased from Twenga.com

By Jack Windsor, Harvey Young, Michael Holttum and Anthony Wilson

Asking for Permission

At first glance we thought that our filming location, the Upminster Windmill was abandoned. However after doing some research we discovered that infact it had a very active fanbase and that many events and activities took place there. For example there recently had a charity quiz night. We found their website and noticed they had 'Open Days' however these were not usable as they were all during April, way after our deadline.

Jack and Anthony decided to e-mail the website to ask for permission to use the windmill and the surrounding fields. We are currently waiting on a reply. Below is the e-mail message that we sent to them.

As of the 10th of March we received permission from the windmill to use it. Below is the email they sent us.

By Jack Windsor and Anthony Wilson

Second Location

After discussing our storyline once again we decided that maybe the field chosen was a bit bland. Harvey Young suggested we use a field with a deserted windmill on it. As a group we decided this would be very effective as we could use the deserted windmill for many different things. For example we could start with an establishing shot of a silhoutted windmill and that was one of the ideas the group thought we be effective.

The picture above shows the windmill we will be using. We may use the black and white filter for our flashback shots so this picture is very effective in showing us what this will look like as it comes off very eerie and mysterious.

By Jack Windsor, Anthony Wilson, Harvey Young and Michael Holttum

Specific Iconography

One of the main pieces of iconography within our film is that of the Masks. Many films incorporate the use of masks for many different reasons, perhaps to give the villain a hidden identity to help create a more thrilling approach to a film, as the audience will be guessing who the villain is which could create a sense of fear in the film. The use of the mask we hope will also bring the typical convention of a thriller an enigma into play to help give away the actual genre of the film.

For example, in the two films Scream and Halloween, the killer wears a mask to keep his identity hidden and to also keep a sense of mystery within the movie, this is something we wanted to incorporate into our thriller, mystery and the mask helps this which is supported by the setting itself The Windmill. Also, due to the use of the farmyard animals masks we thought this helped give a more insane approach to the villains, which could in turn create more fear to our thriller and thus making it more thrilling for the audience.

By Anthony Wilson

Character Influence: Michael Myers

The thing I personally love about the character of Michael Myers is that he is a psychopath that actually scares me. The thing I have a high regard for the most has to be how people can just look at him and instantly get a thrill. I think that the main reason for this is that it is never actually explained why he is, they way he is and also why he prefers to conceal his face away from the world by wearing a mask. This makes him mysterious and ominous because the audience is confused by him and finds him unpredictable.

I have read various details about the Halloween movies on IMDb and found that the writers looked well into detail with the character of Michael. It may seem obvious that they would seeing that he’s basically the main character, however the research the creators underwent to discover what actually is scary and thrilling is admirable. By looking at their research I’ve found that the main aspect of Michael besides his backing story that makes him so chilling is the simplicity of his character. He doesn’t shout or run; he walks slowly and never speaks. He appears content at all times and this makes it always seem as if he is in control.

It is assumed that a teenage male would admire such a character but I as well as my group feel as if it would be a great idea if we had our own interpretation of Michael Myers in our thriller film. We are not going to completely rip off everything about him but we will try to interpret Michael’s key characteristics into our own masked characters. This means that we are not going have our masked characters talking and running and acting really aggressive, instead they will remain contempt a lot like the villains in the film “the strangers”. We will conduct a focus group and research what kind of masks frightens people the most.

-By Harvey Young

Costume/Props

So far as a group, we have decided on most of our costumes and props. However these decisions are not perminate as they suit our potential script which we have not decided is final. For the main villains of the film we have decided on basic white masks which conceal their identities. As mentioned previously we want the masks to be of a simple design as this will make the villains mysterious and scary as opposed to a cheesy complex mask. However we have not decided on their costumes as their backgrounds are not finalised. For example, if we choose to have the villains as mafia type gangsters, then we will probably have them wearing black suits with ties. However, another option we have is to make the villains stereotypical thugs wearing hoodies and jeans, although we are shying away from this idea as it seems too cliche and cheesy.

For the main character of the film he will probably be wearing a red t-shirt with jeans as the colour coding of this symbolises danger which will foreshadow the film. He will be a typical 16 year old male who is walking through the woods to get home.

For our props we have decided that our villains will carry and use blunt weapons such as metal baseball bats. This is because our villains aren't out to kill the main character but instead severely hurt him. So far we have decided to use two metal baseball bats and a lead pole. Below is one of the baseball bats that will be used in the film.

So far we have most of these items but we are still researching the masks. We want to get cheap masks but don't want them to look silly and extremely fake. All the masks will be identical to each other however, we are going to personalise each one using spray paint. The villains have no dialogue throughout the entire film as we wanted them to feel mysterious and seem extremely scary. Because of this we are using the spray paint to show the personalities of each of the villains. For example one of the members may have a happy looking mask with a big smile to emphasize the fact that he is phycopath that enjoys committing these crimes.

- Jack Windsor

Initial Thriller Ideas

During our Media Studies lesson today we thought it was crucial to sit down as a group and discuss our thriller ideas to finalise the script. As a group we all came up with what we thought was a great script and we also figured out what props/costumes and locations we will be using. Below is a video of Harvey Young answering some important questions regarding our Thriller.



- Jack Windsor and Harvey Young

Character Influence: Travis Bickle

As a group we were all very influenced by the film 'Taxi Driver.' Mainly we were influenced by the main character 'Travis Bickle.' Travis is a Vietnam veteran who becomes a night time taxi driver in order to cope with his insomnia. During this time he sees a lot of crimes including the prostitution of a 12 year old girl. Because of this Travis decides confront all the people responsible for this prostitution and kills them all. What makes Travis an effective character is his transformation throughout the film. For example at the beginning of the film he is pretty much just an average guy. However, during the end he looks drastically different as he has shaved off most of his hair to form a mohawk.



We wanted our villains in the film to be very similar to Travis Bickle in the sense that they lead a normal life during the daytime but become psycopathic at night. However instead of preventing crimes our characters would commit them instead. We also wanted our characters to change their appearance during this time and decided on the idea of masks as this would make our characters mysterious and the audience would not be aware of their appearance.

-Jack Windsor

Prelim Log - Final Choice of Music for our Preliminary

During the editing of our Preliminary Film we came across a problem. We were not able to access the site which allowed us the download the chosen track for our film and consequently could not use it. However there was a small choice of music avaliable on the computer already so we decided to choose from one of these. We decided on "Beethoven's 9th" as Anthony Wilson and Harvey Young were heavily inspired by the 1971 thriller film "Clockwork Orange" directed by Stanley Kubrick. Anthony Wilson said "Beethoven is a running theme throughout the film and is normally use contrapuntally." He highly recommend this piece of music and as a group we decided the music flowed very nicely and therefore we used it in our film. Jack Windsor tweeked the music slightly so it was very faint during dialogue scenes. It also gradually built up and finally ended on a crenscendo during the last scene.

Below is "Beethoven's 9th Symphony"



-By Jack Windsor

Prelim Log - Editing our Preliminary

Seeing that we were so far ahead of other groups we decided to get our editing out the way so we could concentrate more on comming up with the concepts for our thriller film. Harvey, Mike and Ant all watched as Jack amazed us with his editing knowledge which proved to help us a lot in both the speed and ultimate success of the production of our preliminary task. The fact that we are able to edit so quickly and precisely gave us a lot of confidence for our thriller film. Mike Holttum, Anthony Wilson and Harvey Young were able to contribute towards the editing by telling Jack what we thought and watching as he created it or edited it to fit our ideas and concepts. As a group we made every decision together and made sure that everybody’s voice was heard. The group managed to agree on the title; "Jack Got Wood".

During the editing we had an unforeseen problem where we broke the 180 degree rule, we realised that it was more important to stick to the rules set than getting the dialogue we wanted, purely because the dialogue wasn’t that significant to our film. We managed to tackle this problem because Jack Windsor cut out some unnecessary dialogue scenes in order for our film to stick to the 180 rule.

Below is a video of all of us putting in the final touches to our film in the editing suite.



By Harvey Young

Prelim Log - Music for Preliminary Task

Because we finished filming our Preliminary Task and knew it was nearly time for us to edit, we decided to look into what music should be in it. We were not sure if music was meant to be played but we decided to find a suitable track just to be safe. We found a website called Freeplaymusic.com which had various tracks to be downloaded, copyright free. Because our Preliminary was more of a 'Comedy' than anything else, we decided to have a very upbeat and happy song. We came across the track "Turn The Volume Up" which suited our Preliminary very well. Below is a sample of the track that we uploaded to Youtube.com





-By Jack Windsor

Prelim Log - Storyboard for our Preliminary Task

By Jack Windsor, Anthony Wilson and Michael Holttum

Prelim Log - Planning the Preliminary Task

We were asked to create a short film for our preliminary task to show that we could use cameras and editing appropriately. For our task we were asked to demonstrate and show an understanding of match on action, shot/reverse shot and the hundred and 180 degree rule, by incorporating it into our preliminary task. We started by designing a storyboard showing all of the camera angles, run time, Mise en scene and more. Jack Windsor and Anthony Wilson drew up the storyboard using camera angles that they thought would work well, while Mike Holttum gave his opinion on each shot and came up with changes. Harvey Young was absent and consequently had no input on during the initial designing of the storyboard. However, when he returned he gave us his opinions on the storyboard.

Jack and Anthony decided to do a comedy where a boy (Jack Windsor) would walk around school carrying a doll (Woody from Toy Story.) He would later meet up with his friend (Harvey Young) and the pair would leave the room holding Woody’s hands. The toy would break and Jack says “I knew I should have got a F**cking Buzz Lightyear” and the pair would walk off.

During the filming each of us took on a different role:
- Jack Windsor was the main actor of the film.
- Mike Holttum filmed each shot.
- Harvey Young was an actor on the film and gave his opinion on each shot.
- Anthony Wilson worked closely with Mike Holttum to ensure each shot was filmed correctly and that we would have no jump cuts due to not planning each shot.

The picture taken and uploaded by Harvey Young shows Mike and Anthony during the final shot of the preliminary.

By Jack Windsor, Harvey Young, Michael Holttum & Anthony Wilson

Potential Location

As a group we all met during half term to discuss where we would film our main task. The group had many ideas on where to film but we wanted a location that would suit our Thriller Film. Finding a location in London was one of our first ideas, however after we discussed it in more detail we decided against the idea as it would be a hassle getting there and would probabily not suit our task very well. We all decided that a field or woods would be a great idea as it would suit the storyline and would add an eerie atmostphere to our film.

We all live around the Shenfield Area and we found a great field which is a walking distance from all our houses. There is also a McDonalds right in front of the field so we could easily get a lift up there. Our draft storyline features one of our character getting beaten up in an isolated area so our chosen location seems like a great choice.

Below is a sattelite view of our chosen location.

So far this seems to be our favourite choice for our location, however this is not permanent and if we stumble upon a better location we may use that instead.

- Jack Windsor

UK Film rating system

U – Universal - This is the lowest film rating and should definitely be suitable for audiences age four and above. “U” films should have a positive moral framework and counterbalance violence, thriller, threat and horror.

PG – Parental guidance – An unaccompanied child of any age is able to watch films under this rating and it should not disturb children ages eight and over, but younger children’s parents are asked to consider whether accompanying them would be necessary.

12 – This means that no one over 12 can view the film

12A – This rating is for cinema films only, it means that children under 12 can watch the film as long a they are accompanied by an adult

15 – This means that the film is only suitable for children aged fifteen or over, it is illegal for someone under the age of fifteen to rent or buy a video work given the rating “15”

18 – It is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to buy or rent a video work rated “18” this can often due to graphic material.

R18 – Films with this rating may only be shown in specially licensed cinemas, and only supplied licensed sex shops to people over the age of 18. The rating “R18” is a film classification primarily for explicit works of consenting sex or strong fetish material involving adults.

By Michael Holttum