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