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.