LOCATION OF FILM

In this post I will be talking about our choices of locations in our film, we based our film around only 2 locations but used them effectively as we made them seem like different locations.

The first location was a stationary cupboard that was part of the media departments, in this room we set up in one corner of the room with our murderboard and a desk lamp providing as a spotlight to make an eerie ambience, we set up the 'stalkers' stationary millimetre perfect to show his OLD. Here is a photo showing our murderboard in the corner of the stationary cupboard, with the spotlight on it.

The second location we chose was at Pencoed train station 10 minutes up the road from our school, we ustalised both platforms and used them in the day and night, even though it was the same location the different lighting made it seem completely different, there were no troubles when it came to accessing this location because it is used by the public on a daily basis free as charge, the constant flow of trains going through platform fitted perfectly with the stalkers obsession of trains. Here is a photo of this location in the day and in the night.

We chose these locations because they were easy to get too during school times as one was in the school and one was by the school so we could get to these freely with no problems.

PROP LIST

In this post I will be talking about the props that we used in our film and behind the scenes of shooting our film.
• Sony camcorder with 40x zoom,
• 2x tripods (1 small and 1 large),
• murder board with photos of the victims on,
• scissors, pens and plastic gloves (stalkers belongings)
• desk lamp to help with the lighting,

We did not have many props and extras in our film because the actors and their characters tell the storyline for themselves and do not need anything to help them on their way.

WORKING ON OUR STORY BOARD

In this post I will be talking about our first attempt of creating a story board for our opening sequence. On this draft we sketched a small drawing of what the shot will be, then we gave the shot a name with a brief description of the shot, also we used our media terminology by saying what angle shot we used and what type it was. Once we had done a few drawings to make a shorter version of a story board to start we labelled our drawings in order of where the sequence will go.
Before we started creating our story board we disggussed all of the possible shots we could chose and threw them all into a mind map to find which ones would be more effective, this brainstorming session was good because it helped us narrow down what shops would be suitable and which shots wouldn't work , for example we had a certain shot that we were going to chose primarily for the mis en scene but because of this mind map we realised that the shot didn't match with any other shots.
Once we had established all the shots that we wanted to use and the ones we didn't we created a final storyboard that we took out every time we went filming so we could look for a guideline, there were a few times that we didn't follow because we thought of something better on our feet.

CASTING FOR OUR OPENING SEQUNCE

In this post I will be talking about our decisions on the actors and actresses for our opening sequnce, firstly our main protagonist the stalker we chose a member of our group to be the actor for this because we know he will be fully committed to acting and he would be willing to do anything. We chose him out of our group because of his stature of how tall he is and how mascalling he is, having a butch manly protagonist works because it shows his power and Braun over the vulnerable girls who are being stalked. The character Rhys our actor will be playing has a story behind it , the stalker is a paranoid psychopath who has an obsession about following vulnerable teenage girls to train stations and from there house not to kill them but to take a locket of their hair to cherish as if they are his loved ones. Next, when it came to deciding on the actresses for our film we stayed inside our media class and chose the four girls who are working on their own films, we have 4 girls who will be in the film, Caitlin, Hannah, jasmine and jade. The characters they will be playing are themselves because they don't have to change themselves in anyway, the characters are normal stereotypical teenage girls who go to school and go out with their friends but they are misfortunate in the fact that they have attracted a stalker who a taken a powerful fond towards them, all the 4 girls are linked through friendship in the film which makes it easier for the stalker to go after them. These are the only characters in our film and who acts them, there aren't many characters but they are very effective to the audience.

WORKING ON OUR SCRIPT

In this post I will be talking about our decision to not have a script in our opening sequence, we have chosen to do this because we think that not having any speach or narration in our film creates a modity of suspense for the audience and the background music we have chosen can help to tell the story, in the past there has been very few thriller movies that do not need speach to tell the story so we have gone against the theory of you need to tell the story through dialog, this gives our film its own unique attribute because of the fact we don't have dialog. So with our planning for the opening sequence we do not need to make a script because of the detail on our story board and shot list.

ANALYSIS OF THRILLER FILM TITLES

In this post i will be talking about existing thriller film titles, i will evaluate how they can be effective and how they can not be as effective if they are bad representatives of the genre thriller.
One of the most famous thriller films is Alfred Hitchcock's infamous Psycho, i have chosen this as an effective title because it is in my eyes a perfect example of a title that not only matches the theme of the storyline in the film but it matches thriller on a whole, in my opinion it is so effective because it is only one word and even though this is the case it tells you so much about the film before you start watching.

Next, in my opinion for a negative representative i have chosen the title Silence of the Lambs, even though this a prolific thriller film the title isnt as effective as the contents of the film, the title is meaningless when comparing it to the plot, that is why when deciding on a name for our film me and my group tried to link it in with cutting hair and we finally came across the name 'The Last Strand' because our film is about cutting hair we chose this name.

Also, an effective opening title sequence should contain names and production companies, it should contain star actors and actresses which usually just one name fills the screen to show their importance in the film, and the directors name along with the editors should be shown on a larger scale as well but the other credits such as the camera crew, hair and makeup etc should be stereotypically shown at the end of the movie in the opening credits of the film. On the other hand, even though the big names like actors and directors are shown at the beginning they are also the first names at the top of the closing credits leaving the ones that haven't been shown till the end when people don't usually whatch up to that point.

DECIDING A SONG FOR OUR THRILLER OPENING SEQUENCE

When thinking for a song we were primarily looking for inspiration on the internet, we were looking for a song that you wouldn't usually match with the genre of thriller but the song works because its so opposite that it makes the scene uncomfortable for the audience. whilst we were doing this research we came across an excellent example of this from the well known horror film Insidious, here is this example.

The song in this scene is in perfect juxtaposition but the lyrics 'TipToe through the window' is exactly what the little boy is doing in the scene which is the only link between the song and the scene which makes it work so well.

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After we had done a lot of thorough we came to a group decision and chose this song called Cut Your Hair by the Pavement.

This classic song is not one of the first songs that comes to mind when you think about thriller music but we came to this chose because it fits almost too well with our plot of a unknown psychopath who has a fixation about cutting strands of girls hair.