Filming evaluation

On the day of filming everything that could have gone wrong, did. we were scheduled to get a lift to our desired shoot location (Pickworth lakes) however, due to unforeseen circumstances, our driver did not show, putting the shoot behind drastically. however despite this we cracked on with what we could do... shooting the conservatory scenes (resulting in smooth and effective footage) overall us being happy with the first day's shoot.

As previously, our driver had not shown, we promptly set another time and date and thankfully this time we got our lift. we arrived at our desired location however ten minuets in, heavy rain set in and we were unfortuanatly forced to return (we attempted to shoot in the rain however could not get desired shots to do fear of damaging equipment)

after two failures we decided to change location to somewhere more local  that we could reach on foot (Bourne woods) there we found an ideal location to shoot as it was remote and unused by the public. however on the day of shooting we had no tripod (stuck in boot of car) and so were forced to shoot free hand. after around four hours of shooting various scenes multiple times we had collected enough footage to create our product.

AS Media Studies: Fragmented Memories

AS Media Studies: Fragmented Memories

Storyboard

Fishing scene:

1) Pan shot of

Environment,

Shots of teens fishing,

Mainly wide angle shots    

        

2) Shot of Laurie approaching with a bottle of pills in hand,

Close up of Laurie shaking bottle of pills,

Close up of Laurie talking about the drug.

3) Close up of Conner pulling concerned face,

Conner expresses that he does not like what’s happening

4) Close up of  Steven pressuring Conner.

Extreme close up of pills in hand, then pills being given out.

5) Close up of pills being taken; switching between each character.

6) Same pan shot as at the start but with high saturation to emphasise the effects of the drug.

7) Tension rises Conner grabs a knife.

Steven witnesses Conner threatening Laurie.

8) Steven witnesses the murder of his best friend (not shown)

Conner lunges for Steven but he escapes.

9) Shots of Stevens escape

As all of the fishing scene is filmed as a flashback the fishing scene shots will be alternating with the following shots;

1)      Steven working in conservatory ( 3-4 alternations between this and fishing scene)

2)      Steven Collapsing from trauma

3)      Steven coughing up blood from drugs long term side effects. ( 2-3 alternations of this.

Location

Our initial location idea was that the fishing scenes would be filmed at Pickworth lakes  and the office scenes would be filmed in Stevens conservatory (with the appropriate mise-en-scene to create an office).

But after a pilot filming test we found that the person who was supposed to be driving us was extremely unreliable so we decided to choose a more local location to ensure we could get the right amount of shots and have plenty of time to do it, so we chose Bourne woods ponds. All though we where advised not to use a local location we thought this location was fairly suitable as we have chosen to film at the smaller pond which is less familiar to locals and is out of the way of families.

Rationale behind final 'Thriller' plot

We thought it would be best to both approach out final thriller pitch by each creating our own idea and concept of what we personally would like to have seen included in our thriller. By individually creating an idea from scratch it allowed us to clearly present our idea in detail and then compare, contrast and most importantly understand what we each wanted the thriller be. This is exactly what we did and for good reason, we were able to see clearly what each other wanted to be included within our piece. After hearing both ideas we picked out what we liked and disliked and from that were able to combine the best from both, which eventually built up to create our final thriller pitch. 

My idea focused mainly on the effects of drug abuse. I decided this would make for a good thriller as I could use typical thriller conventions such as flash backs and black outs to help create the atmosphere and build up tension and suspense, effectively killing two birds with one stone.  A simple idea that could incorporate a wide variety of shot types and angles very easily and most importantly effectively. Lorry’s idea was more typical to the thriller genre using common conventions such as a dark, shady killer, cold dark surroundings and victim casually going about his day unaware of the terror about to unfold. Although the idea was simple, he had included some very unique and clever ideas and after a ten minute discussion we decided to go with the main plot of my idea with the addition of different points of suspense creating moments in his. Doing this allowed  us to create our final thriller pitch and both be satisfied with the end result evenly contributing to the piece... smart thinking as any issues we may have had could have proved disastrous on the set filming days.

It is because of this we were able to come up with a clever and effective plot that we hoped would keep our target audience engaged.

Steven & laurence, Thriller break down, plot and script

Scene 1: Steven’s conservatory                                                                3 characters total

                                                                                                                   John- Jake

1, multiple shots of Ryan working                                                                 James- Lorry

                                                                                                                   Ryan- Steven

Outside shot

Inside shot

Kitchen window shot

2, character appears fine, normality, quiet

First flash back

Second flash back

Third flash back

3, first flash back

Running through the woods, high speed, multiple angles

Over head

4, cuts back to conservatory,

Character begins to look distort, worried, phased

5, Second flash back

Running, first person shot, breathing heavily, looking about frantically

6, Cuts back to conservatory

Close up of Character, eyes, book, losing focus

7, final flash back

Side angle, branch brakes beneath feat whilst running, trips falls, close up, fade to black

Scene 2:  wood Ponds? Cold, bright, normality

1, pan shot of pond, fishing, camp

3 characters sitting around camp, fishing, quiet, peaceful

2, second character reveals a small bottle containing unknown pills

Script:

_____________________________________________________________________________________

James - (revealing bottle of pills) I picked these babies up off a friend up In Stamford

Ryan - so this was the little surprise you were talking about earlier

John - What surprise, what are you guys talking about!?

James - (shows john the bottle) now I’ve been told they got quite a kick, so if your too much of a pussy john, u can fuck off now

John - (hesitant, cautious, looks at Ryan) Ryan, a.a.are you sure we should be doing this?, I don’t like this at all

Ryan - (grabs the pills of James) quit being such a little fag john, u gotta try everything once right? (opens bottle,  hands James one, holds another out to john)

John - …

Ryan – You gunna take it then? (john reluctantly takes the pill from Ryan)

James – atta boy, guess you’re not such a massive fag after all…

Close up of the three characters hands, with a small white pill in each, camera rotates around the three characters, they take the pill

3, Cuts to black

4, first person shot, vision blurry, Ryan laying on the floor, looks about

Ryan sees john with a fishing knife held to James’s neck against a tree, fades to black (losing consciousness)

5, ( Ryan regains consciousness) first person shot, camp is destroyed, no sign of James, blood in the water

John walking over slowly, close up of knife by his side covered in blood, Ryan’s vision begins to blur and fade again as he losses consciousness)

6, Ryan back in the conservatory, he looks down, and reveals a clean shiny knife, runs his fingers along the blade, a single tear rolls down his face and hits the blade, cuts to black

The END

Power point - Thriller plot ideas (from bottom - up)