Costume

Our thriller contains 2 different characters The sniper and the watcher.

 The sniper as a character is a younger man in his 20-30s who has recently taken up the career of a sniper. Although part of a highly respected organisation he has not informed his wife of his career, he lies. He pretends to be working in an office as a business man to keep it from his family, he covers up any weakness and shows passion towards his job and never wants to quit although he is scared and does not want to harm anyone because he is a family man. He puts up a barrier for himself so he can learn to be brutal and keep to his mind that work is work. The man is easily respected and has authority over many of the people in the organisation, yet he is the one that is put down for his typical unprofessional behavior meaning he needs to be put right and motivated to complete a task. His physical appearance should reflect a tall young man with longer hair, dressed entirely in black. Therefore we cast Mike.

 The watcher is a much older man roughly in his 50-60s, he has had a long time in the organisation and despite having the lesser important job to do he is the man that likes to be in charge and knows he is the most experienced in the organisation. The man is very focused on the job because it is all he knows and he gets agitated by the people who do not take it seriously. The watcher elected the sniper because he believes in him, he says things exactly how they are and questions peoples true ability until it is completely proved. The physical appearance for this character follows an older man with grey hair, glasses, a tall slender body also dressed in black. Therefore we cast Ezra.

My Storyboard

Sniper storyboard from Katie Emily

Re-Pitch

My group and i took the phone call concept and family concept from our originally constructed idea but fixed it with the slight cliche of guns being thrilling to create one of Kristians orginal ideas. We pitched this to Matt and immediately got a thumbs up on the idea, however he warned us to be cautious of when we write the script as the casual-ness may lead to a slight implication of comedy as appose to thriller. Matts favourite part of it was the way we took an idea that so many groups have and use in a way to make it unique and stand out and avoid the cliche problems that end up making it un-interesting for an audience to watch. Overall we are excited to get to the planning part of the process and put the thriller into action.

We have being going through a list of things that we are going to change and improve. We had a long think about casting, the people that appear in the thriller may set the tone for the audience as to whether or not they think they will enjoy it or not because in the first few minutes is where the audience will decide this. In the end we cast Mike and Ezra as they are two people that will appear well on camera together and the ages will bring realism to the characters, the more believeable it is the more real it feels meaning the more suspense is created. We will devise a script that is not funny in any way so that there is no chance of the thriller being mis-construed into something light hearted because we want the severity to be clear.

Re-Thinking Thriller ideas

After pitching our idea to Matt, although there were many aspects he liked the pitch was overall given a red light and we could not proceed to further plan the thriller. Upon this we decided to scrap the idea completely and begin from scratch because we wanted to let go of our idea to create something truely thrilling. Although the idea itself became completely different it only took 1 lesson to find certain elements from the original and keep it and create a new idea.

We decided that we particularly liked and enjoyed the concept of a man going about his business that is completely hidden from his family which is shown through the phone call. We wanted to keep this idea but change what her's hiding. Instead of him secretly being a killer and targeting women, we decided that he should be an assasin/sniper meaning he is a dangerous man which contrasts the family man the audience will see on the phone. We liked this because there was something rather thrilling to us about the concept of a man being so casual to his family and not having a care about his brutality which we believed would be very captivating.

We chose for him to be a sniper because that gives the impression of a highly skilled individual, and watching him go from the sweet family guy to the asassin. To become a sniper takes alot of training and being secretive giving a suggestion that he has been hiding this for a long time.

My group and i took the phone call concept and family concept from our originally constructed idea but fixed it with the slight cliche of guns being thrilling to create one of Kristians orginal ideas. We pitched this to Matt and immediately got a thumbs up on the idea, however he warned us to be cautious of when we write the script as the casual-ness may lead to a slight implication of comedy as appose to thriller.

First Pitch and Feedback

After a large amount of gathering information, arranging and planning out our thriller we were finally ready to pitch to Matt. We gathered a large amount of information revolving around our thriller idea such as the background of the male character such as looking on other men who has murdered. A particularly interesting man we researched was the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy.

We used his as a basis for our character as he was well known for being a rather charming man who was a loving man meaning nobody would have suspected a thing due to his naturally trustworthy characteristics. I myself did background research on him and because of this our group used him as an inspiration towards creating our male character. He also appeared on the mood board we created that refelected the meaning and happenings of our thriller. When it came to arranging we needed to specifically decide where we wanted the camera and for what shots to make sure we would have a variety of options to use when it came to the filming process. Lastly with reguards to the planning we mapped out everything we wished to be present in the thriller such as: cast, props, location, costume, back story and the continuing plot. This is all displayed on my powerpoint that is soon to be posted.

Matt came in and spoke to each group individually. He did particularly like our idea as it was thrilling and was well planned out and decided so we were all happy from our original ideas to the build up of what we wanted to have as a finishing product. After pitching the idea although he liked in there were many flaws that resulted in us needed to re-think and possibly change our idea. Our backstory was the first issue, this is because it was pointed out to us that the concept of a serial killer gone mad typically falls into the horror category even if no horror is displayed on screen during our opening sequence of the thriller, however Matt approved of our back up idea but in order for that back up idea to work we had to change the concept of what happened in that hotel room.

In every movie there is a structure that follows - Opening Sequence - Act 1 - Act 2 - Act 3 and our thriller idea would fit in the Act 1 section meaning it does not strictly count as an opening sequence to a thriller. For this reason my group took on board all of the points made and we have begun to re-think of ways we can keep the element of the phone call and keep the spy story but manage to change to an opening sequence that fits into the Thriller category, we have much to think about but are thankful for the criticism we received from Matt and will take it all on board.

First Pitch

Autumn pp from Katie Emily

Use of storyboards

When created a piece of media storyboards are essential for a number of reasons. Not only does it visually give the team working on it an idea of what order it will go in and the number of shots that will be needed, but, it also gives a clear image of how the director invisions the scene to look when it is transferred from paper to camera, can give an idea into making a shooting schedule so that everything is done in the most efficient and simple way that it can be. The overall way to express why storyboards are useful is that "A storyboard is a graphic organizer in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence"

Here is a breakdown of the reasons a storyboard is useful:

Best way to express a vision

A visual aid makes it much easier for you to share and explain your vision for your video with others.

We’ve all had experiences where we were trying to explain something and the other person just can’t see your vision. The core of this issue is that most stakeholders don’t have the experience of visualizing something off of a text deliverable, such as a script.
When you have a storyboard, you can show people exactly how your video is going to be mapped out and what it will look like. This makes it infinitely easier for other people to understand your idea.

Saves you alot of time
While it may take you a little while to put your storyboard together, in the long run it will save you time in revisions later. Not only will it help you explain your vision to your team, it will also make the creation process go more smoothly.

Makes production easier
When you storyboard a video you’re setting up a plan for production, including all the shots you’ll need, the order that they’ll be laid out, and how the visuals will interact with the script.
The storyboard is a starting point or suggested thoroughline around which you can plan your coverage (all the angles you will shoot of a scene). This really comes in handy when you’re making your video, as it ensures you won’t forget any scenes and helps you piece together the video according to your vision.