Thriller shoot day

17th Jan 2011 filming: 

Always lock your doors...

by Holly Finlay, Emily Benson Rhodes, Mehran Karimi, Paula Riemann

1. The beginning of the day / Storyboard changes

The day begun when we met in the Hurtwood Media room to discuss how and where we were starting to film. Already while talking through the whole structure of the shooting day and our film’s storyline, a few things appeared to need to be slightly changed, for example we wanted to use dogs for one scene which weren’t available anymore.  We didn’t change certain scenes at that moment in time, but during the filming several shots (also narrative wise) turned out to be very different, but mostly in a positive and more effective way.

A good example is the dogs. We planned them into a scene where the main actress tries to answer the phone but they don’t stop barking that’s why she can’t hear that her husband’s on the phone and not at home yet (which is a very important information for her to know in the film’s storyline). But without the dogs, we didn’t only make filming the sequence a lot easier for us, the scene is so much clearer now and simpler to understand and tells exactly what needs to be told and no unnecessary extras that also wouldn’t actually fit in the overall style of our movie.

Apart from this incident, me and my group knew what we want our opening sequence of a thriller movie to be and planned every detail, up until the director’s Father pulling up at 3.30pm with his black Ferrari willing to contribute to our thriller by borrowing our actress his beloved car! (Although in the scene he’s driving.)

2. Location / Shot choices

We chose three different locations that are:

The interior of a modern style apartment, a black tiled bathroom and the drive outside of a mansion called Ewhurst Place.

   

We decided not to set up in the studio because for what we needed to create suspense in our film, the small space availability in the studio would not have worked. Therefore we chose locations where we can a show deep blurry background while focusing a close-up on the character in the foreground to convey the feel of ‘There’s someone in the house who’s not supposed to be there!’ and the tension of not knowing if every second someone will enter the room or pass behind the character. And obviously showing an old big house always works for scary movies.

In one shot we decided to film her from the outside through the kitchen window when she leaves the kitchen, so that the impression that someone’s watching her is given. 

Our film opening starts quite slow in constrast to other thriller where lots of quick shots and cuts enhance suspense and ist genre. We therefore though that a slow pace in the beginning of a film underlined with low and scary music will build up suspense even stronger and is a difference to other films. This is why I think that target audience wise, it’s likely that we attract rather an older target audience like 18+ because teenagers that like watching horror movies expect a higher speed or more action. Although the theme of the movie is very commercial.

I can’t think of a specific shot yet that didn’t work at all but the very last shot when the she sees the stranger in her house the first time was the one about which we needed to think about the most and needed several attempts. But in the end we decided us against showing him from the front. We filmed over his shoulder entering a room and showing her shocked face of his POV.

If I had the chance of doing something differently... I wouldn’t!

3. Costumes / Props

The locations where we filmed:Kitchen and bathroom, provide a high amount of props to show a character’s personality what is an important aspect when there is such a small cast in a movie.

                       

Plenty of images of family and children paintings were shown which tells us that in the house lives a happy family. In our story, the audience is told that there is a Dad with his new wife (several years younger) living in the house.

     

She appears very young, and beautiful and dressed in expensive clothes, wearing a Louis Vuitton handbag which will indicate how she maybe enjoys the fact that her new older husband is quite wealthy. (This might also be why her house is broken in to).

Why we chose a young, pretty blonde woman and dressed her in a bright red dress / a leopard print dressing gown, is because in horror movies/thriller the beautiful blonde woman always is the victim, so we sticked to this stereotype. Her red dress conveys her personality, so a strong, independent maybe even harsh character.



4. Cast

We chose Helena Lageder, 18 years old, as our main actress because she’s a beautfiful blonde girl but looks older than her age which was good for us because we imagined a woman between 23-30. Marketing wise, a good looking woman as the main part of a movie also always attracts more viewers!

Helena did an amzing job and we were more than pleased with her acting, appearence and professionalism!

5. Lighting

The lighting we used was basically only natural lighting, day light. It was a bit  cloudy and rainy outside, so we used the weather’s lighting; bright but no sun.

Some of shots are too dark, so I think if I could re-shoot I would pay more attention to the lighting. I’d imagine more bright sharp colors in the scenes, but we will be able to edit this!

6. Sound

We basically only use natural sounds. What these sequences is made of, is the realism. In the post-production we will be editing the sound in terms of supporting and enhancing sounds like locking the door, steps, doorslam, the engine of a car.... etc.

This kind of naturalistic sound emphasizes the style of our thriller and builds up a suspense because we actually don’t tell what might happen.

If we’ll add non-diegetic music, we didn’t decide yet.

7. My role

I was the producer. Because the idea’s origin of the thriller wasn’t mine, so it was not my passion, it was my responsibility to make everything the director wanted possible. I did all the organisational stuff, got the props, costume and make-up for the actresses, planned the daily schedule and decided whether a shot should have been taken or not.

Oh, and I also took over the Make-Up artistic part...

8. Teamwork

Our team was amazing. That’s what we thought right in the beginning when our teacher told us our groups. We had two photography students, Mehran and Emily, who are really good with camera technic and editing things, and me and Holly who are more the creative and directing persons. In the end everybody kind of did everything but it’s good to have specialists in some areas. We worked really well in a team, had no argues and lots of fun.

9. Happiness

Up to now, I am very pleased with our work. I had a really fun and interesting day filming our thriller opening sequence and the first editing attempts were very nice too.

I wish I could film everyday.

I can not wait until we actually start putting everything together and to show people the results and be proud of it.

I think, everybody in my group enjoyed it and wish us luck for the post-production process!

10. THANK YOU!