The Faculty

We have made a mood board up of images from the opening of The Faculty. We have chosen these images as you can see they are set in a school. It also shows the characters being trapped and unable to escape, which we want to make our characters look the same when we film our thriller. It builds up tension as you can see that the characters can not escape at all as there is a chain lock on the doors, and anyone is running everywhere trying to escape. We would like to build this tension up in our thriller.

By Kirsten Toye and Charlotte Bocking

The Faculty Opening

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0qHnO8CWSE

We viewed this thriller, The Faculty, and we watched this as it is similar to what we are going to do. Our thriller is going to be set in a school after everyone has gone home, and this thriller opening starts in a high school after hours and this is where the story line starts. The football coach in this film is the killer and attempts to kill other members of staff in the first 8 minutes of the film. This is similar to our idea as someone discovers someone taken hostage within the first 2 minutes. In The Faculty someone also discovers the teacher who is hurt quite quickly. This builds tension as the person is still alive but could be killed and that makes you want to keep watching.

As it is set later in the evening when the school is not meant to be open to everyone there are similarities there. They are both set in the dark so both have harder visibility so you cannot 100% see what is going on, and this confuses the watcher and builds up the tension.

This is a mood board of potential ideas that relate to what our thriller will be like.
We have put the you tube image of the boy in the chair because we liked the idea of if this and are thinking about using it in our thriller.
We have put the the second image in because the actors are in a hostage situation. We like the use of back lighting to create a sense of drama.
We have entered the image of Long Road Sixth Form College, because this is where we will be filming our thriller.
We choose to put the image of Jennifer's Body as it is set in a school so it influences our thriller.
We have used a picture of a boy held hostage because we would like to add this into our thriller, because as we mentioned before the video from the first picture influences our thriller a lot.

Planning Our Thriller

Location - We are going to shoot our thriller in the school grounds as all 3 of us live too far away to meet up elsewhere. We will either be using a corridor inside the college, then into one of the classrooms which will have the lights off, or we will be using the main hall and the back of the stage. Tomorrow we will be looking at each location to choose which one will fit our storyline the best.

Storyline - The start of the thriller will be a student at the college is in college late at night, so out of school hours, doing some extra work. There are not many people in the college which will add to the eeriness and the tension. They feel as if they are being followed, so make a fast walk/run towards either the classroom or the main hall. If they enter the classroom, they will find the lights off, tables turned at pushed to the side and someone tied up in the corner. If they enter the main hall they will go behind the stage and discover someone tied up hidden behind the stage. As it is dark the person tied up will not be visible straight away and the camera will be moving fast to give the effect of the student panicking and looking around quickly. It will the quickly flick to the credits which are pictures on a board and newspapers which the credits written on these images. They writing will flicker and the title will be slightly transparent to give a spooky effect. The genre of our thriller is a psychological thriller as you would not know why someone is tied up and who put them there. Also there will be noises when the student is in the dark which would build up the suspense as you would not know who or what is there.

long road influence

This video has certain aspects we are going to use as a influence for our thriller trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/longroadmediastudies#p/c/AA38FF5975A95FB3/52/qwmepUMmtr4

This is our 'ident logo', we designed it on photo shop and as our production line is called Kiwi Productions we used colours which match a kiwi, such as green and brown.We have also incorporated a shirt theme tune to go alongside the logo.

Variations of Thrillers

Today we looked at different variations of thrillers, such as:
psychological, political, crime and action.

Psychological:
1. a) Internal conflict
b) External mind games

2. Reality identity and paranoia

Political:
1. Innocent
2. Vs the government
3. Conspiracy
4. A secret sense
5. Secret information

Crime:
1. Police investigation
- How are they going to catch them
- Uncovers the truth
2. Trying to preform a crime
- How do they escape
- How do they preform the crime
- Why they did it

Action:
1. Action films - they hero runs towards the action
2. Action Thriller - The hero runs away.
3. How does the hero respond to the problem
a) Instinct to use action
b) forced to use action

Politcal thriller (influence)

A political thriller is a thriller that is set against the backdrop of political power struggle. They usually involve various plots, rarely legal, designed to give political power to someone, while his opponents try to stop him from getting it. They can involve national or international political scenarios. World War II is a favorite scenario, as are US presidential elections. Authors of political thrillers include Jeffrey Archer and Daniel Silva.

The question is often asked "what makes a political thriller?" Erik Lundegaard recently attempted a definition when reviewing the recent film The Interpreter, - (FROM WIKIPEDIA)

As a group we have discussed the relevance of this definition , we agree that Political thrillers are full of power and struggle and this in turn, creates tension. They are also fast paced, this adds to the tension.

Videos from you tube of policical thrillers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k9bqqLUge0 - pelican brief

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-8Ik27_6Uw - Munich

Idea of the genre Thriller

Quotes from Wikipedia:

'fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heros'

'exotic settings such as foreign cities, deserts, polar regions, or high seas'

'overlap with mystery stories'

All these words describe the genre thriller. Thriller is more psychologically haunting, whereas a horror is more graphic and gruesome.

Prelimary Task

I have chosen Sixth Sense as a influential piece for a thriller , the use of realistic scenarios and situations helps the reader relate and adds depth to the plot. I believe it is thriller and not a horror because the film does not have a lot of stereotypical scenes they are more of a 'thriller ' than horror , there is minimum blood and other harsh fatal wounds shown to affect the viewer. The film is more thriller than horror and i believe Sixth Sense is a great influence because of its sociological value, it tricks the viewer into a scared state.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2sDw-XBuKc... Sixth sense trailer

Preliminary task

for our location we have chose the G block elevator , we have chose this because it is obvious for the viewer to understand.

Close up shot - Close up off button being pressed

Match on action shot - outside shot of lift doors closing

Reaction shot - actor walk past elevators , stops , sees character 1 and appears shocked and troubled.

Long shot - long shot from the corridor

Conversation , 180 degrees rule, standing in corridor

Ryan - camera-man
Kirsten - actress one (Claire)
Charlotte - actress two (Jane)

character 2 : OH ! its you ...

character 1 : Hello Jane

character 2 : sorry... erm iv ..got to.... Iv got to go !