Planning in Reference to... Production,Inspiration,Genre, Context & Audience in planning discussions

Who do we envisage producing our film...?

The type of company we pictured producing our film wouldn't be big budget hollywood, but something a tad more low key, a company that could explore, market, and would initially be interested in a gritty, traumatic thriller film like our own. We pictured a an independent company, who would want also want to create a serious, hard-hitting film, rather than a clear goal driven, plot predictable big revenue movie. (We pictured companies like 'Film Four Productions' 'Lions Gate Films' 'Summit Entertainment' 'Overture Films' or 'Hannover House')

What was the inspiration behind our concepts and ideas...?

Many TV dramas that had had us frightened,gripped and intrigued, quirky credit sequences, and thriller films gave us  the inspiration for our film. 

- We'd seen many serial dramas on channel four and itv, that had incorporated the conventions and concepts of the thriller genre, in a naturalistic but scary way. we were inspired by programmes such as, 'Five daughters' 'This is england' 'Prime Suspect' 'The Little house' etc, all of which touched serious issues in interesting ways.

- We looked at various credit openings to get a feel of how typical sequences worked, but these also gave us many rebounding ideas of our own, for ways in which we could make our credit sequence, much more interactive and creative! For instance, the opening credit sequence of the E4 comedy drama 'Fresh Meat' the names of those involved/ the cast appear on/around different elements of the student house they live in, this and the parallel music really help to set up the tone of the programme, and we wanted/were inspired to, create the same affect with our own opening sequence! 

Genre,Audience and Context

In order to accurately include key conventions of the thriller genre we studied and analysed many similar openings that fell under the same category, this helps us initiate what we would need to defiantly include before we could start throwing about more inventive concepts. (We watched clips from  films such as 'Sherlock','Inception','Jaws' and 'Physco' and some other media students previous work). We also debated putting our film into a different time frame/context, because we felt it had made some of the other films more affective and could attract a wider audience more effectively (if it was set say 20 years ago some dramatic elements may seem more dramatic as the audience would not be able to necessarily relate to this time frame as well making them feel disconnected and disorientated) we saw our audience as being mid-late teen/young-mid adult - a fairly wide range, but one with whom could deal with the issues we intended to explore. 

Our filming schedule

Because we needed to book cameras and organize filming our actresses at several different locations, it was vital we had a legible, clear filming schedule as above.

Our Pitch

This is the basic plot line to the opening sequence of our thriller film. Set in the 21st century, where the real horror and chills are drawn from behind the doors of suburban normality, the safe havens and places children feel secure and at home. Our protagonist, a sixteen year old girl, occupied by running her everyday stresses away with a relaxing soak, idiotically allows an intruder, posing as a 'helpfull' handy man, into her house. Rushing to turn off the taps and shut out her problems, she leaves the suspicious stranger downstairs. After hanging back for a few minutes and eerily inspecting her childhood photographs, he ascends the staircase, getting closer and closer to something he is far too familar with...

STORYBOARDING

The above was our completed storyboard, but to make it easier to read, see below. 

Media Storyboard

Props and Costumes

Group Meeting #4

Today we tried to sort out our props and costumes. The main character was to be wearing a dressing gown to appear vulnerable, the pervert was to be wearing a hat low over his eyes to seem dodgy and a luminous jacket as part of his disguise, and all the other characters were to be wearing school uniform from various schools to show their age and innocence. We also needed a framed photo for a certain shot we wanted to do, and any book.

Group Meetings #1 #2 & #3

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Group Meeting #3  

In this meeting we started to roughly storyboard with Post-It notes, trying to figure out what we needed to do and what kind of shots we could manage. We didn't get very far, and planned to continue this upon our next meeting.

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Group Meeting #2
In our following lesson, with a rough idea in our heads, we decided to start thinking about locations and our cast: what we could realistically do. We realized that our family members could play a big role as the part of the paedophile and the young girls (siblings), and that as it was set in a house any one of ours would do. We also started thinking about different shots we could do that we liked, and started to briefly order our thoughts so we knew what to film. 

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Group Meeting #1

This was our first lesson concerning our final video for our coursework. After having been briefed by our teacher, we were given some sugar paper and started to brainstorm everything, from which genre we should do down to as specific as signs on doors. We ended up wanting to do a thriller, with somewhat of a rough idea: we thought we could do a paedophile inviting himself into a young girls' home, with the audience knowing his history of paedophilia but with the young girl not having a clue. We had a good idea of how to present this, by elongating the scene of him walking up the stairs, making a montage where each footfall reminded him of a different girl at a different time. 

Own response to Brief

The brief we were given we were all very pleased with. We all were able to have an input of our ideas and we were happy with the fact that we thought we could do the brief to a high level. We all had ideas which we put together to come up with a good idea. The group were pleased with the brief and thought that we were able to present a well edited, well filmed and well acted film.