First production meeting: ideas generation

In this post i will be talking about our thriller opening idea and how our group of three has developed these ideas

First idea - romance/psychological thriller

This idea is set in American prison and is about a man and a woman (who is a police officer) who have been in a relationship but it all crashed down when the man made her have an abortion. This pushed the woman to the limit and she snapped and got him on death row. She done this by murdering someone and pinning the blame on the man, however she changes her mind and tries to save him by using all her power to stop his execution but not getting the blame on herself. 

some costumes that will be used will be police uniforms and orange overalls for prisoners. some of the props that will be used include - knives, necklaces, guns etc.

We thought this was a good thriller as it connects with the audience as we end up sympathizing for the villain as she has reached her ultimate low point. Furthermore there would be a lot of suspense and action to interest the audience but give them a shock too. Lastly we thought this would be a good thriller as it is more girly so people who prefer these films will be more interested but they still get a shock and suspense.

Second idea - crime thriller

This idea is set in a rural part (east) London and is about two girls who are socializing and hanging out in a field. One girl (Sarah) is spooked by rustling in the bushes and hears a twig break. The other girl (Shelby) dismisses her fear and they carry on with what they were doing but are then spooked once again and start to run. The girls then start to run for their lives as they have realised they are being chased; Shelby outruns Sarah so she is left behind and after a while Shelby try's looking for Sarah but fails. Shelby then gives up and goes come to find Sarah is dead on the floor in the bedroom.

The costumes would be just casual girl clothing that they may wear on a daily occasion, then the stalker will wear black/dark clothing like a track suit and hoodie - they will also have a mask. The props will be a photo and knife

We thought this was a good thriller opening as it is slow at the beginning so the audience really start to connect with the characters so when they die, its a huge shock. This is our use of a McGuffin as these girls have no relevance to future events. Also this is a good opening as its plain and simply so we as a group can easily film so all our hard work can go into the filming so the overall opening will look so much better.

Last idea - action thriller

This idea is set in two places at once, a bank and a high end luxury home. What happens in this opening is that it switches between two people who are married. The wife is having a good day at home where she may be cooking, cleaning and looking after the children while the husband is preparing a bank heist on the other side of town. The husband has picked his crew members the take part but commotion is caused when someone jealous complains he was not picked for the job; he has some mental issues so he travels to the wife where she gets murdered.

The costumes that will be used will be would be some heist clothing like black combat outfits and masks etc. and the wife may be wearing a designer dress. The props that will be use will be a necklace that was stolen in the heist, guns, other jewelry. 

We thought this idea was good as the idea of two story lines happening at the same time could interest the audience more and they could easily feel the connection between the two. Also another reason is that the wife's death could be seen as unexpected so having this shock and suspense would make this idea a good thriller.

Our group has decided to go with idea 2 as its simply, easy and has so much potential. This idea could become a really good thriller if we do this correctly; also this idea seems to be similar to other popular thrillers but is different and unique.

Here are some images of our group in the process of making and developing our ideas.

Editing introduction

In this post i will be talking about editing and the different types; i will then provide examples of these editing techniques from movies.

Editing is the process of looking at all the footage for a film/ TV programme and placing it in the desired order and joining it together. There are two types of editing:

Speed of editing
Speed of editing is how long does each shot last and can be increase or decreases by cutting things out or by letting the shot run longer. Changing the speed of editing can effect the film as more suspense can be added if the scene is short, or the scene can be more meaningful/personal if the scene is long. Scenes at the beginning of a film will be longer so this is enough time to tell a story, help the audience understand whats going on and to introduce the characters. As the film progresses on then the scenes will generally become shorter (depending on the film genre) so this adds an effect to the scenes; this can add suspense, tension and fright.
Here is a clips, it is the first fight in spiderman 1 which shows how the editing speeds up within a film to add more suspense.

Style of editing
Style of editing is how each shot is joined to the next and can be joined with different techniques; these are all commonly known as transitions. A cut, wipe, fade dissolve and jump cut are examples and they all provide a different feel to a scene.
Cut- these are instant editing from one shot to the next and therefore will be must faster if used. These can be used to create a fast pace speed of editing so suspense is added.
Wipe - this is when the whole shot/scene slides over and the next one follows. This breaks continuity as the scenes don't seem to be linked, this adds a fast pace feeling.
Fade - this is when the scene fades out to black or white. As no scenes follow this means it shows an ending to the scene however this is a slow ending as the scene fades slowly out.
Dissolve - this is like a fade but it is between two scenes (from one to another). this is a slow transition so a slow pace feel is present.
Graphic match - this is when the two scenes dissolve or cut to another but both have simpler looking items/shapes in each scene. this therefore links the two scenes together even if they have no linked meaning/story
Match on action - this is when someone is doing an cation and tree is a transition between that changes the angle/view of the action. when we see the next shot, the character has not finished the action but it carried on. for example when someone walks through a door and we see them go in but there is a cut so we see them on the other side
Jump cut - A jump cut is when there this a cut from the start of a scene to the end. This breaks he continuity as we see the character start and action but then suddenly we see them finish it. This is fast face or saves time. As jump cut is sometime hard to understand here is a video example (watch from 40 seconds onwards)

Here is a clip of the different transitions and you can see what effect they have on the scene. This is a great example of the different transitions as they have been used very well and helps us to understand the difference and how to use them.