The Opening Sequence and mise-n-scene in our thriller

Opening Sequence Mise-en-Scene

Shot List for our Group Thriller

1		See a bike cycling towards the camera	Mike	bike
2		Long shot of woods
3		Another shot of different part of woods
4		Side, low angle of cyclist in trap in pain	Mike	trap
5		A high angle of victim in trap in pain	Mike	trap
6		Pan up of him in trap	Mike	Trap
7		Close up of him in trap	Mike	Trap
8		Pan down of him in trap	Mike	Trap
9		Close up of painful part of trap	Mike	Trap
10		Shot of empty woods
11		Mid shot of cyclist trying to get out	Mike	Trap
12		Close up of hands trying to untangle out of trap	Mike	Trap
13		Mid shot of feet in the distance	Daisy
14		Close up of cyclists face in pain and desperation to get out	Mike	Trap
15		Close up of murderer turn to look at him	Daisy	Trap
16		Close up of cyclists body trying to get out	Mike	Trap
17		Close up of murderer concerned	Daisy
18		Close up of cyclist struggling	Mike	Trap
19		Mid shot of murderer start to run	Daisy
20		Close up of cyclist biting trap to get out	Mike	Trap
21		Close up of panic in murderers face while running	Daisy
22		Close up of cyclist struggling	Mike	Trap
23		Close up, eye match of cyclist turn to look at murderer	Mike&Daisy	Trap
24		Mid shot of murderer slow down as approaching cyclist	Daisy
25		Close up of cyclist with slight relief	Mike	Trap
26		Mid shot of him asking for help	Mike	Trap
27		Mid shot pan down of murderer bending down to help	Daisy	Trap
28		Close up of cyclist calming down	Mike
29		Close up of murderer putting gun to face	Daisy and Mike	Gun
30	Close up of panic in cyclists face		Mike
31	Establishing shot of woods as hear sound of gun shot

 

Props and Costume and Actors

The setting for the Thriller sequence is the woodland countryside, locals, especially during times of cold weather, dress in typical country cloths, big coats, scarfs, wellies, and a variety of hats.

The female killer who is locally based has to somewhat fit this description, so after searching the internet the group found the ideal image.


This role will be played by one of the student in our year group, portraying the women in fig 1, but much younger looking and shorter, she perfectly subverts the stereotype of the typical killer.

The Trap that our victim will be in has been very thought out by the group, a bear trap would be to complicated and coincidental for our victim to fall into, and hanging bay a rope would not be sever enough. We finalised at having a barbed wire trap, flimsy and DIY looking, yet deadly and harm inflicting.

Our Victim would be trapped after falling of his bike, and not be able to free himself without causing a great deal of harm to his trapped limbs.

 Sticking to the rural theme, a double barrel shotgun would be the best murder weapon for our killer, using a more modern firearm would be unrealistic, and using a blunt or sharp edge murder weapon would not be as intimidating, and make our killer look more professional than she is.

Our Victim is the cyclist, as someone travelling at fast pase who has their mind on other things is most likely to miss things he isn't looking for, like a trap that he may get tangled in. Using a farmer as our victim would need to involve too much complexity, investigating the object. We would have to invent a reason for why he was walking there, dog walking or hunting for example, would prove complicated, so a cyclist victim was the simplest idea. One of Our teachers will be playing the cyclist, big thighs, skinny frame, and much older than our victim, further subverting the stereotypes of your typical thriller.

The Location, the woods at Peaslake

The Woods at Peaslake

Peaslake boarding house, which belongs to the school, is near a very secluded area of woodland close by to the main village. Popular with cyclists, Surrey hills is the most wooded county in Britain, so when looking for forested scenery we have lots of choice. The reason that our group choose Peaslake woods, is because were are close to Peaslake House, if something goes wrong, or we need something quickly, then most likely it is at the house.

Like i said, our location choice is very generic, as we are in Surrey choosing the exact spot were we film is less of a problem, however we have to take into consideration, the logistics and practicality of the location, which is narrowed down to peaslake woods.




Update : The Track on Main School Campus

On the day of the shoot, our supervising teacher told us that driving all the way to Peaslake to shoot would be a waste of time, and we had the problem of transporting the bike too and from school. He told us that there was a cycle track on school campus, past our main house at the top of the school, it was secluded, and close by to school, which made things much easier than going to peaslake.

Institution, which one would make our Film

Rocket Jump

Why this is the perfect institution to Produce and Shoot our Film 

An independent film making company based in Los Angles USA, Rocket jump originates from the Youtube channels, ‘Freddiew', 'BrandonJla' and ‘Corridor Digital’. 

Specialising in VFX and comedic action sequences which were regarded as being the best on the Internet, the channels also offer tutorials in their behind the scenes videos. There most popular video to date counts at more than 29 million views, and currently have just under 7 Million subscribers.

Having independently made shorts once a week, and the low budget film ‘Bear’(2010), the Co-creator of Freddiew, Freddie Wong, set out to do ( at the time) what his 5 million strong fan base had been asking him to do for years, make a TV style internet series. Freddie and his Co-creator Brandon Laatsch (BrandonJLA) spent 7 months in secret writing the internet series, titled Video Game High School, being he first independently made internet series it was viewed over 10 million times, and encouraged the two writers  to make a further 2 seasons, and ended the story in late 2014. 

Having been independent, low budget and dedicated film maker in the past, Freddie Wong has a very good understanding of how to finance effectively, with little money, and how to achieve amazing results in short spaces of time, sometimes overnight. When still on their own, they may write something Saturday afternoon, shoot Saturday night, edit through to Sunday morning and release the video onto Youtube as soon as they were done, the videos targeting the hip young teens and twenties audiences (although he himself is now coming into his 30s).

Freddie Wong, in one of his earlier
YouTube shorts 'Beach Justice' 

Having been fans of the Channel from an early stage, i understand that Rocket Jump is a small and very professional company, which now is moving into the big leagues along side Lions Gate, but at its current state, they would be able to work very closely with our group in order to make our film work, they way we would imagine it, whilst at the same time effectively advising us on how to make it better. Due to having a strong presence on Social media and through comments on Youtube, they are able to understand week in and week out what media Text their audience want to see, so every new Text is as up to date as it needs to be.

Also, having many dedicated financial backers, Rocket Jump are able to achieve more, in the past they had creativity yet very limited resources and time to make the visions happen. Now with more money and time, their sky is the limit.

One factor to be taken into account is that Rocket Jump Operate on the Online Platform, and though transferring to TV and the Big screen is a possibility, it isn't necessary, F. Wong is a very strong believer in the online platform for Media Texts, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Youtube, will eventually over take TV and the Big Screen, due to the on demand exesibility they offer. And being amateur film makers this is the easiest platform to access and is a good platform to reach our audience for feedback on the media text we finally produce. 

Due to contracts with bigger companies such as LionsGate, there is possibility that our film could be handed onto them for a transformation into a bigger production. But we would be taking things realistically by starting out with a smaller company, and working towards the big leagues, and Rocket Jump is the perfect platform for this tactic.

The Recki Shoot and Test footage

Mid shot / low angle

One of the steps on the way to completing our course work was doing what is called a 'Recki shoot'. This is were we film the entire opening sequence to see what does and doesn't work in terms of camera angles, actions, movement of characters or if certain ideas just don't work.

Close up, after the Biker falls off, she lands and we have
a POV shot of the Killer walking towards her, then we went up to the
highest point in school so that we could film an establishing shot
over the Surrey South Downs, to show the gun going off and for how far
it is Heard

As this was an observation of wether or no the angles and filming style would work, Mise-En-Scene and props wasn't of concern, so Ellie, playing our cyclist, insisted that she sat on a frisbee. When shooting her i simply used my fingers to represent a gun. and the 'Exorcist' poster at the end was meant to represent a picture of the cyclist.

We wanted to see what would and wouldn't work well in terms of length of shots and actions, as a group we decided that having a 30 second long segment of cycling was incredibly irrelevant and boring. So we decided to write in something that would take up better time. 

This process told the group that our idea really needed re-thinking, although camera angles and connotations will stay with us throughout the rest of pre-production and will be used later on. Location was as expected, but during the actual shoot we hope to go to a much less built up and secluded area.

Our Mood Board

A selection of images that our group put to together, in order to explain the plot and to give us some helpful reference.

These images represent all of the connotations that we currently expect to put in our opening sequence, the bike in the forest which is one of the key images, and famous actors screaming and covered in blood which references past thriller and horrors which share connotations of our opening sequence. The pain and suffering of our cyclist victim is another strong image, that we wish to portay in the sequence.

The Killer, in our film is a woman, with red fingernails and red lipstick to emphasise her characters femininity, one of our planned shots shows the red fingernails and lips up close, so you know that its a woman.

Revenge and death are all apart of of the killers motives so we added in the key terms of what she feels, her motions and her inside voice.

Bear traps and other animal catching devices shows what the killer uses to pray on her victims, and a picture of her shotgun, along side other forms of murder and weapons, including a hunter and a figure pointing a handgun straight at the camera.