Evaluation of characters and actors, location, costume and props and soundtrack.

Characters and Actors

Within our opening for our thriller we have four characters seen throughout also with another character's voice in the narrative at the start. The main character is the girl, played by Meghan Summerfield, she is a drug addict who keeps on failing to pay her dealer the money for her drug addiction. This leads to her being threatened by the drug dealer but she doesn't listen to the threats. The drug dealer, who is played by Jack Mullane, is a thuggish gangster type character much like a characters from Guy Richie films such as 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' or 'Snatch'. The mum and child are innocent characters blind to their daughters/sisters drug addiction. The mum is played by Katie Boyer and the Child by Chris Boyer.Within our initial research we found characters such as the young girl in 'Leon' who's family are killed due todrug related problems. This is similar to our films as we have a young girl who is addicted to drugs and due to this her family are killed.

Locations

The opening takes part in two locations. One is the present and the other is the past seen as flashbacks. The 'present' location takes place at Holkham Beach in North Norfolk. We thought the setting was perfect as the beach is long and wide with a ripe tide, surrounded by the sea and pine woods made it the perfected isolated spot reflecting the Girls isolation in the world after the death of her close family. The 'flashbacks' take place in my house which is a medium sized terraced Victorian house that is backed onto by an alleyway. The house is used as the Girl's and her family's house that gets broken into by the dealer as he kills off her family. The alleyway was perfect as it is normally very quite and realistic as that would probably be the preferred route in if breaking in. The house we use is like the house used in equilibrium as its subdued and claustrophobic. The locations fit the conventions of a thriller as they have there own feelings attached such as solitude or claustrophobia.



Evaluation of Props and Costume.

The props we are going to use are; BB Gun, Needle, Spoon, Chili powder and toys. The spoon and chili powder is going to be used to create a fake heroin scene as well as the needle. The gun is for the drug dealer and the toys for the Girls brother playing with them showing his innocence. For the costumes we need a hooded top, a scarf, jeans and trainers for our drug dealer, the scarf so he can counsel his identity. For the Girl at the beach we need a long flowing scarf to blow in gusts of wind and hopefully lay on the water as she walks in. The staircase that we are going to use in our opening is conventional to the genre and is used in many thriller films including 'Leon' but 'Leon' uses a spiral staircase but we are going to use a normal staircase. But we are going to use the same birds-eye view shot of both the child and the killer.


Soundtrack

For our soundtrack we we're going to use 'Safe From Harm' by Massive attack but due to copyright infringement we cannot. So instead we are going to compose our own music. I think this will be more suitable and create more drama in the scenes as we can manipulate the song to the films edited version. We think we are going to create an ambient dance track with heavy use of strings to create a melancholy, somber and gloomy atmosphere. For the sound effects we will need a gunshot sound for the flashback scenes.

Music for our Thriller

We decided that for our thriller both me and Katie would compose the music as both of us are Music A level students and enjoying composition. We initially wanted to use 'Safe from Harm' by the Massive Attack but due to copyright laws we were not allowed. So instead of using free uncopyrighted music we would write our own. The benefits of this would be less restriction and more freedom within the music to express the cinematography. We wanted a piece that had both a sorrowful classical element along with dance music influences due to the more classical element giving the emotion and tension with contrast to the dance element reflecting the characters taste in music and overall also reflecting our potential audiences taste in music.

Colour and filter effects

Saturation: is the effect used to enhance or weaken the colours within the shot. This either makes the shot more bleak and boring or more vivid and harsh.

Lighting: There are many different types of lighting with different effects and uses. Ambient/naturalistic/artificial lighting is lighting that is supposed to look natural or is natural. Low keyl is dim light. Chiaroscuro is vivid black and white. Accent/spot light is a light used to highlight or emphasis something.

Filters: filters are colour lens to put over a camera to create a certain effect such as a cold feel with a blue filter, used throughout 'Minorty Report', or a red filter to create a warm feeling.

Saturation: used in 'Don't look now' to highlight the red coat of the young girl and also the blood.

Lighting: The overhead spotlight in the opening scene of 'Leon' to create dark shadows and creates a minsterious feeling as some of the characters features are hidden by shadows.

Colour: In 'Sin City' is used throughout to highlight certain colours out of the black and white background. Examples such as the red lips, the blood and the yellow of the evil yellow man.

The Tudors

Within the scene shown in the TV drama 'The Tudors' many editing techniques are used. One of these is a shot/reverse shot sequence when you see the POV of the Englishman seeing the Frenchman and then shot of the Englishman coming towards the Frenchman. The scene becomes disorientating as a the Englishman is chased by the French. One way in which this is done is that the 180 degree rule is neglected. This could also show opposition between the characters showing the fear in the Englishman and making the audience feel symphatic for the Englishman. Also varied cut speeds creates disorientation.