Molly La Fosse's Media Blog

The scene with the Wife in is going to be set in a kitchen where she is chopping up food. We are hoping to use the kitchen in Ewhurst House for this location. We want the torture scene to be set in an unfurnished basement, that looks generally unpleasant and dodgy. Luckily the Ewhurst House basement is perfect for this location. The clip below shows a Hurtwood thriller sequence from a previous year that was set in the Ewhurst House basement to give an idea of what it looks like...

This is the list of characters we will have in our thriller sequence. 1. The Wife - middle aged (late 30s/early 40s), intelligent, level headed - even during this frightening phone call. She is a housewife but secretly a spy and married to the accountant that has been captured. That is the reason that The Killer has captured him, in order to get back at the spy. In this scene she is shown in her kitchen, skilfully chopping up vegetables. In the rest of the film she will use her intelligence and spy knowleddge to beat The Killer.  Of average height, shoulder length brown hair. 2. The Killer - dressed smartly, in a black suit, all very polished and smart, well groomed. Think Keanu Reeves in John Wick... He is evil, ruthless, an assassin. Obsessed with cleanliness - kills a man when he gets blood on his shoes. Is depicted as unstable (shaking, taking pills).  3. The Torturer - dressed in a white boiler suit with a mask on. Say...

In our recent lesson we presented our idea to Matt who gave us helpful feedback and some constructive criticism. We pitched our idea to him using a powerpoint that Shaun had constructed. He explained that in the very first scene of a film you have to create the 'world' of the film and introduce the personality and skillset of the protagonist in order to show what they are capable of and set up the action of the rest of the film. He also pointed out that the fact that our idea requires 2 different locations could be slightly tricky since we get a limited amount of filming time but that it should not be a huge hindrance. However our setting of 'Office' is problematic because there isn't a feasible location we can use for it and therefore we decided to change the character of Secretary to the Accountant's Wife. This way we can just set her end of the conversation in a kitchen in one of the boarding houses. He liked the idea of having a phone conversation as the...

Made by Sean Canning

This is a step by step outline of our initial plot idea, including shot types. 1.  Secretary is typing.  High angle shot. 2.  Secretary gets up and walks out. tracking her feet 3.  Secretary walks down stairs.  High angle shot. 4.  Secretary walks to door and knocks, then enters.  C lose up shot 5.  Shot from inside the room showing her walking in. She walks towards the flashing phone and picks up.  C lose up shot 6.  Cut to room where man is being tortured. Camera  tracks over man on phone's shoulder , showing the torturing, mid shot to show full extent of torture 7.   C lose up  on torture implements but sequence is unbroken 8.  Cut back to secretary on phone, panicking.  Ex treme close up  9.  Cut back to man on phone, pulls out gun, shoots the two men.  Tracking shot. 10.  Push through past bodies to killer. Z oom shot 11.  Close up  on face of killer 12....

As a clear visual aid, storyboards are the best way of presenting your idea to other people. They are also helpful for when you come to film your idea as they help you to keep in mind how you want your thriller to look and how you want the action to progress. Only once you have established your characters, location and shot list can you create a storyboard. My group will be making one shortly to make sure we have a useful visual aid when it comes to filming our thriller.  an example of a storyboard

This Thursday we did a test shoot of our idea. It took us about 30 minutes to film and then we spent the rest of the lesson roughly editing it. Obviously when we shoot and edit the real thing it will take us much longer and we will use a Black Magic camera instead of our phones, so we knew this test shoot would not be fully reflective of how our actual sequence will look. However it was still a very helpful process as it   gave us a chance to practice our filming skills. It also meant that we developed our teamwork skills and we were able to see how well our idea worked in practice rather than just in theory. Now that we have edited this test shoot (which is shown below) we can see that our idea may be too basic and thus boring to watch and so we may need to think of a way of building up more tension for the audience. However thanks to this test shoot we now all have a much clearer picture of how our sequence will look and it will be useful when we present ...

The contact details for our group... contact sheet Name | Tel | Email Sean Canning                            +44 7393 …… Sean.Canning@hurtwood.net   Molly LaFosse                           +44 7725 …… Molly.LaFosse@hurtwood.net   Vova Solovyev                          +44 7468 …… Vova.Solovyev @hurtwood.net made by Vova Solovyev

THIS IS THE SHOT LIST WE USED FOR OUR TEST SHOOT.  1 .  Wife is cutting vegetables in the kitchen.  High angle shot. 2.  Secretary gets up and walks out. tracking her feet 3.  Secretary walks down stairs.  High angle shot. 4.  Secretary walks to door and knocks, then enters.  close up shot 5.  Shot from inside the room showing her walking in. She walks towards the flashing phone and picks up.  close up shot 6.  Cut to room where man is being tortured. Camera  tracks over man on phone's shoulder , showing the torturing, mid shot to show full extent of torture 7.   close up  on torture implements but sequence is unbroken 8.  Cut back to secretary on phone, panicking.  extreme close up  9.  Cut back to man on phone, pulls out gun, shoots the two men.  tracking gun  10.  Push through past bodies to killer  zoom shot 11.  Close up  on face of ki...

In order to prepare for our test shoot, we were given a document called a 'Shot List' and we had to chronologically write down each shot that we needed in our sequence, from the angle to who the subject is and what action they are doing. This was very useful as it means that on the day of the test shoot we will be able to film the sequence quickly and efficiently. It also helped us to discover flaws or parts that would be tricky to film and we figured out solutions for these. It is important that we do a test shoot because it brings the idea to life and reveals any major flaws in the idea. Also it means that when we pitch the idea to Matt he will have a visual representation of the sequence. Our test shoot is shown below : 

I am in a group with Sean Canning and Vladimir Solovyev.     During the brainstorming process we were inspired by the Dexter opening sequence, the YouTube channel 'Biting Elbows' and previous thriller sequences done at Hurtwood. I was pleased with how we worked as a team and we managed to come up with a plot which is a hybrid of everyone's ideas that we are all happy with. This is it... Secretary walks to door (see only her high heels, pleonastic clicking of heels), knocks, enters. Room in complete disarray (blood on walls?), room is quite dark – illuminated by the vibrating phone on table. Secretary picks it up, no voice on other line. Cuts to room where one man is being tortured. Behind them is a man on the phone, staring at it. Cuts back to secretary, she’s saying hello who is this etc, getting more and more panicky, we can only hear his heavy breathing on the other line. Cuts back to man who, whilst still on the phone, shoots both the torturer and man b...

Shaun and I got inspiration to film our sequence in the first person from the 'Biting Elbows' series on youtube. Their videos are awesome and their unique-ness is due to the way it is shot with a head cam. We also did some research on successful opening sequences for thriller films and TV programmes. Our favourite one we found was the Dexter opening sequence, where someone's normal daily routine is shot and edited in a way that makes it seem like something far more sinister and bloody. Even ketchup looks like blood, his breakfast bacon looks like human flesh, etc. This gave us inspiration for one of our backup ideas which was to show the morning routine of a serial killer.

This is my initial idea for our thriller. Next lesson my group is going to present our ideas to each other and come up with one together. Set in an English boarding school, one of the housemasters is kidnapped. The pupils of the boarding house find clues around the house which tell them how to find their housemaster. They follow these clues which takes them on a crazy journey across Europe whilst communicating with the kidnapper, who gives them 5 days to find their housemaster. Opening scene : Camera follows a trail of blood to the door of the housemasters office. Shows the room which is in complete disarray, moves around the room taking in its contents. Knock on the door, a student enters, notices the mess and the blood by the door. Looks out the window and sees a dark shadow run past, then hears a car speed away. She steps outside to see a note on the front step that says 'you have 5 days...follow the clues...' or something to that effect.

The thriller genre is defined as : 'being characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety.' Successful examples of thriller films are those directed by Alfred Hitchcock, such as Rear Window and The Birds. The plots of thrillers usually slowly build to a dramatic climax. Suspense is key in thrillers and is very successful at keeping the viewer hooked through the whole film. Alfred Hitchcock, the 'master of suspense', explained that suspense was the difference between giving the audience 15 seconds of surprise - for example the actual explosion of a bomb - or giving them 15 minutes of constant suspense and tension - eg the bomb has been underneath the table for 10 minutes and the viewer is aware of this, thus continually on the edge of their seat waiting for the bomb to go off, urging the characters to get out of the room, etc. Common sub-genres include ac...