Shooting Schedule Overview

9th March 2012


6:00pm- Me and my partner stay on at school and have dinner.

6:30pm- Filming of our thriller commences in 'Beevors' boarding house at 
                   school and should go on for at least one and a half hours.

7:45pm/8:00pm- Filming should finish and all shots should have been   
                                    completed, whilst following the storyboard that me and my  
                                    partner made together.


Storyboard: http://www.thedonleonidou.blogspot.com/2012/03/storyboards-for-our-thriller-film.html

Preliminary Task

After having my film planned out and ready to be made I first decided to do a preliminary task that involved me creating a bit of footage and learning how to edit this footage and add a few effects. Therefore I got some simple footage with a group in class and worked with a standard video camera and tripod. From working with the video camera and tripod I learnt how to move the tripod around and how to capture different shots with the video camera. From this experience I also have managed to find some shots that I could use for my own thriller. After capturing some footage of my classmates I then used the software 'Final Cut Pro' to edit my footage. From experimenting with this software I managed to learn firstly, how to use it and secondly, what I could fully get out of the software in order to make my own thriller film better, for example, cutting and effects like fades. After using 'Final Cut Pro' I felt that I could adapt what I learnt from experimenting with this software to my own thriller film. Above is my edited video of my classmates, which includes fades and mostly cuts.     

Storyboards for our thriller film

Me and my partner have decided to create a storyboard of our plot line. This will enable us to have a rough idea, when we're filming, about what that shots we're going to do and help us to present the plot line of our film.

Characters and Characterisation of our thriller

Micah Sloat from Paranormal Activity

The character 'Micah Sloat' for 'Paranormal Activity' has being a huge inspiration to our main character in our own thriller film. The main aspect of Micah is his adventurous side that he has when confronting the poltergeist.  In our thriller we have one character named Alex Michaelson. Alex is a 16 year old teenager that goes to a boarding in the middle of the countryside. Alex's personality is quite timid, which makes him most of the time a quiet person and keeps himself to himself. However due to Alex being quiet he sometimes suffers in his own silence and doesn't easily allow others to help him out. Alex is a lonely child and his parents are away often due to work or business events. This has quite an impact on Alex's personality because it does not allow him to communicate, therefore making him have to find out answers to his questions by himself. From this Alex has become quite an adventurous person (like Micah Sloat) and has recently become determined in finding out answers to his questions.     

Alex Michaelson (played by Andreas Leonidou)

Films that have inspired our thriller

There is only one main film that has inspired me and my partner in making our thriller. This is the film 'Paranormal Activity'. This film is based around this innocent young female that has a poltergeist following her everywhere she goes, therefore when she moves into her new house with her partner strange paranormal events occur, which gradually become worse and worse as the film progresses. The film's location is set in one setting (the house), which allows the director and producers to maximise the use of the set within the house. 

Me and my partner have decided to use one location in the start of our thriller, which, like this film, involves a long dark corridor and a bedroom. We have also decided to go down the paranormal route of thriller, meaning that are thriller is a psychological thriller. In our thriller we are hoping to produce that paranormal and dark, mystical effect throughout. At times we will use this effect to build up  suspense and give off a good adrenaline rush for the audience.

Location and Setting of our thriller

'Beevors' Boarding house

Bedroom in 'Beevors' house

When me and my partner were choosing a location we took into consideration how scary it would be, how well it would fit in with our plot line and the realism of the location. Despite all of these points adding to the 'thrill' factor of our film, we did have to think about how accessible the location was and how easy it was to get to it. 

Corridor of 'Beevors' house

Therefore we decided to use a boarding house in our school, which for obvious reasons was very accessible, whilst aiding the 'thrill' factor in our film. At the same time as being very convenient we feel the location is also very good and does improve the quality of our thriller. 

Shower room in 'Beevors' house

Despite the location improving the quality of our thriller it has also inspired us in some ways for our plot line of our thriller. For example, there is a scene where the main character in our thriller decides to look into a room but we did not know what that room would be until we found a shower room in our location, which further inspired us to have the shower running without anyone using it.    

Plot line of our thriller

Me and my partner decided to do a psychological thriller. Our storyline involves a 16 year old male that has come back early from half-term so he is boarding alone in the house. 

 
Then he hears a scream and wakes up in a shocked state but thinks nothing of it so he goes back to sleep. Then what feels like 2 minutes later he hears another scream, which was much louder than the last one. The male then gets out of his bed and leaves his room. 
 



A sound of smashed glass is heard from the shower room down the corridor, which makes the male want to go back into his room but the   door is tightly shut. 

So the male decides to go down the corridor. He also hears the shower running  so he takes a look around the shower door and notices the smashed glass on the floor. Then all of the sudden the bedroom door behind him opens and pulls him in.