Commentary on filming/planning process and how it went. (For Preliminary Task)

There are 3 people in my group including me. We all made a picture storyboard before we filmed our preliminary, it didn't take long, we managed to do the storyboard and filming in the same day. When we got to filming our preliminary task we decided that all 3 of us wanted to use the camera and film, so looking at our storyboard and the layout of the room we were in, we made is possible that all of us could be involved with the production of the task as well as 2 of us acting in the filming. The filming of our preliminary went really well and only took us about 15 minutes as we had our filming schedule planned out.

We went up to an empty classroom and set out the desks in a formation in which we were happy with and that was appropriate for the setting, feel and genre of our film clip. Joanna filmed Claudia walking through the door, crossing the class room and sitting down at the desk with me. Then Claudia and I filmed each others dialogue so that we could have some input on the making of our film, and include our shot reverse shot too. Joanna then took over the camera again and took a high angle shot of Claudia and I exchanging more dialogue which then led to me walking out of the room enabling Joanna to film a 180° shot and create our match on action element as well.

We were offered the use of a tripod to help with our filming to practise keeping the camera steady, however once we started the filming we decided not to use it as we kept the camera quite still in our hands, however we will use the tripod in our final task as i feel that could be an improvement on the finalised product.

When filming one element we did find more difficult than anticipated was the idea of continuity, we filmed enough footage so that we could edit parts to help keep the continuity factor working well. However we were editing it for longer than we wanted as we couldn't decide where abouts we should cut the film so that the continuity part was understandable and looked how we wanted it to. It also took three attempts to get our first shot of Claudia walking through the door how we wanted it, first we tried the camera following her, the camera was in Joanna's hands and she walked behind, this didn't work as the shot was quite unsteady, the second time we tried zooming in on Claudia as she walked into the room and we were not happy with that either so the third and final time we held the camera in one position while the action took place and we really liked this shot so used that one.

'Type Writer' Fonts

In our main task we are going to be using a type writer, so i am going to research type writer like fonts so that it is relevant to our final piece.

This was my groups favourite font out of all the ones we looked at however we put some other fonts onto the blog aswell as back up fonts and evidence of research

Filming Locations for 3 films

The Box:
- Boston Public Library - 700 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Castle Hill, Crane Estate - 280 Argilla Road, Ipswich, Massachusetts, USA
- Deer Island, Boston Harbor, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Hough's Neck, Quincy, Massachusetts, USA
- Ipswich, Massachusetts, USA
- Kingston, Massachusetts, USA (Hotel)
- Medfield State Hospital - 45 Hospital Road, Medfield, Massachusetts, USA
- Milton, Massachusetts, USA
- NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA
- North Andover, Massachusetts, USA
- Osgood Landing, North Andover, Massachusetts, USA
- Plymouth Bay Inn & Suites - 149 Main Street, Kingston, Massachusetts, USA
- Quincy, Massachusetts, USA
- South Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Turner Hill Golf and Racquet Club, Topsfield Road, Ipswich, Massachusetts, USA
- Virginia, USA

The Others:
- Madrid, Spain
- Oheka Castle - 135 West Gate Drive, Huntington, Long Island, New York, USA
- Santander, Cantabria, Spain

What Lies Beneath:
- Burlington, Vermont, USA
- D.A.R. State Park - 6750 State Route 17 W., Addison, Vermont, USA
- Lake Champlain, New York, USA
- New York, USA
- Playa Vista, California, USA
- Royce Hall - 340 Royce Drive, UCLA, Westwood, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Sony Pictures Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA
- Spruce Goose Hangar - 1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach, California, USA
- University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, USA
- Vermont, USA
- Waterbury, Vermont, USA

10 Locations where a Thriller film could be set

1. Woods

2. Deserted Warehouses/Built up areas

3. Prison

4. Empty Houses

5. Dark Open Spaces

6. Alley ways

7. Large Empty Barns

8. Deserted car parks, or large areas at night

9. Parks

10. Run down hotels/buildings

These are 10 typical locations of a where a Thriller film could be set as they are all open and tend to be dark which makes anyone who is there vulnerable. This is known by the viewers so this is how tension and curiosity is created. The producer is making the audience guess what is going to happen knowing that the audience will expect the worst, this is a good technique to draw the audience in and to keep them wanting to watch the rest of the film.

Male Thriller Actors

1. Harrison Ford - Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Conversation (1974), The Fugitive, (1993), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

2.Tom Cruise - Collateral (2004), Minority Report (2002), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), War of the Worlds (2005)

3. Matt Damon - The Departed (2006), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)

4. Cary Grant - Notorious (1946), North by Northwest (1959), Charade (1963), The Talk of the Town, (1942)

5. Samuel L. Jackson - Pulp Fiction (1994), Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), Out of Sight (1998), True Romance (1993)

These male actors are all typical stereotyped men to be a main role in a thriller film as they are all 'macho' looking men who look tough and protective of themselves, and their women. They could either be villain characters or they could be the heroic characters as they are stereotyped quite similarly.

Female Thriller Actors

1. Janet Leigh -Psycho (1960), Touch of Evil (1958),The Manchurian Candidate (1962), The Fog(1980).










2. Grace Kelly - Rear Window (1954), High Noon (1952), Dial M for Murder (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955).



3. Nicole Kidman - To Die For (1995), The Others (2001), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Dogville (2003).



4. Joan Allen - The Bourne Ultimatum (2007),Manhunter (1986), Face/Off (1997), The Bourne Supremacy (2004).



5. Bette Davis - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Dead Ringer (1964) Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Watcher in the Woods (1980).

All these actors would have been chosen for thriller films as they are all attractive and vulnerable looking women who stereotypically should 'rely on men' and have little independence. The appearance of these actors is perfect for this stereotype, they all come across as if they would be at home, waiting for the men to come home. A typical stereotype of a woman in this genre of film is how producers bring curiosity and tension to the film, its almost like they use women as prey in thriller films.

10 Key Directors of Thriller Films

1. Alfred Hitchcock
2. Martin Scorsese
3. Steven Spielberg
4. James Cameron
5. Quentin Tarantino
6. Christopher Nolan
7. Roman Polanski
8. David Fincher
9. John Carpenter
10. David Cronenberg

Sub-Genres of Thriller Films

action thriller
crime caper thrillers
western thrillers
film-noir thrillers
horror thriller
spy thriller

A-Level Media Production

This is my A-Level Foundation Media Production Blog.
I will be adding my planning and research into blogs.