What is a shot list? How it is useful? How will we use it?

A shot list is a full list/log of all the shots you are going to film. It also is the order you are going to shoot your specific shots in, in the filming process. It is very helpful and serves the purpose of saving a lot of time and not going over the same or similar shots over and over again because you know what shots you already have/need/want. It also brings a sense of offence and helps the director to just move on swiftly after every scene is done. It really helped us in the planning and prepping of our filming and our shot list was a key piece of help in our altogether filming process. When film companies are on a small budget a shot list is a great way to save time and time equals money in the filming industry.

Research For Thriller Into The Role of the Directors and Producers.

Research for thriller into psychopaths and there role in film and thrillers.

I did some research into psychopaths and their detachment with there victims and found it really interesting that it is a big part of most psychopathic personas. Our psychopath in our thriller also has a huge detachment to his victim as he is just concentrated on his painting and doesn't show any emotion toward his victim and the gruesome activity he has committed on the victim. Similar to films such as Sweeney Todd when he is just concentrating on the business and money but also taking pleasure out of killing and being detached from the actual killing of a human life and the pain the victim has felt. In our thriller we wanted to make it very important that the psychopath would have no regard for the victims feelings therego the painting being the focal point of the psychopaths attention. The research i have done before and after the thriller shooting has been really interesting and helped me direct Tom (our psychopath) in the right direction for what we wanted him to do while playing the part. What i found really interesting was that Canadian psychologist and psychopath expert Dr. Robert D. Hare has codified a number of features in what he calls a Psychopathy Checklist of which lists some of the following characteristics: Lack of empathy, Lack of remorse or guilt, Impulsivity, Superficial charm, Shallow emotions, Grandiose, sense of self-worth, Irresponsibility, Manipulative behavior, Early behavioral problems and Detachment. After researching this i really wanted to incorporate a little of everything in the checklist (or most things) so we could really have the true sense of a psychopath themselves. Here are our some photograph examples of Psychopaths in thrillers and how they relate to our psychopath in our thriller opening sequence.

This is Arno Frisch. He played the role of a sadistic psychopath in Funny Games. The sadistic element to a psychopath is one that was key in our portrayal of a psychopath in our opening sequence as our psychopath obviously enjoys the pleasures out of murdering someone as the blood is very important to our psychopath and his art.

This is Christian Bale who plays Patrick Bateman. He is perhaps the most famous psychopath of all time but was he really a psychopath or someone with a bizarre form of psychosis and obviously is deeply disturbed. Thats what we also want anyone watching our thriller opening sequence to wonder so we actually based a lot of the detachment and care in appearance on Patrick too.

Lastly here is Anthony Hopkins who plays Dr. Hannibal Lecter. This is perhaps thought of as an odd choice as he is a cannibal but we really wanted to grasp on the intensity Anthony is portraying through his look at his vicitim through our psychopath too. We want our psychopath to look at the painting the way Anthony looks at his victims.

Shot List

A shot list is a full log of all the shots you want to include in your film; essentially it is a checklist filled with minute details that will give your film a sense of direction and efficiency.

Behind the scenes - Thriller - After filming

What went well?

I was really happy with our choice of actors as they both suited each well really well. Tom our psychopath i feel really showed the detachment to the victim and showed no regard for his feelings or most importantly his life. This is exactly what we were going for and i feel that went very well for us. We also got to do all the shots we wanted and more which will give us more to add in our editing and add an extra depth.

What didn't go so well and how did you deal with it?

The choice of costume for Ollie Tennant who was playing the victim/the body was perfect but also too cold for the weather conditions of the day as Ollie was shivering throughout. We then went to get a heater for him and in-between shots we all took in turns to blow the heater onto Ollie which helped him a lot. Apart from that also the small black background that we had for the actual shoot slightly restricted some of the shooting we did and also the fact that ollie wa sonly there for the morning meant we shot all of allies scenes first and then let him go meaning we had to get it all done then. We did actually do this successfully and i feel we dealt with that problem well.

What didn't you change?

The choices for our costumes as they were perfect for our roles and exactly what we were going for for our thriller and our original ideas. We also didn't change any of our shots instead we adapted more shots which i think was a massive pro. All in all i think our thriller shooting was a massive success and i am very excited to start seen your footage and start editing.

 

What Institution would make our film?

I have chosen after a lot of research, Lionsgate. Lionsgate actually made American psycho also and I feel that film is very similar to 'Blank Canvas' our film so they would know how to work well with our film and make it the best it can be.

1. Lionsgate (formerly known as Cinépix Film Properties) is a Canadian-American film production/distribution studio and a division of Lions Gate Entertainment. It is the largest and most successful mini-major film studio in North America.

It focuses on foreign and independent films and has distributed various commercially successful film series, including The Twilight Saga (partially), The Hunger Games, The Divergent Series, and The Expendables.

We feel Lionsgate is a very diverse production company and our film is anything but the norm. We also would want a big name behind our film like Lions Gate but as it specialises in block busters such as Hunger games we would want that to project onto our film too.
We want our film to become a cult classic such as American psycho and we really feel this company would push us to the greatest advantage.

Another company that could make our film is New Line Cinema.
New Line Cinema is one of the largest independent producers, acquirers, and distributors of theatrical motion pictures in the world. Founded in 1967, today the studio has a domestic marketing and distribution organization; a home video division; a television production and distribution organization; an international division; and merchandising, music and new media subsidiaries that fully exploit New Line's film properties and franchises. New Line's programming refreshes AOL Time Warner's libraries and provides valuable programming for its cable networks, in particular TNT, TBS and HBO.

New line cinema feels like another very good fit for our film as ours is following the same type of storyline as New Line Cinemas two most famous films, A night mare on elm street and Texas Chainsaw Massacre too cult classics. Both follow the structure of A serial killer with a number of murders under the belt so I feel like new line cinemas would be the perfect company to distribute our film and be very helpful in making our film th best it can be.

Similar Media Products

Here is a list myself and my group discussed and compiled of all films with a  similar plot line as our film. All of these films follow a psychopath and that is the basis of their plot similar to our thriller.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006, Constantin Films, Tom Tykwer)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Strong Heart/Demme Productions, Jonathan Demme)
Psycho (1960, Shamely Productions, Alfred Hitchcock)
Hannibal (2001, Dino De Laurentiis Company, Ridley Scott)
American Psycho (2000, Edward R. Pressman Productions, Mary Harron)
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986, Greycat Films, John McNaughton)
Red Dragon (2002, Dino De Laurentiis Company, Brett Ratner)
Death Proof (2007, Troublemaker Studios, Quentin Tarantino)
Maniac (2012, Canal+, Franck Khalfoun)

The three main films that are the most similar to our film I must admit are...
The Silence of the Lambs, American Psycho and Red Dragon.

When looking at similar plot lines, we looked at films that included things about serial killers that killed their victims in a creative way, as we plan to have our killer have an obsession with being creative when murdering his victims. Therefore, I think the following films are similar:

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006, Constantin Films, Tom Tykwer)
Peeping Tom (1960, Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors, Michael Powell)
Sweeney Todd (2007, Parkes/MacDonald Productions, Tim Burton)
Maniac (2012, Canal+, Franck Khalfoun)
Tony (2010, AbbottVision, Gerard Johnson)
Se7en (1995, New Line Cinema, David Fincher)

For location my group discussed and we looked at films that were either in an unknown location, or in one remote location throughout the majority of the movie. In our thriller we have decided that we want to film it in a secluded area like a basement fr example somewhere dark and mysterious, these films are similar in that sense of location:

Sweeney Todd (2007, Parkes/MacDonald Productions, Tim Burton)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006, Constantin Films, Tom Tykwer)

We wanted the twist in our thriller to be quite unexpected. These films also share the same unexpected twist even if they differ in storyline.

The Killer Inside of Me (2010, Revolution Films, Michael Winterbottom)
Kalifornia (1993, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, Dominic Sena)
American Psycho (2000, Edward R. Pressman Productions, Mary Harron)
Gone Girl (2014, Regency Enterprises, David Fincher)

Possible Target Audience

When my group talked about who our target audience was we all automatically assume it would be males in there teens to there mid 30's-40's.

When thoroughly thinking about the thriller we want to create, it is set up to be quite violent, or at least in the sense that there is a lot of graphic content (we are planning to use a lot of fake blood in order for it to appear more gruesome). I think that our target audience could possibly may males and females in between the ages of 21-39. The reason for this is that nowadays, video games are becoming more prominent.

 Boys are typically known to being de sensitised to these video games and also woman too. These video games are becoming more realistic, and some of them include violent acts and show graphic images. Because of  this, We believe that younger audiences won't be as fazed by the amount of fake blood we are aiming to use in the opening sequence as they will be more used to it having grown up with these gruesome video games as they may have grown immune to them and de sensitised.

New Scene Outline.

New Scene Outline: This is our new scene outline that we came up with after we had our meeting with Matt and Luke and gave them our pitch. We were mostly green lit but we just had to tweak a few things, here is our result - 

• Slowly introduced to our male psycho killer
  • Show shots of his eyes, his hands, etc. to create tension

• Slow build up of shots that increase in importance
  • As we go along we see the parts of the paintbrush, blood palette, etc.
• We then see the body
  • The body is no longer suspended from the wall or a slab
    • Body is now seated on a chair or lying on the floor, bloody and dying/dead.
  • We see a scalpel lying somewhere, alon
    gside knives and other weapons.
• In the end, the killer is shown manically smiling
  • Obviously happy, shaking, sweat dripping down his head, and the canvas full of blood is shown.
    
    

Our response to feedback.

Our response to the feedback:

• The new idea is that the victim is dead and that the psychopath is drawing in the victim's blood.
• Discarded the hallway idea.
• Everything else is still the same.

Feedback from our Pitch.

Feedback – Blank Canvas Pitch

This is the feedback we got regarding our pitch on Friday, the 4th of December, including the rehearsal shoot.

• Nice camera angles.
• Difficult to show a cut up body, however what if the painting was drawn in blood from the body on a canvas – people wouldn't expect that.
  • Using the body to create the painting/sculpture – using the vicitim as material than rather cutting it up.
• Torture.
• Using a guy is a better idea (as the victim) as it isn't stereotypical.
• Location: Depends – if you want a studio, you can use the art room instead of just using the studio.
• Don't do the hallway thing, keep it in one location.

Confirming our actors.

We have confirmed Ollie Tennant as our victim and all we need to sort out is his blue card for the day.

Props dispatched proof.

Ordering our props.

Here is the proof that we have ordered our props.
We had to order these items as either our actors didn't have them or the costume department didn't. We looked and searched all over and the cheapest place we could find the best quality items was Amazon.co.uk.

Third design for the set mock up.

This is the third mock up we created with Evelyn of our set design, being even more minimalistic and just showing the wooden table the body would be lying on - we may not even need a chair if we go along with a set design similar to this one:

Second set design mock up.

Here is the second set deign we all helped Evelyn create.
This design is different as we wanted the scene to be more dynamic so the set to be slightly more minimalistic.

Email confirming Actors

Here is an email i sent to James Hartman our first choice but sadly he is unable to partake.

Conforming Location and Set Design

We had a meeting today with Matt and Luke and it is confirmed that we will eb able to use the studio which is our first choice location choice.

here is what we were thinking of for the set and what Evelyn has created.

Costume Collage

Costume Wordle

Prop Collage

Prop Wordle