Casting the characters-Kizzy and Mari

Kizzy and Mari's characters were the easiest to cast , we wanted to use two friends as the people that witness the gang of young people and the victim outside, we wanted these characters to be girls because we thought it would be more realistic for them to be together as they could be at a sleepover etc. Because these were the last characters to be cast it was obvious that kizzy and Mari should play these characters as Louka and Gabi were already cast.

Additional shots

Due to the recent changes in the character of Gabi, we have decided to add soe more shots to the beginning of the sequence in order to establish her character. To show that Gabi's character is older and more wealthy, one of the first shots will be a longshot of Gabi, to show her outfit. We will also include a close up of Gabi's phone, to encourage the viewers to notice her wealth. Also, there will be footage of Louka's character and his friends approaching Gabi, from a longshot, in order to show how threatening the situation is. We also will swap between footage of the boys, the girls in the house and Gabi walking down the road, to build up three different stories and then bring them together.

Casting the characters-Gabi

We decided to use Gabi as the victim in our thriller opening , this was because we decided that she was the most innocent looking, also because Kizzy would be filming at this point so it made sense, we decided not to cast any extra's to be walking alongside Gabi's character, this is because we wanted the character to seem as lonely and vulnerable as possible in order to create more suspense.

Casting the characters-Louka and his friends

The main factors that helped us decided on who each character would be was the way each of us looked , because Louka is the only male in our group we thought it would be most effective if he was appearing as a more threatening character, we also decided that we would also use some of loukas friends as extra's, they would also play the Loukas friends in our thriller opening to help create a kind of gang looking group of friends. for example , here is a picture of the group of main characters that feature in the film KiDulthood.

Characters- Mari

Mari's character is similar to that of Kizzy's, in the way that they are both regular, happy teenage girls having fun. She is also a friendly, good student at college like Kizzzy's character. Kizzy and Mari will act like they know louka's character from college, and they know that he is misbehaved and gets into trouble with the police often. We also thought of someone on television that is similar to Mari's character, and we thought that Julie from desperate housewives is similar to Mari's character, as Julie is a young and friendly college student:
Julie is similar to Mari's character because Julie is fashionable, popular and friendly.

Change in plot and characters

We decided to change the way that the character Gabi is going to be represented, this is because we changed the plot slightly by decided that her character would appear more wealthy and therefore out of place in the location it is set in, we plan to do this by adding jewelry, a prop such as an expensive mobile phone and using the way the character speaks as a way of identifying her social background. We also still wanted her character to look innocent , we decided to keep the idea of her wearing light coloured clothes to help to portray this, however she will now be wearing heels to make the character appear more feminine and vulnerable, this will also create a more obvious difference between the way that her character and the characters, Louka, Kizzy and Mari are dressed.

here is an example of the type of phone she will be carrying .

Characters- Kizzy

Kizzy will play the character of an average teenage girl, having fun with her friend (Mari's character). The type of character she plays will be able to relate to the audience, as films about youth crime are often popular with young people. She will represent the steriotype of happy, energetic, friendly teenager girls, as opposed to the alternate teenage steriotype which is violent and rebelious (which is represented by Louka's character). We thought of the kind of character Kizzy would play, and we thought that her character resembled the character of Anna from desperate housewives. Here is a picture of Anna:

We thought that Kizzy's character would be similar to that of Anna, as Anna is quite a typical teenager, in her attitude, as she is reasonably well behaved, but does have an attitude, like all teenagers are expected to have. Also, she dresses in a similar way to how Kizzy will dress, as both characters are interested in fashion.

Characters - Gabi

The personality of Gabi's character is innocent, vulnerable, and wuthdrawn. We can tell this by the way she will be dressed, because all her clothes are white, creating an image innocence, like an angel. Also her shoes will be flat to show she is young, and not old enough to wear high heels. Her hair will be down and curly which would also add to the young look, as if it was straight and tied back it would make her see, more aggressive, and fierce.
Another personality trate if gabi's shy, and introvert, this is be also shown in her body language, her arms will be folded, saing she is shutting out everyone, also she will be getting attacked so she will feel small.
She will be wearing make-up, but not heavy make-up, just natural make-up, which will say she is innocent, and not portray a view of fierce.
Gabi's character will be based around Selina Gomes, we chose her because she acts on a programme called Wizards of Waverly place, which is a show on Disney channel, and this is portrayed as an innocent, child friendly channel. Therefore Selina Gomes is a perfect example for Gabi's character.

Characters. - Louka

The personality of Louka's character, is a stereotypical "bad boy" young offender, who hangs around with his friends, who are also youths, who live in a rough urban area.
The stereotypical youth wears the costumes shown in an erlier blog.
This idea of rough youths is a good idea for a thriller because in this time period, people are scared of gang violence, especially from youths.
Loukas character is forseen as young, dangerous, and reckless. The fact his friends are with him, makes him seem more threatening, and untouchable, also would inhance his confidence, and cockiness, because he thinks he is untouchable with hs friends backing him up, but what he doesnt understand is his friends wont always be there for him.
Louka's personality will be shown in his clothing, he will be wearing hoodies and trackies, with his hood up, saying he doesnt want people to know what he looks like. Also the script, and language he will be using will be known as slang.
Louka character will be based around Aml Ameen, because he acts in a film called Kidulthood, which is also based around youths, and gang violence. Aml Ameen plays a cold blooded, youth who only thinks about his mates and parties, we thought he would be the perfect example for Louka's character because in the opening Louka and his mates are going to be shown harrising Gabi.

Shot list

Today Gabi made a list of shots that we should include in our opening sequence. The shot list is as follows:
1) Midshot, hand held of Kizzy showing the camera her TV
2) Longshot, hand held of Kizzy showing the camera inside the fridge
3) Midshot hand held of Kizzy showing the camera the view of a car park out of her window
4) Camera zooms into a longshot of what is happening outside in the car park
5) Canted angle out the window, zoomed out a bit, as the camera is put down quickly
6) Hand held longshot showing Mari running towards the car park to help Gabi
7) Longshot of Louka and friends running away from the scene (with the sounds of a siren)
8) Canted tracking shot of Gabi lying on the floor, beaten up
9) Longshot showing Mari and Kizzy on their knees to help Gabi

I tried to include a variation of different shots, to make the sequence more interesting. I included the use of canted angles to make the action more dangerous, and to make my character look more vulnerable and hurt. I also included a tracking shot to show my character, when she is hurt lying on the floor, as I think that this would be an effective way of creating suspense, as if the camera moves quite slowly the audience will be eager to find out what has happened to her and if she is okay.


Here is an example of a tracking shot:

Cameras

We have missed one lesson this week due to ILP meetings, so we still havent dicussed how long we should take the camera for, the options are take for 2 nights in a row, or 2 seperate nights, i think 2 seperate nights would be the best option because then we can choose the days we film, and in the weekend we might not all be free aswell.

Costs

The production of our film will not cost anything because it is taking place at Kizzy's house which is in Cambridge, so it is easy to get to. Also, unlike our children's film, we should not have to buy any props, as all the props we will use we should already have, and we will already have the costumes, as they are just casual clothes.

Costumes for Gabi

As Gabi is playing the role of a victim of an attack, we will create the image of an innocent girl by making her wear white, simple clothes. This is an example of an outfit which will suit the role of Gabi:
But instead of high heels and a big bad, Gabi will wear flat shoes to create the image of innocence.

Costumes of Louka

As Louka is playing the part of a teenage gang member, him and his friends that will be present in the shot will be wearing dark clothing, to make them appear more threatening, with their hoods up to hide their faces. Here are examples of what Louka and his friends could be wearing:

Costumes of Kizzy and Mari

As the main characters of our film are teenagers, Kizzy and Mari will wear casual, fashionable clothes, to reflect their personalities and interests in fashion. These are some example outfits of what they could wear:

Editing

The editing will be slow and normal at the begining when Kizzy and Mari are in kizzys house messing around with the camera. The slow, relaxes pace reflects how relaxed Mari and Kizzy's characters are. However, when they run towards the car park to help Gabi the editing becomes fast pasted, in order to build tension and show the panic of the scene. At the begining the camera swaps between the hald held camera and the still camera on the tripod, so we get views from both cameras. Credits will be in between the action, to add tension, by cutting up the footage to make it more interesting.
Here is an example of this type of editing in a film called 'Harry Brown', which is a film similar to ours:



As you can see, in this opening sequence the credits are displayed in a white font on a black background which is quite effective, as it is plane. This idea could be considered for our opening sequence.

Mise en Scene

The location is Norolk Street, Cambridge, we are filming most of the opening at night time, and in this location, the reason for choosing this location is its centrel and also looks like rough area. This adds to our fear factor of violent acts by youths. The setting is going to be dark because, then unable to see who the predators are.

Credits

We thought about what credits we needed to include in our opening sequence. We though of the following:
Director, co-director, producer, actors, costume designer, camera crew, production company, sponsors, creative and media, music director, based on a novel by David Harrison.
We can make up some names and include our own names for the credits.
Here is an example of some clear opening credits, from the film 'panic room':

here is another image of our ident.

We decided that our ident logo needed alot of work so we spent alot of this lesson changing and modifiying it. we added animation and a theme tune.

Displaying the credits

At the beginning of our opening sequence we will display some credits, and instead of hearing music the audience will hear Mari and Kizzy's voices in the background making our home movie, saying things like 'this is my messy bedroom and my kitchen.' This makes the audience really interessted in whats happening as they can't see it, so they want to know whats going on. We thought of this idea after analysing the openinh sequence of 'Harry Brown', a film with a similar theme as our film, which is youthes and crime.
Also throughout the sequence the screen will go black and credits will appear. This will make it more interssting so it wont just be footage, there will be credits and well, also it will create suspense.

Planning the plot

Plot.
Me and kizzy are at kizzys house, making a home movie messing around with the camera imatating the tv programe cribs. For this part of the film we are using both the handheld camera and the camera on the tripod, so we get mine and kizzys point of view and the still cameras point of view. Kizzy walks around showing her house, filming it with the handheld camera, she then shows the window and the view of the carpark and says something like this is the lovely view of the carpark. We then see the view of the carpark through the hand held camera, kizzy then says what is that, and we see a girl lying on the floor, with a group of boys around her beating her up, then we hear sirens in the background so the boys run away. we then run down the stairs, leaving the handheld camera at a canted angle, so the viewers can still see the body lying on the floor, and me and kizzy outside trying to help. The still camera follows us running down the stairs and outside. we rund around the corner to help the girl, we then figure out its gabi and we try and help her. there is then a high angle shot of gabi lying on the floor and then a long shot of me and kizzy kneeling on the floor looking after gabi.

storyboarding

Today Gabi finished drawing and planning the shots with the storyboard.Here is it finished:

Analysis of another crime thriller opening

As our thriller is a crime thriller and uses the current phobia of youths I have decided to analyse the opening scene of a similar film. 'Harry Brown' is a recent film with the same theme.


Mise-en-scene:
-The credits are displayed in a simple way, just white font on a black background.
-The scene of the characters is dark, and they are all wearing dark clothes. This is to make the scene look dangerous.
-The opening sequence shows the use of drugs, which is something often associated with teenagers.
-Graffiti is on the walls to give the viewer an idea of the city location.
-Gun and shooting are shown, also things associated with young people.
-Overall the mise-en-scene is used to create a typical image of teenagers that people fear, relating them to drugs, guns and danger. It also presents them in a threatening way, as they are in a big group in a dark alleyway, covering their faces.

Sound:
-Loud sound of a motorbike, shooting, woman screaming and boys shouting, adds to the danger of the scene.
-Characters talking; slang and swearing. This shows their negative attitudes.
-The loud crashing sounds etc makes the viewer on edge.

Camera work:
-For the motorbike scene the camera is hand held. This makes the viewer see what is happening from the character's point of view. It is intended to scare the viewer and make them feel involved in the scene.

Editing:
-When the screen is black and displaying the credits, the voices of the characters talking can still be heard, which makes the viewer wander what is happening in the scene, until the scene is revealed. This adds to the suspense.

In our thriller opening we will be including some of the same features, such as the hand held camera effect, as we plan to do this at the beginning of our sequence. Also, we are planning to use the black screen with white writing for the credits, and we could consider playing the sounds whilst the black screen in on, in order to add suspense.