Location and Production

Production Schedule Location Visit Sheet Programme Title: Broken Memories Writer: Funda Osman Producer: Jake Yellop Director: Tom Middleditch Date: 17/02/2013

key points of location: ·         Main road ·         Bus stop ·         Pub ·         Group of shops ·         Car wash ·         Secondary school Access to location via: Our whole group walked to each location but you are able to take the bus, a bike, a car or walk. ·         Gates of park ·         Walk across the field ·         Go pub ·         Go through double doors of pub ·         Asked for permission to use the pub ·         Showed id passes ·         Gave  contact numbers to our teachers ·         Walked through the pub out the doors ·         Went to the gates of the school ·         Went through several doors to get to our classroom Name and number of location contact: The Beacon tree - contact number: 02089840952 Bar staff

Health and Safety Issues to note: ●      Bar fights ●      Glass cutting ●      Behind bar ●      Alcoholics ●      Tripping over bar stools ●      Shattered Glass

Potential Filming Problems : ●      We may not be able to stop people from walking or being in our shots ●      Our toilet scene – complaints ●      Public reactions ●      Shots may be obstructed ●      May not be able to achieve shots due to structure of pub ●      May not be able to film due to no consent of the public ●      Angle shots ●      Lighting ●      Weather ●      Costume

Additional Notes:  ●              Must check whether the weather  will impact our filming and our lighting ●              If the filming runs over one day we must make sure there is continuity ●              Make sure we have all equipment departing pub

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment

Group Members:                                                                                                Location:

Hazard	Person(s) at Risk	Likelihood of Hazard 1 – Extremely Unlikely 5 – Extremely Likely	Severity of Hazard Outcomes 1 – Very Low Risk 5 – Very High Risk	Risk Level (Likelihood + Severity) 2	Measures to Take to Manage Risk	Risk Managed? Y/N
Injury caused by sugar glass.	Unfortunate man at bar and Crazy man.	3	3	3	Keep eyes and mouth shut.	Y
Trip/Fall hazards.	Everyone on set.	1	2	1.5	Any loose cables or carpets/edges taped down.	Y
Permission from bar owner.	Everyone, filming may not go ahead.	1	1	1	Ask the bar owner and anyone in the bar at the time.	Y
Risk of fire from cigarette.	Crazy man.	3	3	3	Use a fake cigarette or take extra precaution.	Y

Contacts

Emergency Service:            999
Robert Clack School:            0208 8270 42000208270 4200
Other Contacts:                         Jake 0799978212, Funda 07446464888, Tom 07506298915 and Ryan 

Mood Board of Props and Costume

Costumes and Props

Costumes and Props

Character Name:	Crazy man
Costume: Chequered shirt-turquoise and black.	Props: Glass, spider, fake blood.
Character Name:	Femme Fatale
Costume: Red or black seductive dress with white fur shawl.	Props: Phone, handbag.
Character Name:	Unfortunate man at bar
Costume: Smart dress, shirt and tie, casual business man.	Props: Beeper, phone, key card, briefcase.
Character Name:	Barman
Costume: White shirt (not fully seen).	Props: Glass, drink.

Treatment

Treatment

Group Roles Cinematography: Jake Mise-en-scene: Ryan Sound: Funda Editing: Tom Planning:  Jake - Treatment, Costumes and Props, Risk Assessment Funda - Storyboard, Costumes and Props, Risk Assessment Casting: Jake and Funda Script: Group                 (Everyone will take part in each categories but there will be one person in charge of overseeing each category)

Title: Memories (working) Tag Line:  One man’s destruction is another’s retribution.

Synopsis: A man re-lives the tortured past of his childhood, where he received abuse through harmful and damaging relationships. This treatment has caused him to seek revenge on anyone and anything with no moral values or consequences as he has never been taught right from wrong and cannot comprehend his actions. However he is a clever individual driven by conflicting emotions of love and hate, this causes him to formulate a plan of destruction and hopefully retribution.

Key Genre Conventions: Red Herring-the woman in the toilet, she isn’t all she appears to be. Action-the action comes as a surprise but it will be constant throughout the film. MacGuffin-he seems driven by violence and revenge but he is really driven by love.

Target Audience Research - Focus Group Video

Target Audience Research-The Video

This is our video of our target audience research, using a focus group allows us to get gain feedback as to what people think of our idea and we can ask how they would change or improve our ideas. We asked questions to cover different areas of the process. This combines with our previous research to give us a wider picture of what audiences want us to give them. These are the questions we asked n our video.

1. Should the ideas we've presented be in the day or night?
2. What do you think the best idea is?
3. What do you think works in each idea?
4. Are there any shots or techniques that stand out in our ideas?
5. What do you think we could add into our ideas?
6. Could you suggest any good music or soundtracks to fit into our ideas? 
7. Is there anything we should change?
8. What could make the plot of our idea more effective? 

Although some of the questions have been worded differently or the other question has encompased the other question so was not needed to be asked.
 

Target Audience Research- Focus Group Video

Our 3 ideas for our focus group;

In our group we each came up with three different ideas then refined them to 3 final ideas which we proposed in our focus group video. We finally settled on Never Forgotten, Deceit and Torture, although the titles are subject to change.


Never Forgotten
Our first idea was Never forgotten. This idea follows the story of an obsessive  revenge driven man who will do anything to gain answers after his fathers death 10 years previous. In the picture we see the main character in his apartment with a carefully constructed web of information but he laves his apartment and arrives at a big corporation building where he has a private meeting with an employer who he seems to know more about than he lets on.



Deceit
Deceit was the second idea proposed and was a very experimental, unique idea. In this idea we see a badly treated mental patient who uses art to control and suppress her feelings but she is haunted by incomprehensible flashbacks which she can not understand.    
In these pictures we see one of the flashbacks that she doesn't understand as she cannot remember due to black outs but she is helped through the aid of pictures and props in her mind that open up windows into deeper memories and complex messages.

Torture
Torture was our favourite idea because of the way we could manipulate the visual effect and style. In this idea we recreated the story of a tortured young adult who takes comfort in acting in a child like way because his childhood was tainted with abuse and forced intelligence thus creating a psychopathic man with a playful side, a deadly combination when he is left to his own devices.

Primary Research

For my primary research I created a survey using www.surveymonkey.com and posted it on my blog to collect results to influence the final outcome of my thriller.

I first asked the age of my participants. This will help with target audience research as it gives the information of how popular thrillers are with young or old people and therefore what we should include. From my results I should be able to find out whether young people are into thrillers as much as older people so I can target the audience to suit the thriller.

My second question was another general question about where the people that took the survey live.

I wanted to find out how often people watch films because the more they watch films the better their judgement is likely to be although it is not guaranteed.

I wanted to find out if people liked thrillers or not, if they do enjoy thrillers then there results could be more useful to me whereas if they don't like thrillers they may be bias against thrillers and not give very helpful feedback.

The more people watch thriller movies, the more it increases their knowledge of thrillers. This helps me as they should know what they are talking about and have some idea of stereotypical thrillers and conventions.

I wanted to find the most popular sub genre thriller so we could bring it into our final idea so as to appeal the a wider audience .

By finding out which thrillers people enjoy we can gain an idea of how to formulate our own idea. We look at the sub genre, the time its set, the characters and gain a better understanding of what the audience want. Although on my last two questions someone decided to answer in a childish manor.

By finding out the thrillers that people didn't enjoy allows us to identify the problems and avoid them in our final idea.

I asked which conventions people believe are most important so we can adapt and use them in our ideas and i found that the most popular convention was to keep the audience on edge, so we will incorporate this into our final idea.

Target Audience Research

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Past Student Thrillers Analysis

We watched past student thriller openings and analysed them we viewed a range of thrillers from different years and I have selected 3 to analyse.

The first clip is Finders Keepers;



This clip works well because it is different from most of the others that attempt a horror approach but this clip has a North by Northwest feel to it with the case of mistaken identity and the chase scene. This clip also makes use of the Macguffin of what's inside the box and the red herring of the man pulling his phone out of his pocket where we expect a gun, this is emphasised by the music coming in to suggest danger, the end also leaves us on a cliffhanger with the main character standing and the two suited men walking towards him. The music is also well chosen to suggest danger in the first part but then it shows how the action will start because the sound is parallel to the action. However this clip is not all good as there is some unsteady camera work on the stairs and the font used doesn't seem appropriate for the fast paced action thriller it seems a bit boring.

The second analysis I did was on The Night Walker;



This clip deals with diegtic sound very well and can be clearly heard over the music . Their are interesting shots used such as the P.O.V. running shot and the mirror shot to show the figure appearing in the back of the car but the camera work does slip at times.. This film however seems to be in 2 unconnected halves whereas one half would make a better opening. The cliché classing roaming the alley way scene is too predictable and doesn't add anything to the clip. The beginning is definitely more intriguing and unsettling because it has more questions and is more visually stimulating.

The third analysis was on Hide and Seek;




This thriller has a supernatural feel with door slamming and the figure moving past the camera but what this does well is that it doesn't give too much away it keeps you guessing. However this clip is let down by the sound because of the change between tracks where it jumps and makes it sound clunky. It is an overall good video it just ties to hard to include as much as possible.

James Bond Recipe

James Bond thrillers have become there own genre through the sheer amount of films and the consistent style used throughout the movies.
The things that make up a James Bond film are:

• A dashing, sexy, and heroic secret agent. Bonds are usually  the same actor for a period of films and there have only been 6 actors in 23 movies. 
• An eccentric villain of equal or greater strength than Bond. 
• A number of gorgeous women Bond will make love to.
• Exotic locations and plot devices. 
• Exciting stunt-driven action. (Often a little absurd).
• The John Barry music.
• A 'pop song' that will promote the film.
• Bond being given his 'mission' by M and Bond receiving his gadgets form Q. 
• Fights and car chases.
• Bond being trapped.
• Final scene (often on an island) where Bond overcomes the odds and triumphs. 

The openings too Bond film are also a stereotype as they all have to fill an imaginary criteria. 

"The opening scenes which are often eye-popping, stunt-driven action form the top shelf of absurdity"

This quote gives us certain points to examine whilst analysing the opening.

This is the opening to Casino Royale with the latest Bond, Daniel Craig.

In these openings we see a fast paced action chase scene one on foot and one in Bonds iconic Aston Martin. These openings include amazing feats that only Bond could achieve  such as death defying leaps and precision, life saving driving. The openings provide a reassuring ease into the familiar franchise. 

The way these openings portray Bond is more ruthless and hands on with a colder approach to people. In older Bond openings Bond seems easier going and more laid back whereas Craig portrays Bond as on edge and quite emotionless. 

Skyfall

Skyfall is the latest in the Bond genre and is bringing a new depth and scope to the 'comic-book' hero Bond that we have become used to. In this film we are treated to a rich back story of Bond and it has been anointed the best Bond of all time. Skyfall was made with $200,000,000 but it made £304,360,277 in the UK and $1,108,519,023 worldwide, this makes it the 3rd highest grossing James Bond film to date after Thunderball and Goldfinger. This is probably due to the wide fan base and the high advertisement that the film received. 

The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate is originally a novel by Richard Condon written in 1959. The novel is a political thriller that tells the story of the son of a prominent US political family. The son is brainwashed into becoming an unwitting assassin for the Communist party.

The first film version came in 1962 and was directed by John Frankenheimer and stared Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Janet Leigh.

The story is centred around Major Ben Marco who is an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army. He served valiantly as a captain in the Korean war and his Sergeant, Raymond Shaw, even won the Medal of Honor. Marco has a major problem however: he has a recurring nightmare, one where two members of his squad are killed by Shaw. He's put on indefinite sick leave and visits Shaw in New York. Shaw for his part has established himself well, despite the misgivings of his domineering mother, Mrs. Eleanor Shaw Iselin. She is a red-baiter, accusing anyone who disagrees with her right-wing reactionary views of being a Communist. Raymond hates her, not only for how she's treated him but equally because of his step-father, the ineffectual U.S. Senator John Iselin, who is intent on seeking higher office. When Marco learns that others in his Korean War unit have nightmares similar to his own, he realizes that something happened to all of them in Korea and that Raymond Shaw is the focal point.

The later version was created in 2004 and directed by Jonathon Demme and stared Denzel Washington, Liev Schrieber, Meryl Streep and Kimberly Elise. 

When his army unit was ambushed during the first Gulf War, Sergeant Raymond Shaw saved his fellow soldiers just as his commanding officer, then-Captain Ben Marco, was knocked unconscious. Brokering the incident for political capital, Shaw eventually becomes a vice-presidential nominee, while Marco is haunted by dreams of what happened - or didn't happen - in Kuwait. As Marco (now a Major) investigates, the story begins to unravel, to the point where he questions if it happened at all. Is it possible the entire unit was kidnapped and brainwashed to believe Shaw is a war hero as part of a plot to seize the White House? Some very powerful people at Manchurian Global corporation appear desperate to stop him from finding out.

The Opening Sequences

The openings of both films start with Ben Marco, identifying him as the main character, but the older version of the film jumps straight into the dream of Marco and the brainwashing scene whereas the later version shows Marco's life and Al Melvin, a member of the squad, having the dreams. 

The flashbacks to the battle scenes in each movie differ a lot. In the recent version it is much more sophisticated and is set in Kuwait. The older version puts the soldiers on a grassy mound set in Korea in a film studio but the recent version has CGI, explosions and night vision and put us in the heart of battle. 

The Brainwashing Scenes 

These scenes are very different in the films, the older version shows the brainwashing by having the soldiers at a ladies meeting discussing flowers interchanging with the communist organisations operations. 



This compares to the advanced technical operations being performed in the more recent version with horrific and graphic scenes of drills and brain implants.  

This shows the technical differences between the two films. 



Racism
This film also touches on the racial elements from the times. In the 1962 version there are many racial stereotypes for example the token black soldier and the mysterious and dangerous men from the east. However the 2004 version includes a black protagonist an has a multi racial society setting.

Media
The portrayal of the media coverage of both films is relative to the budget and resources they had. For instance the 1962 version has the entire press in one room asking questions which seems very simple and cheap and doesn't create any depth. The 2004 version however creates a deep, realistic feel to the movie because of the resources available the director was able to create a reel of footage spliced from real footage which imitated real news channels.

The Paranoid Thriller
This sun genre of thriller is one we haven't explored and it is very interesting. The main protagonist, the resourceful hero, is trying to regain and unravel his sanity. Marco is represented as a masculine man who has the respect of other men, he is also accustomed to danger and has a record of bravery in the army. This film includes a range of genres psychological, paranoid and political thriller.

These films were made to deliver a message to the public about politics and what could possibly be happening. 'The director elaborates and makes the film bigger than life: sadder, darker and stranger than real life' This seems true because of the extent to which the film thinks the brainwashing could go, I believe that the concept is plausible but the extent with the entire scheme is going too far.

Key Scenes
Murder of Senator Jordan
The first key scene in the film that shows the terror of what can happen with these brainwashed characters is when Raymond commits the murder of Jordan, this scene differs from the original by having Raymond drowning the senator. The drowning creates a dream like state, this could symbolize the main characters drowning, this is reinforced by the fog clouding over the events and removing clarity. There is non-diegetic music used to enhance the tension as Raymond approaches his victim, we regularly see this technique in thrillers. The editing reflects Raymond's hypnotised state of mind.

Marco shooting Raymond and his mother.
This is the climax of the film where Raymond realises what he is becoming and decides to sacrifice himself and his mother to rid the possibility of being owned and operated like a machine. There is an undercurrent hint of the Oedipus complex from the Greek myth. In the novel Raymond's mother uses his brainwashing to have sex with him before the climax but concerned that not even a reference would be made to it because of the censors the film makers have her kiss him on the lips to imply her incestuous attraction to him.

Star Power
The modern version cast a prominent actress as Raymond's mother and this gives her a much larger part than before. This could because of the profile of Meryl Streep because she was an A-lister she would have brought in more money. The new version has two stars with Washington and Streep whereas the previous version had one; Sinatra. This was probably to draw in more people to create a bigger revenue. However Angela Lansbury, who was Raymond's mother in the original, did get an Oscar nomination for her performance, although she was not a big acting star she was still a good actress or she would not have received her ward nomination. Her performance seems very controlled and very planned she shows the diabolically smart plans that are forming in her head.

The End
The final shot of the Manchurian Candidate shows a picture of Mt. Rushmore, which invites viewers to ask questions about past and present leaders and how much we actually know about them and how they gained power. The question "what if?" should always be remembered whilst watching this film. There is always a serious message as this film could be viewed as a reflection of who we are and what society could become. Never believe everything you see.

I think the more recent version was better because of the better resources they had with the CGI and the editing advancements that they did not have in the original. These films differ from other thrillers because they are more complex, we only learn the information as Marco learns it which keeps us in suspense and tantalises us with clue and red herrings.