Thriller Planning: Shooting Schedules

Here is the shooting schedule we made for our thriller:

Meeting Schedule

Our group decided to work out a day we could meet at the beginning of each week, without making a timetable. It gave us more flexibility and was easier to arrange for our group. We did not make a timetable because we thought things would get in the way, and we would not be able to stick to it. For example, work committments may change every week. Even though we did not have a timetable, we all agreed to meet up for at least 2/3 hours a week to talk about our ideas and to edit our film.

Whilst shooting our film, we stuck to a timetable as we thought it was very important to arrange this in advance, so we knew we would be free and not run out of time.

Mission Statement

Our aim is to create a modern thriller using new technologies, but sticking to the classical thriller conventions, styles and themes of old film noirs. We want to challenge the high budget mainstream hollywood films in a fight for popularity to show you don't need a huge budget to create a successful film.

Shooting maps for our thriller film.

I made these shooting maps to help us know where to position the camera, people and props in our filming. It took a long while to make but ended up being very useful as we used it when we filmed our thriller.

Final Soundtrack Choice

We had many discussions about which song to use, because we had problems to begin with because our original song was copyright. We finally found a piece that fit in with our film because it is dark, industrial and matches our style very well. It is called Cells by The Servant. We found this piece by searching unsigned band websites and looking for work by people who are listed under the Creative Commons License Agreement, which the instrumental song we found, was.

When we knew that we could use this soundtrack we downloaded the instrumental version from the website below:

http://www.airmp3.net/search/the_servant/cells/mp3/a

Character Profiles for our thriller film

I initially made a template for each character profile (a list of information about the character that was relevant. E.g. Age, Name, Personality traits etc). After this, I wrote each character profile, and then went through them with my group. Anything else we wanted to add or delete to/from each character I then did with them.

Name: Patrick Callaghan
Role in the opening sequence: The man sitting at a desk in the building
Age in film: 55
Race/nationality: Irish, though has lived most of his life in England. White.
Accent: Irish/ English
Style of dress: Suits, dark
Educational background: Self-educated
Personality traits/ current situation: Head of the Callaghan organized-crime family (a leader), loyal to his own family, hates the "opposing" families, in particular the Glover’s. He will do anything to keep his family and reputation above the others, whatever the consequences.
Other information: Godfather and uncle of Juliet. He moved to England at a young age with his Nan and his younger brother in search of a better life. His parents are dead; his parents were already dead when he moved to England. His parents died during the conflicts in Ireland after the Second World War. His Nan moved out to England with him for safety. His brother was the father of Juliet, however he died through working for his family, and maybe he was at fault.
Additional Detail: (Although a completely different character) he may be presented in a similar way to Sydney Greenstreet's character Kasper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon (1941) directed by John Huston, regarding the consisten use of very low- angled shots of him in order to emphasize both his power and the fact that he is overweight.

Name: Aidan Quinlan
Role in the opening sequence: He is one of the three in the car; he was the driver and is the one that lights up a cigarette.
Age in film: 28
Race/nationality: Irish – brought-up in England. White.
Accent: Irish
Style of dress: Smart with overcoats
Educational background: Average
Personality traits/ current situation: Works for the Callaghan family. He is a trusted, loyal worker for the family. He watches over the people below him and does much of the dirty work for the boss.
Other Information: His dad moved out with him to England after death of his mother. His dad was a good friend of the boss; this is why he is now one of the main men in the family.

Name: Sean McLennan.
Role in the opening sequence: Is one of the two carrying the dead body.
Age in film: 24
Race/nationality: English, with Irish roots. White.
Accent: Unspecified, a touch of Irish.
Style of dress: Smart with overcoats.
Educational background: Below Average.
Personality traits/ current situation: Works for Callaghan family. He is a loyal worker, below Quinlan. Does all dirty work first hand and most of the time supervised by Quinlan. He is not a key figure in the film and is "muscle" of the family.
Other Information: His grandparents moved to England, so he and his parents were born and brought-up in England. However he is still in touch with his Irish roots.

Name: Connor Malone
Role in the opening sequence: Is the other man carrying the dead body
Age in film: 24
Race/nationality: English, with Irish roots. White.
Accent: Unspecified, perhaps a slight Irish accent
Style of dress: Smart with overcoats
Educational background: Below Average
Personality traits: Works for Callaghan family. He is a loyal worker, below Quinlan. Does all dirty work first hand and supervised by Quinlan. He is fairly new to the family. He is not a key figure in the story and is also "muscle" of the family.
Other information/ current situation: His parents moved to England from Ireland, and he was born in England.

Name: Susie Callaghan
Age in film: 25
Race/nationality: Half Irish, half English. White.
Accent: Unspecified
Style of dress: Classy, yet obvious.
Educational background: Above average initially, but finished education after it became optional.
Personality traits: She is aware of her sexual prowess. Slightly flirty and unforgiving.
Other information: Her mother is English, but died during childbirth. Her father died young so she was brought up by her uncle and godfather. However she blames him for her father’s death. This is why she has a lover in another family, and attempts to murder her uncle (see synopsis).
Additional Detail: She is perhaps a similar character to Barbara Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (1944) directed by Billy Wilder.

Name: David Glover
Age in film: 26
Race/nationality: English. White
Accent: Unspecified
Style of dress: Smart
Educational background: High level of education and specialises in Law.
Personality traits: He is generally smart, although he sometimes acts on impulse rather than thinking things through and allows business matters to become personal.
Other information: He wasn’t planning on becoming the head of the family but rather hoping to finish his studies of Law and become a lawyer/ judge and help the family in that way. However, he was convinced after the murder of his father.


Name: Colin Glover
Age in film: 67
Race/nationality: English. White
Accent: Unspecified
Style of dress: Smart
Educational background: High level of education
Personality traits: He is well-educated and smart, but also street-smart and doesn’t allow himself to be careless.
Other information: He has always hated the Callaghan’s, partly because they’re Irish and also partly because they have always been a threat to his family.

Change of Thriller name

Our group had some discussions about changing our thriller's name from Bad Blood to something else. We wanted to change it because we didn't think that it fit in with our film as well as it should do. We talked about several suggestions but in the end settled with Bloody Vendetta. We chose this because we think it fits in with the theme of our thriller. And as Vendetta means revenge, it fits in with the revenge and deception in our thriller film.

Our Cast

For our thriller opening we needed four male (preferably not student) actors. They would play the parts of Patrick Callaghan, Aidan Quinlan, Sean McLennan and Connor Malone. To pick our cast we used convienience and age, as this was the quickest way to pick the four actors we wanted to use. We needed an older man to play the part of Patrick Callaghan because his part is a boss, and a crime leader in our opening. He is also threatening, but the 3 other men in the film are supposed to come accross as this too. (The character profiles have more detail about the mens characteristics).

Here are our 4 actors:

Phil Buttinger as Patrick Callaghan.

We thought that this man fit the look of the character we are asking him to play, because he looks like a man who could be threatening to others and fits the age category he needs to be in to be a boss/crime leader.

Leon Hogarth as Aidan Quinlan.

We again thought that Leon fit the character we needed him to play, as he is tall and big therefore has a threatening appearence.

Patrick Bloomfield as Sean McLennan

Ralf Kendall as Connor Malone.

For these two characters we did not think that facial features were important as the other two because they do not have a focused shot on them, so we tried to fit them into an age group rather than what they looked like.

However, after we had chosen the two actors we found to play are parts had to cancel because of certain school rules. We tried to find replacements that fit the part as well as they did, but due to lack of time we had to go with who we thought was best and not be too picky.

Here are the two actors we decided to replace them with:

Josh Rowe as Sean Mclennan

Louis Martin as Connor Malone

Props & Costumes

Here are the props and costumes we intend to use for our thriller film:

1. A car, preferably black, dark blue or any shade of colour that doesn’t draw attention to itself. As it is a car of an organised crime group it can’t be too flashy or too big but has to be considerably fast, to race away when there are any car chases from police or other gangs as they are criminals, and high horsepower because of the dead body and the amount of people in the car. As we decided to do our opening as a gangster type thriller, and these do tend to involve illegal activities like dumping a dead body in a remote and inhabited area, transportation is needed to do this so a car is suitable for the burying of the body. An example of a car that would be good to use for our thriller is a 1990 Bentley Turbo R. However we know that car would be unattainable. So realistically we would go for something fairly old, dark coloured and fast. Such as a 1999 Saab 93 sedan or 1999 BMW 528i.

1990 Bently Turbo R (above)

1999 BMW 528i (above)

1999 Saab Sedan (above)

2. A simple black body bag/ sack to contain the dead body; with thick, shiny plastic and the zippers. This murder is a crucial twist in the film so we thought it best to keep the identity of the body hidden as to convey a sense of mystery and wonderment to the audience. Also, this was an organised murder instead of an impulsive, accidental murder so the body bag, location of burial, transportation is already arranged. Therefore the body bag is necessary to show the level of preparation in the removal of this person and the importance in which the dead person is to the narrative of the thriller.

3. Something to be the dead body e.g.: pillows/ rolled-up duvet/ sand/ punch bag. Probably the punch bag would be the best option, as it is heavy enough to make a sound and for the actors to have some difficulty carrying it.

4. Cigarettes and Zippo lighters. Zippo lighters used to give the characters in the opening a more sophisticated look and impression of higher status (working for one of the biggest gangs). Shows importance to the dead body because if the people burying the dead guy is using a Zippo lighter, and Zippo lighters are linked to higher profiled personal, than the person being buried must be important.

5. Desk is needed as we have included in the opening a gang leader and he will be in his office. Maybe a mahogany desk that’s quite wide, something that’s grand and sophisticated that reflects the characteristic of the man on the desk. He is a gang leader of significant age so his sense of style wood be a bit old fashioned and hints of tradition; so maybe a darker rather than lighter shade of brown.

6. Big chair that is most probably made of leather to correspond with the mahogany desk.

7. Lamp is the source of the lighting in the office as we will be doing some chiaroscuro lighting - this could connote mystery and sinicism to the audience and also give the idea that this man is not a good guy.

8. Slated blinds behind the desk so light shines in from outside of the room, to create a thrillerish look to the scene.

Costumes: Smart clothes and overcoats for the gangsters e.g. dark suits and dark trench coats.

These are what would be ideal, and what we hope we can get hold of, but we know that we may have to make slight changes to the props and/or costumes.

Thriller Storyboard

Here is our groups storyboard:

Map & Satellite Image of Our Filming Location

We used this map of the area we found to find the best suited road to film on:

We also used this satellite image to help see whether there was likely a wooded area on the side of the road which we could use to film the 'body dumping' part of our thriller:

Naming Our Thriller

Our group discussed what we should call our thriller and it was decided that because one of the main themes in our thriller is corruption and deceit, to have a title that reflects and works-around this theme.

We asked peoples opinions on each of the names we thought of and we decided on the one most liked by all.

This is a list of ideas that we came up with:
Sordid Details
Sordid Affairs
Shady Affairs
Twisted Affairs
Twisted Fiction
Twisted Specifics
Sordid Delusions
Tales of Deception
Tales of Deceit
Bad Blood

Finally, we decided on using Bad Blood the name of our thriller.

Soundtrack to Thriller Film

Our first idea for a soundtack to our film is from Sergei Prokofiev's ballet 'Romeo and Juliet', the track being 'Montagues and Capulets'. We thought this piece would fit in well with our film because it is powerful and sinister which would tie in with the betrayal and deception from our film. The soundtrack is a classical piece, giving our thriller a classic style.
Our second idea for the soundtrack was a more modern piece, which is dark and industrial. An example of this might be the soundtrack from the opening sequence of Sin City. If we went with something such as this, our thriller would have a more modern style.

Themes, Style, Subgenre and Influences for our thrillers.

Here are the features we want to use in our thriller:

Themes: Deception & betrayal. Love? Romance. Corruption (organised crime), revenge, Loyalty & trust.

Style: Classic & realism.

Subgenre: Mafia/Gangster

Influences: Romeo & Juliet because it is the very basis of our synopsis, The Godfather because this is what we encorporated with Romeo & Juliet and we are also using narrative related ideas from it, such as the switch of protagonist. Chinatown because we used narrative related ideas from the film such as the idea of a slow developing narrative with the main twists coming at the end & Sin City was also because of narrative related ideas in particular the idea of switching protagonists also we liked the elements of film noir in it and we look to incorporate this in our own.

Locations For Thriller Film.

Initially, I went location scouting around the area on mousehold heath in Norwich, and found Gurney Road. Tamas then went back and found other roads in the surrounding area, and photographed them.

For our thriller opening we need three locations. One of these is a narrow, winding road, preferably with street lights and with a ditch next to it or nearby. The second location that we need is a tall building, with its windows lit-up and preferably with external lighting from the ground, shining up at it. The third and final location is a room with a desk and a big chair.
For the road and ditch, we decided to use the roads around Mousehold Heath, as I found out that they have streetlights. We found that Gurney Rd. would have been perfect, as it was very winding and had streetlights on both sides. However, unfortunately it was so busy that we were unable to take pictures of it let alone be able to film on it. But, we found a very good little narrow road coming off it which had streetlights on one side and had no traffic, and we also found a Gilman Rd. - which is now a footpath and cycle path. Because of this it would have been ideal to film on, however it did not have streetlights, and we wouldn’t have been able to use car lights either so we’d have no lighting.

Here are the pictures we took:

These are photographs of a small road, coming off Gurney Road and linking to Britannia Road that we have decided to use for our thriller. (above)

These are photographs of Gilman Road, which was a road we considered using for our road shots, but decided against because of lack of lighting. (above)

These are photographs of the ditch we decided to use to throw our "dead body" into. (above)

For the building, we looked around at the Norwich Union buildings, and then at the new buildings near the football ground at Riverside. (below)

This Norwich Union Building (above) In the City Centre of Norwich is the building we chose to use.

Here are the riverside buildings we considered (below):

For the room with a desk and chair, we chose to use a classroom at CNS. But the photographs below are the desks we considered at first. The final desk we use for filming will be added at a later date. Obviously though, when we are shooting we’d take much more care concerning the composition and framing.

Here are the desks from a classroom at school (below):