Account of shoot day:

The day began with us setting up all the props and getting the whole set in the studio ready. We then got the actors to stand in their positions and took photos of them on our phones for each shot we would do on the camera, so this was done from our storyboard that we drew out, apart from we changed a few things. For instance we got rid of the spy’s wife and just kept the daughter in the thriller; we did this because we knew that two minutes wasn’t long enough to have the wife in our thriller. We realised this was more effective to our thriller because just having the daughters life threatened would make the spies decision more tense for the audience, leaving more of an affect on the audience with our cliff hanger. We wanted to get an action thriller, full of suspense and fast paced action, but only having two minutes to give that impression to the audience was quite difficult, however with our editing we should be able to pull it off. Our target audience is really from the ages of 15 and above, so it should appeal to a large majority of people, it’s a mainstream opening sequence.

We set up in the studio, because we felt that we only needed one set to work with since the spy was being tortured throughout most of the opening sequence. We felt that our set attracted our audience because people want to see a secret agent getting beaten up for a secret code, and then the agent’s daughter’s life being threatened, it was a typical James Bond film. Our mise en scene was red and black brick wall with old Soviet posters on the wall, the red and black signified danger and death, and the brick wall was very old and dirty, this was to show it was an abandoned warehouse in Chechnya. There was also cigarette buds on the floor and general dirt as well to add to the implication of an old warehouse. This was all part of attracting our genre audience because we wanted to show that the terrorists had taken the spy hostage in a deserted abandoned location, where no one could help or rescue him, adding the suspense. For our camera work, we used mid shots to close ups to build up the suspense, we also had a few long shots so that the audience could see the mise en scene, and get a feel of the cold and dangerous location.  I think best shot we got was when the spies’ daughter is brought in the room and we show it by a long shot, and the spy starts screaming and kicking and we then zoom in on a extreme close up, to show his facial expression, which is very nervous at this stage. With using close ups of the actors faces it was a usual for action thrillers, it was to build up the suspense.

For the costumes and props, we used all black for the two Chechnya’s who were beating up the spy, and a military uniform for the head chechneyan. We used all black for the two Chechnya’s, because we wanted to use a stereotypical colour, because blackis used for dark and sinister characters. We used the military uniform for the head chechneyan, to show he was the one with authority and power, we wanted to give the impression he was some general in the chechneyan army. For the spy we put him in casual clothing to show that he was off duty when he was captured, and there was alot of fake blood on his shirt, to show that he had been beaten up for a long time. For the spies daughter, she wore a white dress, this was to show her purity and innocence.

We catsed these actors, because we thought the spy with his rugged look would attract a younger female audience, we then used three rough looking guys to play the Chechnya’s because it seemed very suitable for our thriller, and they were perfect for the roles. The spies daughter was a blonde small girl, who was perfect the role because we wanted our audience to feel sorry for the daughter because of her cute and innocent looks.

We used various different types of lighting, such as we had a strong light reflecting on water with mirrors in it to get a very powerful wavy affect on the walls, we did this to show that the water where the spy gets ducked was reflecting on the walls, I feel it just gave that extra emphasis of danger. We also had a very thick strong light coming through the door whenever the door was opened; we did this to show that the room that the spy was in was a very dark and miserable room, again emphasizing that in that room was dangerous.

There won’t be that much sound in our thriller until we’ve finished editing it, but the door in our thriller was quite creaky which made it more tense when someone was walking into the room, especially when the two Chechnya’s go and get the spies daughter, it really adds to the suspense.

In out thriller we didn’t stick with just one role, we swapped every 20 minutes and did something else, this way we got to experience all parts of making our thriller. So we had directing, lighting, camera work and watching the screen to make sure the shot looked good on TV. I told the actors precisely how to say their line and where to look and how long they had to stay in their position for. The actors were very important to build the suspense in our thriller, and I played a big role in showing how it should be done, so I played quite a big part in directing the actors.

We worked superbly as a team, everything on the shoot day was very smooth and fluid, and my team and I were very pleased with the overall turn out of the day. The whole shoot, most certainly had reached our expectations. The mise en scene worked beautifully with what we wanted to capture on film and give that cold, dangerous, dark feel to our audience. We probably would have added to the mise en scene a few more old soviet posters on the wall, to give it that extra emphasis of an old dark warehouse feel.

SHOT LIST (ORIGINAL):

  

Wide shot of room

Mid shot of Simon

Shot reverse shots between Simon and Terroist (using mid/closeups)

Reaction shot of terroist wiping spit off his face

Cuts to Reaction shot of Simon being hit on the face by terroist (mid/close up)

Wide shot of Terroist walking around Simon on the chair on the phone

Close up/mid shot of terroist holding up phone

Close ups between shot reverse shots

Over the shoulder shot (over Simon) to show Terrroist holding up camera phone to Simon

Mid/close up shot of Simon crying

Storyboard: