Practice shoot

We did a mock shoot of our thriller with a fake setting, fake props  and fake actors.

We used Beth as our female killer and I played the victim. We shot our thriller in Simons class and we used tables as a bed for me to lay on. We then also used black tape to tie my hands together and to use to cover my mouth so no sounds could be made by me when I was being choked. We then used a belt as the weapon. Along with Matts gloves.

We took: Close up shots, wide shots, low angle shots, high angle shots, tracking shots and medium shots just to prepare and to know which shots we are going to focus on the most for when we want to do our editing.

It was a difficult task because we had not realised that we did not have a long enough story line to start shooting so our mock thriller was relatively short. But after a while we came to conclusion what shots we would use and on who we were going to use those shots on.

Then we finally realised what we needed to do then we planned and reshot our thriller sequence and it was not as difficult but this time we did it without the use of tape.

These are the shots we used and are planning on using on our final shoot.

Close-up of Bobby's feet tied to bed

Tracking shot moving up his body and ending on his face

Cut to black with credits

Tracking shot of legs pacing back and forth see cigarette

Pan up to Franchie standing with back to Bobby and camera smoking: wide shot

Cut to black w credits

Close-up of Bobby looking terrified, straining

Cut to close-up shot of clock showing time

Cut to black w credits

Bird's eye view of Bobby as Franchie gets on top of him

Cut to close-up of Bobby's belt being taken out and wrapped around his neck

Pan up onto straining hands then loosening

Close-up of gloves being taken off revealing red nails

Pan up to Franchie

Close up of her mouth as she kisses her hand

Tracking shot as she places her hand on Bobby's head

Cut to black w credits

Close up of Franchie opening the door and smiling. Taking a drag

Close up of door closing

Cut to black with title

End

 

 

 

 

 

Our idea after change

At first we thought we would be able to shoot our thriller with the killer wearing a mask and holding a burning cigarette and then killing the cigarette before. But Simon told us that it wouldn't be possible.

So instead we are going to use a fake cigarette which we would get from amazon which already looks like its lit and it brings out fake smoke and we are getting rid of the mask idea and we are just going to use camera and editing to crop out our killers face so it could keep that mystery illusion and make the audience wonder who the killer could be.

We also thought we would be able to use the media studio to shoot our entire thriller but Simon made us realise that it would make more sense for it to be shot in one of the boarding houses. So we decided that we would use corn hill manor as opposed to using the media studio in school.

We also changed the idea. Before we were going to have just a scene were you see a victim in a bed with fake bloom running through tubes connected to the victims neck. Now we are just going to have someone being choked to death.

At first we were going to name our thriller Valkyrie because it was sort of a scary name that made you wonder and it would give the audience the immediate thought that it is a thriller. But we had to change the name because Tom cruise had already been a movie with that name. So we then changed the title of the movie to "The Mistress" because it kind of tells the audience what the movie is about which is a woman who is dominant over a male.

 

 

 

 

Actors

 

We have decided to use the English Teacher Bobby Genower as our victim in our thriller. This is because he is a much older and mature actor to take on the responsibilities we require. He matches our needs for our character profile. We also chose him because he looks like a character that will be prone to entering such a situation with a female- he looks more vulnerable. Also Bobby is one of the most willing able and available people we can find to shoot.

 

 





 

The next person is an actress and she is a student. Her name is Franchie Webb. We chose her because she has a lot fo acting experience and she seems to be very comfortable shooting this scene. We also chose her because she is young so it seems like a more stereotypical scene where the old man tries to get rid of his younger girlfriend and she is not taking the let off too nicely compared to the male. and we also chose her because she is attractive I prone to attract older men. and she looks like Linda Fiorentina.

 

 

Franchie Webb

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Clothes

Bobby is going to be wearing a plain white button up shirt and black bottoms. However we are going to use fake blood and drench it on the upper part of his shirt so it could look bloody and look as if he has been getting tortured by the female (Franchie).

Franchie is going to be wearing a black hoody and black jeans along with black army boots gloves. Her nails are going to be painted red and she is going to be wearing red lipstick however her face and nails would be covered until the end of the scene so our audience do not know its a female that is killing the man

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

our setting

Seeing as our thriller is about someone being choked to death on a bed we decided to use one of the bedrooms in corn hill manor to shoot as corn hill seems to be the house with the biggest beds and the best rooms.

We decided to ask 2 different students who have really good rooms for permission to shoot in their room. We asked Nick from Ukraine and Alek from Poland.

They have their own rooms and they have nice double beds. At this point time we are more likely to use Nicks room because his bed has a backboard but Aleks room seems to be more spacious and it seems to have a better look for the type of room we want to use for our thriller.

I then took different shots of both their rooms from different angles to see which one might work best for our thriller. And from Nicks facial reaction you can tell that he is delighted to see me taking pictures of his neat and tidy room. Nor does he know that the room is going to have to be very messy for our thriller.

Our idea before change

Firstly our idea is set in the media studio where we would have a dark messy bedroom. With the bed surrounded by candles.

Then our shot will change to a woman holding a burning cigarette and wearing a mask with a syringe in her other hand, like the killer from the movie 'audition' then she injects something into a man who is tied up on a bed.

Then the woman connects tubes the mans neck and draws blood (fake) from him till he dies and then right before he dies. The woman takes off the mask and we go to a close up shot of her face and we see a scar and she says to the man "remember this ? Remember me?" which gives us the impression that she had been assaulted/abused by the man and they have bad history. 

Our influence also came from a 1987 movie called "Black Widow" which is an old movie about a female serial killer. The woman's appearance from the movie poster was one of the things that influenced us the most because this is how we wanted our female serial killer to look.
 

 

Dorthea Puente Female Serial Killer

One of the women that influenced us to use this idea was an actual female serial killer named Dorthea Puente and this is a brief summary of her crimes.

Number of Victims: 3-9



In the mid-1980s, Puente ran a boarding house for the elderly. Puente stole from her boarders, and eventually began murdering them (usually by poisoning).

In 1985, Puente had a handyman dump a box of “junk” – really a decomposing human body – along a river bank where it was later found by a fisherman.

 

Police began to investigate Puente and her “missing” tenants; they eventually found seven bodies buried on her property, although Puente maintained that her boarders died of natural causes.


After her trial in 1992, Puente was sentenced to life imprisonment. She died in 2011 at the Central California Women’s Facility in California.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deadly women

Another thing that influenced our idea was an extract from the reality television series from the Crime and Investigation channel called "Snapped- Women who kill." this episode talks about a woman named Elisa McNabney.

She killed her wealthy husband by drugging him with horse tranquiliser she had been married 3 times previously and attempted to murder all her other husbands.
 
she spiked her husbands drink with horse tranquiliser. And when he went for a horse ride he collapsed. After he collapsed he was then injected with even more horse tranquiliser and her and her daughter left him in a sealed fridge for 4 months to die as they spent all his money shopping, buying expensive cars clothes and jewellery.

When his money almost finished they took him out of the fridge buried him and tried to run away. And this was as a result of greed. She wanted all the money to herself even when he gave her everything she wanted .

 

 

 

 

Our final idea

Our idea consists of a woman who is a serial killer, that sneaks up on men while covering her face wearing gloves and a black costume and stalks and  kills them slowly in their beds.

Our idea came from "Monster." This is because the movie links quite well with our idea with a woman bring the one that has to do with the deaths. The woman from monsters is a serial killer who allows men to pick her off the street and when they do they take her to a deserted area where she is alone with the guy she kills whichever guy it is. And leaves almost no trace so it makes it difficult for the police to find her.

 



Hammer Films Production Company

Hammer Films Production Company is a production company based in Britain. They have made several good movies and an example of a good movie they made is the movie titled "The woman in black."
   The woman in black was supported by companies such as:

1. Cross Creek Pictures
2. Alliance Films
3. UK film council
4. Talisman Productions
5. Filmgate
6. Exclusive media group
7. Film I vast

All these companies including hammer contributed to raise the fund for production and marketing. And they had an estimated budget of $17 000 000 (seventeen million dollars). So it had a relatively low budget.

Cross Creek Pictures is an American film production company and film financier. Their first production was the acclaimed Black Swan in 2010, which was followed by The Ides of March in 2011, The Woman in Black in 2012 and Rush in 2013. Since May 2012, Cross Creek have had a co-production relationship with Exclusive Media. In September 2011, Cross Creek Pictures signed a deal with Universal Pictures, where the studio would release at least six of Cross Creek's productions over the following 3 years.

Alliance Films was a major Canadian motion picture distribution/production company, which had served Canada, the United Kingdom, and Spain. It is part of the Entertainment One group and has been folded into eOne due to the January 9, 2013 acquisition. It was one of the major motion picture distribution/production companies to distribute independent films outside the United States.

The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 by the Labour Government to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee governed by a board of 15 directors and was funded through sources including the National Lottery. As at 30 June 2008, the company had 90 full-time members of staff. It distributed more than £160m of lottery money to over 900 films.

Exclusive Media is a vertically integrated global film production, finance, sales and distribution company backed by strategic investment group Dasym Investment Strategies. Exclusive Media operates through three specialist labels:

• UK-based Hammer for genre titles.
• Spitfire Pictures for documentary features and the flagship label.
• Exclusive Media for all other feature film production

The director of the woman in black was James Watkins.
    James Watkins (born 1973) is a British film director and screenwriter, best known for directing The Woman in Black : a worldwide box office smash, The Woman in Black is the most financially successful British horror film since records began.
He wrote and directed the critically acclaimed thriller Eden Lake, starring Michael Fassbender and Keilly Reilly. It won Best Horror Film at the 2009 Empire Awards, the Jury Prize at Sitges Fantasy Festival and Best Director at Fantasporto. He was nominated for the Douglas Hickox Award at the 2008 British Independent Film Awards.

Daniel Jacob Radcliffe is an English actor. He rose to prominence as the title character in the Harry Potter film series. He made his acting debut at 10 years of age in BBC One's 1999 television movie David Copperfield, followed by his film debut in 2001's The Tailor of Panama. At age 11, he was cast as Harry Potter in the first Harry Potter film, and starred in the series for 10 years until the release of the eighth and final film in 2011.
Radcliffe began to branch out to stage acting in 2007, starring in the London and New York productions of Equus, and in the 2011 Broadway revival of the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

The movie was released in different places at different times of the year 2012

Release dates:

Canada	3 February 2012
USA	3 February 2012
Philippines	8 February 2012
Argentina	9 February 2012
Denmark	9 February 2012
Greece	9 February 2012
Colombia	10 February 2012
UK	10 February 2012
Ireland	10 February 2012
Mexico	10 February 2012
Kuwait	16 February 2012
Spain	17 February 2012
India	17 February 2012
Pakistan	17 February 2012
Netherlands	23 February 2012
Brazil	24 February 2012
Italy	2 March 2012
Poland	2 March 2012
Portugal	8 March 2012
Turkey	9 March 2012
Chile	12 March 2012
Belgium	14 March 2012
France	14 March 2012
Indonesia	15 March 2012
Russia	15 March 2012
Singapore	15 March 2012
Germany	29 March 2012
Hungary	29 March 2012
Bulgaria	30 March 2012
Peru	12 April 2012
Ukraine	12 April 2012
Sweden	27 April 2012
Australia	17 May 2012
Hong Kong	19 May 2012	(limited)
Hong Kong	24 May 2012
El Salvador	17 August 2012
Israel	20 September 2012
Japan	20 October 2012	(Tokyo International Film Festival)
Japan	1 December 2012

Opening Weekend

$20,874,072 (USA) (5 February 2012) (2,855 Screens)
£3,153,020 (UK) (12 February 2012) (412 Screens)
$54,322,273 (USA) (29 April 2012)
$54,279,711 (USA) (22 April 2012)
$54,212,643 (USA) (15 April 2012)
$54,107,365 (USA) (8 April 2012)
$53,749,209 (USA) (25 March 2012)
$53,473,766 (USA) (18 March 2012)
$53,031,283 (USA) (11 March 2012)
$52,241,390 (USA) (4 March 2012)
$50,451,681 (USA) (26 February 2012)
$46,404,794 (USA) (19 February 2012)
$35,258,145 (USA) (12 February 2012)
$20,874,072 (USA) (5 February 2012)
£19,829,610 (UK) (11 March 2012)
£17,759,572 (UK) (4 March 2012)
£14,614,604 (UK) (26 February 2012)
£10,487,648 (UK) (19 February 2012)
£3,153,020 (UK) (12 February 2012)
€2,989,869 (Spain) (11 March 2012)
€1,992,002 (Spain) (26 February 2012)
€986,376 (Spain) (19 February 2012)
€3,194,325 (Spain)
The film generated this much and showed in all these screens in its first weekend:

$28,552 (USA) (29 April 2012) (63 Screens)
$47,327 (USA) (22 April 2012) (90 Screens)
$71,265 (USA) (15 April 2012) (122 Screens)
$101,762 (USA) (8 April 2012) (159 Screens)
$198,250 (USA) (25 March 2012) (180 Screens)
$241,607 (USA) (18 March 2012) (305 Screens)
$491,037 (USA) (11 March 2012) (433 Screens)
$1,154,475 (USA) (4 March 2012) (812 Screens)
$2,722,485 (USA) (26 February 2012) (1,727 Screens)
$6,679,196 (USA) (19 February 2012) (2,561 Screens)
$10,102,658 (USA) (12 February 2012) (2,856 Screens)
$20,874,072 (USA) (5 February 2012) (2,855 Screens)

The movie is a horror thriller and it was targeted for people of young age as it was rated for people of the age 12 and up.
   But the Americans did buy the film and distribute it in other countries around the world.

Stereotypes

What is a stereotype ?

Stereotype is often used as a form of dramatic shorthand for stock quoter.

The term is come to mean at its simplest form, a fixed and repeated characterisation.

A stereotype is a generalisation which is often inaccurate. It is made about a specific group of people or an individual.

They are commonly understood/recognised and often evolve around a number of different areas.

Examples of stereotypes are:

The dumb blonde or sex goddess
The male bimbo
The muslim terrorist wearing a long beard.

Stereotypes arent fixed and can change over a period of time depending on dominant ideologies develop and alter.

Problems For British Films At The Cinema

Hollywood dominates the movie market therefore fewer people want to see less stylistically challenging british films. Also British films have to be dubbed or subtitled in Europe or in America.
   America have access to large sums of money so it makes it possible for them to have very high beget films. Whereas in Britain the cannot compete with america because they do not have as much funds as the americans have in order to make high budget movies. Smaller budgets then lead to smaller distribution and therefore this creates problems in getting British films into the cinema and not straight on to DVD.
   Also advertising costs are prohibitive to smaller scale films reaching larger audience. These are problems for British films at the cinema. Also the difference between the british market and the american market is that in america, all marketing strategies are considered and marketing is planned before production starts, whereas in Britain production starts before market research which leads to most of the money from the budget being used in production while only a little will be left for advertisement and marketing.

Our Idea Feedback

 Well after we discussed our idea with Simon we ended up realising that our idea was not realistic enough.

Firstly Simon told us that we are not allowed to use a real cigarette so we have to change that idea. Also he told us that our idea was a little bit cliché- something you see in most thrillers nowadays and we were told to be more creative.

He told us it was not realistic because we would have to set up/carry a bed into the media studio. Which would be very difficult as it would take a lot of time and effort. So he said we should try and use one of the rooms in the boarding houses.

He then got us to make the scene more creative by getting us to change the idea a little bit - so we ended up agreeing that we would disguise the woman as a man and then get the woman to reveal that she is a woman in a way that the audience would wonder if it was still a man or actually a woman.

Also Simon let us know that it would be very difficult to get a close up shot of a scar in the dark and he told us that the shots would be rather confusing.

Also we ended up removing the name because the name we first chose had been used in a Tom cruise movie in 2010.

He then also made us realise that our initial idea was too long for just the opening sequence of a movie thriller so we had to cut some parts out and make adjustments.

Openning credits to "Catch Me If You Can"

First off it starts with us seeing the name of the production company "DreamWorks Pictures Presents" then "A Kemp Company and Splendid Pictures Production"

Then it goes on to show us the name of the director but in the is format "Directed by Steven Spielburg"

Then it goes on to show us the names of the already known/well known actors who feature in the movie

 

 instead of waiting till the end of the movie when the cast is shown. "Tom Hanks and Leonardo Dicaprio" "Martin Sheen" this is used to keep the audience interested and also to grab their attention and make it feel like there are a lot of well known actors in the movie"

Then it rounds up the opening credits by showing us the Title "Catch me if you can"