New Idea after pitch

We pitched our idea to Matt Luke and Paul and this time we were more certain that our idea was solid. However after all the hard work, discussions and planning our idea was turned down and we had to change almost the whole thing once more. But this was alright because they put us into reality and asked us if we would keep watching it if we were the audience and we responded n. So now we want to make it more appealing and more audience-friendly. We have not scrapped our whole idea but we have made a significant amount of changes to the original idea.

Firstly they tried to convince us to change where we were going to shoot from the media studio to Ted Jackson office in Cornhill manor. But we stuck to our choice because the environment is better the studio has more space for the wide shots and also because it will be more convenient shooting in the media studio.

Then we changed the storyline a bit. instead of Lynn choking Bob to death with a belt we are going to have bob dead at the beginning of the scene already and we are going to give our audience the impression that he has been poisoned to death because our other idea required too much contact between the 2 actors which could have been seen as inappropriate.

but other than the slight change to the storyline all we have only added a few props and taken out a few props.

Letter to our actors

This is how we asked our actors to act in our thriller

Dear Lynne,

 

We would like to formally invite you to be in our thriller, filming on the 22nd of January. We have chosen you out of recommendation of our media teacher Simon and we think you're perfect for the part. Obviously, there'll be a little inconvenience for you to come and shoot, so we are very grateful to have you on board!

 

You've been cast as:

 

Ava who overpowers men due to their weaknesses of desiring younger women. In the scene, you've just murdered your 6th husband, and leave as you remove your wedding ring. You won't have to kill him, as that happened previously.  

 

You're costume:

 

You get a choice of whatever outfit for Ava, as long as its fairly glamorous, as it saves us asking Loz. Also, if you have any stockings, it would be fabulous if you could provide these as they're featured. If you have troubles with this just let us know asap.

 

You'll be needed:

 

For a short amount of time, and we'll let you know closer to shooting day.

 

Thanks again for everything

 

Beth, Matt, Flora and Toby

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Bob,

 

We would like to formally invite you to be in our thriller, filming on the 22nd of January. We have chosen you out of recommendation of our media teacher Simon. Obviously, there'll be a little inconvenience for you to come and shoot, so we are very grateful to have you on board!

 

You've been cast as:

 

Barry- a businessman with a weakness for younger women (We apologise profusely). It isn't a huge role, as you won't have to say a word, and are only playing dead, laying on a bed. You're co-star will be Lynn Winehead, as we heard she was in your top list of 3.

 

You're costume:

 

If you could bring a white shirt and black trousers, and suite jacket, that would be fabulous, as it saves us asking Loz. If you have troubles with this just let us know asap.

 

You'll be needed:

 

For a short amount of time, and we'll let you know closer to shooting day.

 

Thanks again for everything

 

Beth, Matt, Flora and Toby

Interview

1. What do you expect to hear in a thriller ?

2. What do you like about thrillers ?

3. Tell me your favourite thrillers and why ?

4. Would you watch a film about murderers who take advantage of vulnerable people ?

5. What is your favourite film genre ?

6. How old are you ?

7.  What do you look for in a good film ?

8. Do you like Thrillers ?

Target Audience

Here above is an example of our target audience. We are aiming at young adults mostly men because men around the age of 20-30 tend to be more interested in thrillers in comparison to women in that age group.
This man is a good example because he is a young working man who seems to be interested in a lot of thrillers e.g Godfather, Salt and Shutter island. And these are the type of people we hope to attract with our thriller.

Evaluation task 3- Who would distribute my product ?

Our thriller is called “Mistress”. Personally I believe that our thriller has a good story-line, a good plot and I think the idea behind it is very good. At first I would have chosen a big name like Warner Brothers or Paramount. As they have enough money to distribute and market our movie to a wide range of people all over the world and that would make us more known. The money would also help us increase the quality of the thriller.

                However our thriller is very low budget as we do have to set up from scratch and we have a limited amount of space and we are restricted to a limited amount of shots because we have a limited amount of cameras and it will be very time consuming for us to do all possible shot angles and time is what we do not have. Also we are using low quality props as it would be too expensive to get the more realistic ones.

                As well as that we are also using unknown actors who do not have a fan base already so it is not likely that warner brothers would want to distribute our movie because they will be looking for a movie that has elements that would assure success for example more popular actors like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Unfortunately we cannot offer those two because we are running a low budget thriller. Also my group is not known so we don’t have previous movies that were successful that we could use to argue that our thriller will be successful. So we do not have enough facts that will assure that these companies will make a profit. So because they do not want to make a loss they would be quite discouraged from investing/distributing our movie.

                Also we cannot offer any other merchandise apart from DVDs which would bring additional revenue for Warner Brothers or Paramount so we do not have any post selling elements. This means the main source of revenue for us and for the production company would be just the movie. And the movie itself is not assured to bring in a large amount of revenue So this might discourage Warner Brothers and Paramount even more. Also our thriller is based in Britain. However Most if not all Warner Brothers and Paramount Films are based in America and more exotic/tropical countries.

                To now be more realistic I believe that if anyone would distribute our thriller it would either be Vertigo or BBC. Reasons being because Vertigo and BBC deal more with British based movies as they are European production companies. They also deal with the production of lower budget movies and only a small number of the movies they’ve distributed have been shot in exotic locations away from the UK.  And although it is still a long shot their history show that they have been giving unknown writers a chance by distributing movies with very little fan base which eventually became successful for example the movie “Bend it like Beckham.”  That movie was successful however most of the actors were unknown and it had a very little fan base so it was more or less a gamble. However if I wanted to link a movie that was like ours I would say the movie “Monsters” which was produced and distributed by vertigo. It was a success even though it was directed and written by a first time director named Gareth Edwards. He did not have an existing fanbase and it was his first-time and even as it was not guaranteed that his movie would be a success vertigo still distributed it and it generated £348,577 (5^th December 2010) in its opening weekend in the UK and it was distributed in different cinemas as it was showing on 164 screens. And 2 weeks later (19^th December 2010) it had generated £847,442 so it had gone up by more than double  in 2 weeks  and it had a budget of $800,000  and like ours that is a low budget movie compared to other. Although the movie was distributed first in USA (31^st October 2010) it was only distributed on 3 screens in its first weekend of distributed and therefor only generated $20,508 in its first weekend so it did not generate as much money as it did in the UK but that could be because it was not distributed in as many cinemas as it was in the UK but by the 26^th of December it had generated $237,301 which was still not as much as was made in the UK but that too is because it was not distributed on as many screens. By 2011 the film had won an award from the academy of science fiction, fantasy and horror films for the Best international film. This movie ended up very successful and we hope to get the same recognition as we are coming from the same type of background as the director. Unfortunately Vertigo and BBC are not as successful and wealthy as Warner Brothers and Paramount but their distribution would have a big effect on our movie.

Vertigo have distributed about 47 different movies and they have done this via DVDs and through the use of UK based Cinemas. Vertigo Films is a UK Film and Distribution company founded in 2002 by Allan Niblo and James Richardson. The following year Rupert Preston and Nick Love joined and became partners. The company’s mission is to create and distribute commercially driven independent cinema and since inception it has produced 28 films and distributed a further 35. The Films span a range of genres and audience taste and include the box office smash hit Streetdance 3D, the biggest independent UK DVD of all time The Football Factory, the multi award winning Monsters, Vertigo co-production Ajami (nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film), smash hit family film Horrid Henry The Movie, audience favourite The Sweeney, and the hottest director of the moment, Nicolas Winding Refn's first English-language film, Bronson. In 2013 Vertigo has eight films in production including Pudsey The Movie – a co-production with Simon Cowell’s company Syco, Walking on Sunshine – a feel good musical in partnership with IM Global and Monsters:The Dark Continent from hot new director Tom Green. Championing new talent has been key to Vertigo Film’s production strategy and it continues to pride itself on being at the forefront of breaking new talent, including Tom Hardy (Bronson), Scoot McNairy (Monsters), Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist), Gareth Edwards (Monsters), Paul Andrew Williams (London to Brighton), Ben Gregor (All Stars) and Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson).

Monsters premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival, as part of the SX Fantastic screenings, on 13 March 2010. On 17 March, Magnet Releasing acquired the rights for the North American distribution. In May, the film was screened at the Cannes Film Market. Monsters had its UK premiere as part of the 64th Edinburgh International Film Festival, on 18 June 2010. The Los Angeles Film Festival also held two screenings, part of the Summer Showcase, on 23 and 26 June. The film's theatrical release took place in Russia on 30 September, distributed by Volgafilm. Magnolia Pictures released Monsters in US theatres on 29 October 2010. The Canadian theatrical release was on 5 November, after DFilms acquired the rights on 24 May 2010.

                So in conclusion I believe  BBC and Vertigo will distribute our movie I chose them both because they are not that wealthy and we would need more than one source of distribution for marketing.

 

 

What type of thriller

The type of film we have is a neo noir thriller. The term film noir (French for "black film") was coined by critic Nino Frank in 1946, but was rarely used by film makers, critics or fans until several decades later. The classic era of film noir is usually dated to a period between the early 1940s and the late 1950s. Typically American crime dramas or psychological thrillers, films noir had a number of common themes and plot devices, and many distinctive visual elements. Characters were often conflicted antiheroes, trapped in a difficult situation and making choices out of desperation or nihilisticmoral systems. Visual elements included low-key lighting, striking use of light and shadow, and unusual camera placement. 

Examples of neo noir films are :

1. Blade runner 

2. Blood simple

3. The man who wasn't there 

4. Double Indemnity 

5. Momento

These all have the same theme and 1 or 2 of them have the same background (story) as our thriller and movies like this influenced the choices we made when shooting and editing our thriller.

Slight changes to my thriller

Changes after the Pitch

After we pitched our final idea we got feedback that involved us changing something's in our idea. We changed

Props:

Now we are using:

Photographs
Lamps because lamps look more elegant and classy than burnt candles and our killer is meant to be seen as an elegant fabulous lady.
Stockings these are going to be used to show that the killer is a female
Used cigarette and an ashtray because we cant film her smoking a fake cigarette because the fake smoke will set off the fire alarms
Champagne bottle Ice Bucket with melted ice because we went to tell the audience that they have been in the room for quite a long time as it takes time for ice to melt
Two champagne glasses one empty one full to show that Bob was seduced and tricked into drinking the champagne which had poison in it
Tie swung over chair to give that type of sexual seductive illusion.  Shows how she managed to kill him
Women's heels again to show that the killer is a woman
Perfume bottle and after shave (mans and woman's side) to show that they were a fairly wealthy couple which makes the audience question if the lady was just a serial killing gold digger.
Paintings and Ornaments to emphasise the glamour 
Mirror so that we can  show glimpses of the bed and whose on it

We also changed one of our actors. We are using Lin as our new actress as opposed to Franchie Webb because Lin is much older (adult)  and it would have been a little bit inappropriate if we used a student of franchise age.

We also made a change to where we would be shooting. We are not going to be shooting in Cornhill Manor anymore now we are going to be shooting in the media studio. To make this possible we have to set our props out from scratch. So instead of using a room that already had a bed we are going to be carrying in a bed and setting it up in the media studio. We're going to be building the whole set from scratch in the media studio so its not just going to be the bed we take in.