Pilot

This is the pilot thriller we made today as part of the development process. This short pilot is aimed to help us realise our capabilities and any potential problems, and mainly just bring our idea to life a little bit. Of course, this pilot is on a much smaller scale to what our final film will be and is both filmed and acted by the group instead of using a cast at this stage. Nevertheless it is another step making our project happen. We followed the our storyboard and manage to have it finished within a lesson. I'm sure that the basic elements of a few of these shots will be seen in the final thriller.

Final Storyboard...

With only a short period of time before the execution of our thriller, we had to sit down as a group and finalise our storyboard. This meant we reviewed previous storyboards and made necessary adaptations. The storyboard gives us confidence going into the shoot as at this stage it is the only physical thing we have relating to our thriller, but it gives us something to work from, a guide we can revert to. We are almost certain that we will include shots in our thriller that aren't on the storyboard but they will come spontaneously during the shoot when we have an eye for where we are shooting.

The Big Decisions

With our thriller shoot soon approaching, now felt like the right time to review our idea and make any big decisions that were necessary. These decisions may appear rather futile but can make a big difference to the entire feel of the sequence.

The first of these was raised by Adam (Teacher) in a production meeting when we were analysing our idea. It was suggested that one of the bullies was in fact a girl. Adam thought that this would be interesting as it just makes the entire scenario much more embarrassing for the boy. I initially agreed with this as I felt it removed from the brutality of the scene and instead replaced it with just a boy who is being put to shame. However, when it was suggested that we actually make the girl the most horrible and violent of the bunch it changed my mind. Seeing this behaviour from a girl if anything increases the brutality of the situation as it gives us an idea of the hostile environment that the boy is living in.

Another decision is whether a sugar glass bottle should be used to smash over the boys head. We had seen this done in other pieces and thought visually it might look good. However, culturally we felt this was the wrong kind of violence to what we were trying to portray. After all these are teenagers and the type of violence must reflect that. We thought this was the act of drunk men in a pub rather than urban teenagers in a skate park and it detracts from the realism of the piece.

The final major decision of the sequence was whether we would have an extra scene at the end. In terms of the narrative it was suggested that we could have a scene at the end in with the boy returns to his home bruised and bloodied and yet is drunk father offers him no sympathy. This scene would give the audience more of an insight into the boys life. However, I felt this was too much insight and gave the audience too much narrative for the opening sequence. Also, we have planned to finish the sequence with the boy lying on the ground. This felt like a very natural way of ending the sequence as well as also being pleasing aesthetically. To then start a new scene in a different setting before we even see the opening titles would detract from the flow of the sequence.