Production planning and Idea development...

As our allocated filming time soon approaches, we have had to make sure everything is finalised and all decisions have been made in order for our filming to run smoothly. Although Luke and I have found it difficult to come up with suitable yet effective thriller opening ideas; We have now got our idea, after weeks of planning and thinking of various ideas which have either been used, altered or elaborated on or simply just completely dropped. (For example, below is one of our ideas, which we later had to change due to arising problems that we felt we may encounter.)

(Initial Thriller Opening idea)

Shots of a man going about his business, shot as though it's a home video recording. Pan out to reveal that the footage is being watched on a television screen in a dark room. Man is seen on train as train pulls away from the station. Short, sharp shots from the inside of the train looking out onto the platform where a 'mystery' man dressed in a long dark trench coat is seen standing on the platform. Close-up shot of man on train, reaches for his coffee in front of him, where the 'mystery' man is then seen sitting on the seat opposite him.End.

When planning further into this idea, we came across many problems that we would encounter if we proceeded with the filming idea. We realised that by getting shots of a train pulling away from the station both from inside of the train and from the outside we would have needed to of made the journey many times in order to have sufficient continuity and shots to play with. Not only this, but it would take a lot of time, cost a lot of money for train tickets and we realised that we would have to get permission to film on a public train. Therefore, we decided that this idea would not work when it came to the actual filming process and so we have decided to take forward certain extracts and ideas such as:
- The main character/s being stalked or followed.
- The use of a location shot in a dark-room.
- Footage being watched on a t.v in the dark-room.

We have decided to take forward these ideas and develop on them as we feel that they will be possible to achieve in terms of being able to realistically film it. As well as this, we feel that having a 'stalking' theme and using dark, enclosed scenery will create suspense and acumilate questions for the audience which will therefore make them want to watch more - overall are all essential elements for a thriller opening.


Becky.