Prop Design - Bottles

For my medicine bottles I wanted really old looking glass with an old looking label and Top. I went down to the chemistry department in school and asked if they had any spare bottles, I was in luck because they gave me 20 smaller brown glass bottles and 5 clear glass bottles. I then made different labels using Photoshop and a font which I downloaded form www.Dafont.com 
I wanted the labels to look old and simplistic, so the font is an old type writer font with extra spacings between each letter. The label also has a simplistic navy blue boarder. For the lid the bottles originally had plastic tops but in 1912 injection moulding was not around so I decided to use corks instead. I was given a big bag of corks from Mama Fitch and I cut each one down to size to fit the tops of the the medicine bottles.
I researched other drugs other than Diamorphine and Morphine, such as Arsenic, Candonum, Opium and Chloral.
I then listed how I could make replicas for the bottles.

Arsenic – White crystals – flour

Morphine – clear liquid – water

Candonum – pink liquid – water and food colourings

Opium  - flakes when raw / brown rock – Corn flakes

Chloral – Colourless oily liquid – water

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloral
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium#Chemical_and_physiological_properties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic#Chemical

Survey For Thriller

Thriller Questionnaire

How old are you?    17, 24, 16, 17, 19, 18, 20, 35, 48, 32.

Are you male or female?       Female, Male, Female, Female, Male, Male, Male, female, Male, Female.

What Sub-genre of thriller do you prefer? (max 3)

Sci-fi: 3

Based on true events: 3

High adrenaline action: 4

Murder mystery: 6

Conspiracy: 2

Set in the past: 3

Set in the future:

Psychological: 7

Horror : 2

Do you watch a lot of thrillers?
Yes, yes, yes, Yes, yes, yes, No, yes, Yes, Yes.

When watching a Thriller how do you like it to begin?

Straight into the action: 4

Time taken to set the foundations for a more complex plot:  6

Do you prefer a Male or Female protagonist?

Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Female, Female, Male, Male, Male

Do you like to know who Antagonist is straight away?

No, No, No, No, No, No, Yes, No, Yes, No

Do you prefer a Male of female Antagonist?

Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Male. 

Thriller Production - Initial ideas + Research

Initial Ideas:

When Borders book shop was closing down, I found a book called "Daily Mail. True Crime - Classic, Rare and Unseen." I bought it with my thriller in mind because most Thrillers are based around murder. This book showed old news paper article's dating back to 1910 - 2001. The book basically brings all evidence and background story together. The first story which catched my eye was The West or as the press called it "House of Horrors". A couple who killed people in the late 60's/70's and buried them under their floor. one of which being the first mrs.west...I decided against this because I thought it was a tad too much for an opening and it sounds more like a Saw film rather than a thriller opening.

The next story which caught my eye was the story of Doctor Harold Shipman whom which the tabloids called "Doctor Death". It was revealed in 2001 and made alot of news. Harold Shipman overdosed his patients with diamorphine, He targeted old women who lived alone and few relatives. He made the women write out large sums of money to him, or he would forge them. In one case the one that discovered him, he made Mrs Kathleen Grundy leave every thing to him in her will. This then led to all his crimes being revealed. Doctor Shipman Killed 297 Patients.

This story was alot more thriller potential in comparison to the wests. So I decided to base my Story on Harold Shipman, but with a twist, Instead of it being in 2001 I have decided to set it in 1912. I chose to do it in the 1910's for several reasons.

1.I chose 1912 because I wanted a type writer in my film and I researched when the typewriter became commercialised and it was 1910.

Standardization: By about 1910, the "manual" or "mechanical" typewriter had reached a somewhat standardized design.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter)

2. I added on two more years because it’s the year the titanic sank and I would love to use a newspaper in one of my shots to help the audience relate to what time period it is set in.

3. Diamorphine was banned in 1914 and was discovered as a worse version to morphine, as before it was the replacement of morphine because it wasn’t addictive. Diamorphine is better known as Heroin.

4. Insperation from Dr.Hawley Harvey Crippen -1910- He also used his medical knowledge against the people that trusted him and in his case, loved him, he killed his own wife by given her hyoscine hydrobromide, the quantity he aquired was enough to kill her 7 times over. Once he killed his wife he married his misstress.

5. By setting it in this time period, I beleive the story of Harold Shipman makes more sense and intresting. It makes more sense because people were more unaware of use of drugs. And intresting because 2001 is normal, seeing something in the past is more engaging.



Props needed:


Glass bottles -
From the 19th century, various types of fancy glass started to become significant- so a mixture of glass brown and clear.

Wall paper



Two period costumes –
Fashion 1910’s:

Male

formal daywear - includes wing-collared shirt, three piece suit with wide lapels and pressed trousers 1912

three piece suit with characteristic collarless vest or waistcoat. His short has a tall, stuff collar -1912

Female

High waste gowns
Lots of fur coats
Big hats with feathers
a craze for Orientalism






Old curtains becuase curent look too new

Glasses - small oval

Syringes - Glass + metal

Paracetamol

Table/ old chair

Book shelf

Flour /talc

Medicine shelf

Light with filters

Newspaper -

Desk light / research when it was made -

electricty was standalized in 1900. Could not find any history on the desk lamp, but if there was, it would be a very low wattage. maybe 10watts max.

 Cheque-

first recorded handwrittern cheque in the UK was 1659.
http://www.chequeandcredit.co.uk/information/-/page/history_of_the_cheque

Thriller Analysis

One of the Thriller openings I am going to analyse is David Fincher’s Panic room. In the opening title sequence we see an urban landscape with titles on top of buildings. By opening the film with an urban landscape it sets the scene and lets the auidence know it’s in a big city and in this case New York. The titles are 3-D and are placed parallel in front of the building, this is done for aesthetics and just makes the opening title sequence more interesting than a 2-D Title cards. After the titles we are introduced to the protagonist (Jodie Foster) and her daughter then we are introduced to were the film is set the house. The music used is all string music which really creates atmosphere and keeps the auidence on edge suspecting some thing bad is going to happen.
There is not much which I wish to take from this extract in my own work other than use of string music to build tension and make intresting titles.
The extract below is only 1:51 because I couldnt upload or find a longer extract.


The next thriller opening I am going to analyse is Mary Harron’s “American Psycho” (2000). The opening is miss leading, it makes the audience start to think that there is blood coming down the screen and just to reassure you it blood there is a couple of blood splats. But then you see a squiggle of red then you question which you first thought thinking maybe this is art? Then a massive knife comes into shot with the protagonists name on it! Yet again making you question what you last thought. Harron keeps making the audience think from the first second and this keeps the audience engaged and wanting to know what is happening within just the titles sequence! Harron then goes on to set the scene in this extremely high-class restaurant were we meet our protagonist suggesting that he is also high-class. Harron has also used string music at the beginning but it isn’t as minor and as eerie as Fincher’s “Panic room”.


I would defiantly love to use some elements of this in my thriller such as the engaging beginning and string music.
here is the link to the extract because the user has disabled embeding this clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bXESFT2sRQb


The next thriller Opening I am going to analyse is Bress and Grubers "The Butterfly Effect" (2004) The opening is a title card with quote saying "It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterflys wings can ultimatley cause a typhoon halfway around the world - Chaos Theory" The title card is white on black showing its quite serious and the quote also has a serious nature about it. Unlike most of the other thrillers I have seen or writern about this one goes straight into the action without introducing the actors or cast. We see a person walking on the other side of the glass, but because the glass is textured we cant tell if it's male or female or protagonist or antagonist. This adds and air of mystery to the beging. We are then introduced to our protagnosit who kicks the door open wearing what seems to be a patients scrubs. He is quite a rush he jumps under the desk with a pen and paper and starts to write what he is going to do, which now seems very odd.

Thriller!

Fight club – 1999 – David Fincher
Usual suspects – 1995 – Bryan Singer
Memento - 2000 – Christopher Nolan
Panic room – 2002 – David Fincher
Taken - 2008 – Pierre Morel
Butterfly effect - 2004 – Eric Bress + J. Mackye Gruber
American psycho – 2000 – Mary Harron
The sixth sense – 1999 – M. Night shyamalan
Zodiac – 2007 – David Fincher
Se7en – 1995 – David Fincher
The godfather (part 1+2) – 1972 + 1974 – Francis Ford Coppola
Pulp Fiction – 1994 – Quentin Tarantino
Psycho – 1960 – Alfred Hitchcock
Phone booth -2002 – Joel Schumacher

Definitions:

a suspenseful adventure story or play or movie
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, television, and gaming that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres. Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)
Thrillers often overlap with mystery stories, but are distinguished by the structure of their plots. In a thriller, the hero must thwart the plans of an enemy, rather than uncover a crime that has already happened; while a murder mystery would be spoiled by a premature disclosure of the murderer's identity, in a thriller the identity of a murderer or other villain is typically known all along. Thrillers also occur on a much grander scale: the crimes that must be prevented are serial or mass murder, terrorism, assassination, or the overthrow of governments. Jeopardy and violent confrontations are standard plot elements. While a mystery climaxes when the mystery is solved, a thriller climaxes when the hero finally defeats the villain, saving his own life and often the lives of others. In thrillers influenced by film noir and tragedy, the compromised hero is often killed in the process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre)

Here is an Example of David Fincher's Fight club:



DIRECTOR STUDY

The Director im going to look into depth is David Fincher
David Fincher Is 47 and has already released some of the biggest, most popular and Iconic thrillers of all time.
One of Davids insperations for being a Director from an early age was "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".
He worked his way up the ranks and was eventually offered to do a Commerical for the American Cancer Society, The advert was of a fetus smoking a cigarette. This quickly brought Fincher to the attention of producers in Los Angeles and he was given the chance to direct a couple documentary's (The beat of the live drum) He then went on to do more adverts for companies such as Converse,Nike,Pepsi,Sony,Apple And Levi's. Then Fincher moved into music videos and Directed for the likes of Micheal Jackson, Madonna, Aerosmith, The Rolling stones and George Micheal.
Fincher recently was Nominated for an Oscar as Best Achievement in Directing for his Work on "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"(2008)
Fincher has released that he will be making a new film "The Social Networker" (2011) According to IMDB its about the founders of facebook the cast will include Justine Timberlake...
These are all the famous films David Fincher has done:

1. The Social Network (2010) (post-production)
   
   
2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
   ... aka The Curious Case (International: English title: informal short title)
3. Zodiac (2007/I)
4. George Michael: Twenty Five (2006) (V)
5. Video Hits: Paula Abdul (2005) (V) (videos "Straight Up", "Forever Your Girl" and "Cold Hearted")
6. Panic Room (2002)
   
   
7. Madonna: The Video Collection 93:99 (1999) (V) (video "Bad Girl")
8. Fight Club (1999)
   ... aka Fight Club (Germany)
9. Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael (1999) (V) (video "Freedom '90")
10. The Game (1997)
11. Se7en (1995)
    ... aka Seven (UK: video title) (USA: alternative spelling) (USA: video title) (USA: DVD title)
12. The Best of Sting: Fields of Gold 1984-1994 (1994) (V) (video "Englishman In New York")
13. Aerosmith: Big Ones You Can Look at (1994) (V)
14. Dangerous: The Short Films (1993) (V) (video "Who Is It")
    ... aka Michael Jackson - Dangerous: The Short Films (USA: alternative title)
15. Alien³ (1992)
16. Madonna: The Immaculate Collection (1990) (V) (videos "Express Yourself", "Oh Father" and "Vogue")
    
    
17. Now That's What I Call Music 7 (1986) (V) (video "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off")
18. The Beat of the Live Drum (1985)
    (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000399/)

Day 1&2 of Filming

Day one of filming!

The first filming location you see in the film is my house; It opens with depressed Tallman is reading a comic book. For this I had to move a few things in my living room so I could fit all that I wanted in shot. As you can see in the story board (yet to be uploaded) you can see that its opens with a tracking shot of picture frames with Tallman in them helping cats down from trees and Tallman hugging his now ex girlfriend. But after I gave it more thought about it I decided to change how it opens as you can see in the new story board(yet to be uploaded) I decided to use an old wolverine comic book and stick my cover over the top. I also made use of the fact that Tallman at this point is a slob so I used a jar of marmalade and a couple of beer cans as props. On these two items I put the “Directed by” and “Davide Hodgson-Lorente” to make it a little bit different to the normal titles.
Seeing I filmed this in Late Autumn/early winter it was getting quite dark and fast so I had to film the outside scene before I filmed the inside scene even though it’s in the wrong order. This does look kind of weird because It goes from being really dark to being really light as of when he walks through the door. If I was to do this again I would defiantly try and film through the whole day, while there still is light. For the “transformation” scene I used a smoke machine, smoke being typical to the comic book genre and it looks good too.
For the shot of Tallman jumping up the building it was composed of two fast cuts, one being a close up on his feet jumping and the other his body floating up the side of the building. I managed to make it look like it was Tallman jumping up the side of the building by making my actor take off his suit and I stuffed it with towels. While I was downstairs finding the right angle to make him look “normal” my actor was dangling the costume from my bedroom window.


Day two of filming!

For this part of the film I wanted a roof and the only place I could think of that had a flat roof that was open to the public was the multi-storey car park. It took several attempts to get filming permission for this location. I went to the site office a couple of times but found it was closed and also the phone lines were broken so I had to go on a weekday straight after school and speak to the manager about what I wanted to do. I was quite lucky in the fact that I got filming permission; they refused another group from another school filming permission the day before. I was given one hour filming permission as long as I wore a High visibility jacket.
I had several problems with actors because on the day I wanted to film it turns out my actress was doing a drama workshop which she couldn’t get out of. I would of filmed with another actress but they were all in drama and I had already used Chloe the actress I wanted in a shot on the first day of filming (The picture Tallman is holding).
After all this I actually managed to get filming! This sequence was tall man landing and fighting off the evil villain to retrieve his damsel in distress. I brought a table were most of the intense duelling was going to happen. This is how Tallman jumps into the frame, I had the table on the side and the camera low down so that it was easy for my actor to re-do this shot several times.
The last shot you see with the shadows wasn’t planned it was just on the day when we were filming it the shadows were in the right place and it looked pretty funny but also quite good.
This is the almost finished product, I have the finished product on Imovie but im having some problems saving it, but once I have it, it shall replace this one. Enjoy



Reactions To: The Adventures Of TallMan!

Does the narrative make sense?


1. Yes

2. Yes

3. Yes

4. Not really



Did you like it?

1.Yes

2.Yes

3.Yes

4.Yes

Weaknesses?

1. Actor looks at camera

2. Lighting.

3. spinning wrong way

4. Spinning continuity and No dialogue



Good points?

1. Music, props and it was funny

2. Location and original

3. Well edited and Unique

4. good props and effects I.E. ‘Directed by’ also good music.

Intial Ideas

This year our class was allowed to have a practise preliminary task before we did the real thing. After making a video with my friends Hannah and Ren I decided to do it alone because I wanted to see if I could have ago at doing it my self, with all my own ideas. I decided to go alone for this one main reason being that I wanted to know if I could do it.
When approaching this task I tried to look for the more unconventional way I could fit the brief.
From the beginning I had decided that the video I would produce would not have any sound recorded by the camera but would still have dialogue, because the sound quality is not good on the camera. I still would have shot reverse shot to show conversation
I came up with two different concepts.
One being inspired by the film “Paris Je t’aime”, two mime artists find love by miming to each other. So I took this concept of two people falling in love by what they both do and created “Piano wo+man”. Were basically two characters who don’t know each other play the same song on different piano’s through their apartment walls and later on fall in love. That’s a basic over view, but after a while I decided to rule out this concept because it would take to long and I think it was taking the preliminary task too far.
So my second Idea was to make a comic book/superhero idea, I was inspired to do this from a music video (Santigold – I’m a lady) (skip to 2:10)



It isn’t a superhero in it but shows a guy jumping from the floor to the top of a building, which I thought looked quite cool and was good continuity. The brief said it wanted someone walking across a room and sitting down and having a discussion with someone. So as I said earlier I wanted to make it to the brief but I want it to be different from everyone else’s in the class. So I changed the room to walk across a roof, and changed it from sitting down having a conversation, to sit down and have an arm wrestle while having shot reverse shot for reactions and lip movements.

Once I decided it was going to be a superhero I started to think of friends I could use for it, an obvious friend sprung to mind who is 6’5”, this is were the inspiration for “The Adventures of Tall-Man!” came from. From this I got my smallest friend to be the super villain to show a good contrast. And like all good comic superheroes there has to be a Damsel in Distress to save, so I chose my friend Chloe.
Now I had my cast I needed to get some stills for the cover of this comic and a couple of pictures with the couple together. Here are some of the pictures I took:

I used Photoshop to create the comic book cover. I used the stills to be the main thing I worked around, I cut out the background added a blue sky because the day I took the pictures it was really gray. If you focus in the background I put some famous landmarks but In small so it emphasises his size. Also if you look closely Tallman has a very tiny cat in his hands, I did this to emphasise the fact how tall Tallman is, and also for comical values.
I used a conventional comic book font which I downloaded off www.dafont.com. I also made some labels for a bottle of Budweiser with my name on it, and a jar of marmalade that said “Directed by” which I would use at the beginning of my short. If I was to do this again I would defiantly make the labels on the Budweiser a lot better because they are quite badly done because they don’t fit over the letters, and I didn’t have enough time to carry on editing them before filming because it was an idea I had thought of just that morning, so they had to do.

When it came to the sound track I wanted it to be as authentic as it could possibly be, so I commissioned Tom Menary who is very good at music to help me make the main theme tune for it. I showed him what I wanted and he developed it and made it to what it is on the sound track. It’s very similar to the batman theme tune apart from it’s tall man!