Set plan

This is a plan of how we would like the office to look like, it is not very complex, we just want an average office to make the scene as realisitc as possible.

Cast List

Here are the four members of our cast:

This is Philippa Barrett, she will be contributing to our thriller as the ballerina. We chose her because she is an incredibly skilled ballet dancer and she can do all the ballet moves required by our thriller. She also has a very innocent, beautiful look which contributed to the elegance of the piece.

This is Phill Ward, our media teacher, who we would like to have contributing as someone in the office scene, he is the right age for the part and he looks like he means buisness which is the kind of atribute required for someone who works in a detective's unit of a police station.

This Jason Mazzocchi, he will also be contibuting in the office scene for the same reasons Phill will be, he also looks very formal and intelligent which again are things required for the position

This is Abi Hoyle, she will be contributing in the office scene as we thought she looked like a classic female office worker and would be a really effective person to have in this section of the thriller, making the whole thing more believeable

The office scene

We have now done some research into the office scene idea and have contemplated a verity of things which we believe will be required. Here are a few images of how we want our office space and a few things which we would like to be included in the office space:

The key factor of the office will be a board which will have important detective information on it, this is an example of what I mean:

Here is an updated storyboard of the office scene idea which will replace the previous idea of the car scene:



And lastly here is an updated version of our shot list:

 

Focus group

A pilot thriller is a prototype, an opportunity to investigate the finished product before production begins. It is also to test the product on the audience and see what they have to say.

We did a focus group in class where we showed our pilot thriller to the rest of the class to see what feedback they could give:

We had mixed reviews throughout the showing but over all they liked it except for the ending.

For the ballet sequence they loved the elegance of it but 13/13 people in the class felt it went on for a little too long. I think this is something we cannot change because we need this sequence to be long enough to show the credits, but it can be improved if we were to make the music more thrilling as it was at the beginning we could also include some more interesting shots to keep the audience interested.The focus group were all girls which is slightly biased because if we showed it to boys they may have a different opinion as they may not be so keen on the ballet bit and they could give us advice to make it more interesting. We did however have Phil our teacher with us and he thought when we come to shoot the real thing we should hardly see the ballerinas face, we should just concentrate on close ups of her feet and arms as this is where the tension of her dance lies. The ballerina in this scene will not be our main character but naturally the person from the focus group thought she was. If we go with Phil's idea about close ups which means we will hardly see her face this will hopefully suggest she is not a main character. Personally I have seen films which open with characters who end up not playing a big role in the film even so I see where the focus group are coming from. In some ways it may be a good idea to make the audience think she is a main character and then when she gets killed early on the audience will be surprised and recognise our movie as a thriller which is going to be shocking. Lastly, people felt that our thriller looked like two different movies due to the abrupt change in music and the whole point is, is that we want the two to flow together otherwise the whole idea of having the start of the movie wont work, and idea suggested to solve this problem was to cross-cut between the ballerina and the car chase to create a good contrast, but the issue would be what music to use that is appropriate to both scenes. 
It was clear that the focus group really did not like the way we filmed the car scene which I agree with. They liked the concept of the car scene, said that it would be too difficult to film it to the standard it would need to be filmed at for it to be effective which we agreed with so we decided to alter the idea a little. We presented the idea about the crime scene office as an alternative to the car. Now we are moving forward with the office scene idea and we are currently casting our actors and looking at set design.

Audience Review

Here is some feeback we got when asking some members of the public a few questions about what they look for in a movie:

1) What key points have you learned from the interviews:

The interviews have showed me that most people enjoy comedys, so it is important in films to have some humour so we keep the audience's attention. I also learnt that the film 'Salt' is a common one that people enjoy so I have looked into that film and noted down some good features of the film so give insperation for our thriller.

2) Do boys/girls or different aged audience members go for different films or do they enjoy different aspects of watching films:

Overll boys tended to enjoy more action films and girls preferred romantic comedy. But it appeared obvious that when a film it is good it can be enjoyed by any age group or gender.

3) What do you think the target audience for your thriller sequence will be:

I think the target audience for our thriller will be people of our age, teenage, as it is made by our age group so most of the aspects in it are going to be based about what we think is good and entertaining so other people of our age group are likely to enjoy it too.

4) What do you think are the key things you have included in your thriller that will appeal to your target audience:

I think the slow motion and camera work will appeal to the female members of our audience as they will appritate the beauty of the shots and I think the second half of the clip, the car bit, will appeal to the male members of the audience as it is more fast paced and exciting.

Evaluating our pilot thriller

We were really happy with the way the ballet part came out, as it really expressed the beauty of the piece which is what we were aiming for. One thing we would alter about the ballet part is it gets a bit boring after a bit and it looses its thriller feel, so we need to make things more interesting so we don't loose the attention of the audience, also we thought that we should have the windows blacked out so it gives the impression we are in the evening which automatically makes the clip more thriller like. I also thought that the location was really effective as it accurately gives an idea of her isolation, foreshadowing her potential isolation later in the film.

Here is our pilot thriller: