Shoot Day - Weather

Photograph I took whilst on the shoot

On the day of our shoot we were very lucky with the weather, the sky was blue and there were some scenic clouds which allowed us to attain a really nice drone shot raising up above the canopy to reveal the vast wood. The blue sky in contrast to the vibrant green treetops made for a very different and professional looking opening establishing shot for our Thriller that no other group in the year could attain.  The weather was idilic which worked really well in the shoot as it stressed the serenity and peacefulness of the running girl, totally unaware that a sniper is watching her from a rooftop.

woodland photograph I took whilst on the shoot

Also the high levels of light allowed our video quality to be very high, with minimal grain due to us not having to increase the gain on the camera to compensate for low light, and it created a very scenic and pleasant environment to film our Thriller in which made the day a little bit easier.

photograph taken on the shoot

However there was a setback in regards to the weather and that was the extremely cold temperature! the temperature fluctuated from 3 degrees celsius to -1 degrees celsius all day! This was very bad for Actors, the crew and I, and even the cameras. Due to our runners being dressed in running gear they got very cold very quickly and we were therefore limited to the maximum effectiveness of their acting and energy. Our sniper wore thick clothing so was therefore not effected as much as the two runners. At one point in the video the male runner had to fall over as if he'd been shot. Our actor could only fall about 3 or 4 times before he was in pain due to the solidity of the icy ground and also due to the extremely uncomfortable cold temperature. So I had to step in to be the male runner who gets shot - and it was very cold!

photograph taken on the day of the shoot overlooking the fields.

Un fortunately it took us a while to finish filming so we were filming in morning light and afternoon light, however as the weather had remained the same all day there was not a hugely noticeable difference in the lighting so the shots will only require minor colour corrections when it comes to editing the Thriller.

Khalil drinking tea on the shoot

I think that some of the shots we got on the day of the shoot could have been better as we subconsciously rushed through the shot list and didn't quite perform to our highest abilities due to the cold, also we were less efficient due to members of the group having ti go off and get hot drinks for everybody every 15 minutes, but this was necessary for the morale of everybody involved.

In conclusion, i think we were very lucky with the sunlight and the idilic setting on the day of the shoot, and the extremely cold weather was worth the scenic shots we were able to attain.

Shoot day - Our roles

During the shoot, my group and I assumed different roles and rotated roles after every section of shots. After a while we were able to arrange and complete the shots in a fairly efficient and quick way. For the first few panning mid shots of Simy's (our actress) lower body running through the wood I operated the camera before assuming the sound man role for the next few stationary long shots of Simy running toward the camera. The camera was hard to control at first as I wasn't used to using the camera as it had been a while since the Sony NX-5 tutorial. I found the initial tracking shot of the Simy's legs running through the woods difficult as it was the first few takes of the day but it got a lot easier after that. 

Muff attachment of the microphone

Bare microphone without attachments 

I operated the rifle microphone for the next few shots. This was a significantly easier shot as I had to simply point the mic at Simy as she was running, the only hard part of that role was that I couldn't move around or fidget as the mic was very powerful and picked up a lot of sound. There also comes the problem of disturbance with that particular microphone such as stepping on the mic cable which would make a noticeable sound compromise, and also there was a problem with wind disturbance if I didn't "comb the muff" of the mic, the muff is the fluffy attachment on the end of the microphone that looks like a bushy squirrel's tail. If the muff wasn't combed down the wind moved the bristles and makes a sound similar to if you blew into the microphone. 

Shoot Day - Using a drone

Me playing with the drone on the shoot

Phantom 1 drone

For our Thriller we needed to use a drone for some of the tracking shots of the runners and also some of the large, complicated shots, for example hovering above the woodland, looking into a clearing showing the two actors running at a birds eye view. This shot would not have been possible if it were not for the drone. Also the drone has steady cam, which means that when shooting the running shots, the camera was steady despite us having to run alongside the runner. The drone came in very handy throughout our shoot. 

Crew operating the drone

However the drone caused a lot of trouble and made our lives generally more difficult and prolonged the duration of the shoot dramatically. This is because the battery in the drone was very unreliable and kept on cutting out. Paul (who owns the drone) had to drive for 20 minutes to get another battery for us to use during the shoot which was very inconvenient. 

Me operating the drone

The drone we used was the Phantom 1 with a GoPro attached to its underbelly which filmed our woodland sequence from above, we also held the drone and ran alongside the female runner and filmed her legs, head and upper body running in different sequences as the drone is more portable than the Sony NX-5 and the drone has steady-cam which means that the camera shakes a lot less than it normally would when you're filming without steady-cam.

We flew the drone with the remote controller and watched the footage through a monitor that was connected to the GoPro on the bottom of the drone.

Upcoming Shoot

The shooting of my thriller is tomorrow, I am slightly nervous and apprehensive as we will be only second group to film our Thriller so far and I severely hope all goes well. To make the necessary requirements I emailed everyone involved in my thriller to double check that they are all ready.

Although at first my group and I felt we were un prepared for such an early shoot, and we we disheartened by the amount of actors dropping out, I feel that we are now ready for the shoot. We have all three actors and a good set of props. One problem I can foresee is that the costume may not be perfect or ideal due to our approach to let the actors bring in their own running gear, however we are doing this to make the roles more realistic. The sniper will be wearing costume that we have provided for him, this consists of black attire of any kind, we need to get across that he is a dangerous and trained man, but also that he is a father...although we could make the opening sequence a little more ambiguous and not reveal the fact that he is a sniper, this would alleviate a lot of pressure as we would only have to focus on making him look like he knows what he's doing, like a professional.

Shot List

Shooting Schedule

WHEN: We will be filming on Monday the 19th of January, no other dates will be necessary as we will be able to get all the shots we need on the Monday.

WHERE: We will be filming at Peaslake house, which is a 10 minute car ride away from school, this is useful as it means that we can return to school to eat lunch or to get extra props that we had overlooked without disrupting the shoot.

DURATION: We will be filming at Peaslake from 9:00am until it gets dark at around 4:00pm. No other locations will be required for the shoot, which again makes our shoot very convenient. 

Intended Target Audience

I have created a video representing my group's intended target audience for our Thriller opening sequence.  Our intended target audience for our Thriller is young males from the ages of 16-20, this is a specific age range and is based on other films of a similar genre to our Thriller, my group and I have looked through audience surveys of similar films such as The Bourne Ultimatum. The highest amount of viewers are from the ages of 15-20 so ours is similarly based on these statistics.

I went around my local neighbourhood interviewing individuals that fit the criteria of our intended target audience. I also interviewed a female of the same age as our intended target audience to demonstrate that stereotypically females of this age wouldn't be interested in seeing our film and are therefore not part of our intended target audience. 

Revised Location

Due to the development of our idea we will be shooting our Thriller at Peaslake house, a boarding house that belongs to my school. We have chosen this location due to its woodland accessibility and its elevated flat roof. 

As shown, the roof is very flat.

We will film the running shots in the woodland for the most part of the shoot, then there is one or two shots that will have to be shot in the fields that are overlooked by the house itself. This shot is when the male runner is literally shot dead by the sniper on the roof of Peaslake house.

behind the house there is plenty of woodland to film in.

Other shots, primarily the shot of the sniper himself on the top of Peaslake will be shot on a similar looking flooring that isn't at such a great height due to health and safety reasons.

Scene Outline

Long shot, soft focus, slow motion of girl running 

 shooter removes rifle from box, focus on hands  - extreme close ups quick cutting between shots

tracking shot of girl’s feet running along path 

180 degree panning shot MS 

sound of reloading rifle, fast snaps of rifle, shooter and finally extreme longshot through the scope of rifle.

phone rings, close up of her face whilst she’s on the phone, 

shot of girl on the phone through the scope, 

extreme close up of shooter's finger inching toward trigger

CU on girl’s face, tracking shot, running man visible in background 

CU of sniper’s face, tilt up low angle shot 

scope follows her for a while 

CU on her face, she is out of breath and looks neutral..happy or unaware 

intensity builds and the scope stops following her, man runs into shot and scope follows man…3 or 4 

counts then blackout when shot is fired 

titles 

shot of girl running unaware, pull focus to dead body (face in particular, blood drips from the mouth)

Prop rifle research

For our Thriller we needed to get our hands on a prop rifle as it could cause legal issues if we were to walking around in the woods with a real rifle, Also by using a real rifle we would most likely be breaching some sort of law or two by being children and playing around with a 30 caliber rifle. Also, even if there was some way to get permission to use a real rifle in our Thriller, it is VERY rare that someone in the UK that we know would be in possession of such a rifle, as most if not all rifles used in the UK are obviously for hunting purposes, and its common knowledge that the largest game in the Uk is probably no bigger than an Elk, which wouldn't require any higher than a .27 caliber rifle to take down, maybe less. I have researched rifles on the internet to see what kind of rifle would be most appropriate to use in our Thriller, and of course what prop rifle would replicate it best.

Low caliber rifle, around .27 caliber

I started off looking at low caliber rifles, around the .27 caliber region.
These rifles are fairly light weight and are often used in medium-long range combat as they are only effective from maximum 600m away from the target. A rifle with rounds of .27 caliber would easily take out a target from 200m, which would be the distance we would aim to place our victim away from the shooter. However we wouldn't use a prop rifle similar to this as we want our killer to look ex-military, and to therefore have a higher powered rifle.

.50 caliber round

 I then proceeded to research rifles with a larger caliber round, and came across the Barret M82A1, which is a rifle which fires .50 caliber rounds. The caliber of a round (ammunition/bullets) is how large the round's base (the flat end) is, how big the actual lead bullet inside the casing is. The sizing: 9mm, .22, .27, .330, .40, .50 is measured in mm and inches, obviously 9mm is as it looks, and is pretty much the smallest round that can be fired with lethal intent, and is fired out of a pistol. A .22 caliber round is very small and would be fired out of an air rifle or pistol - this firearms are only used in sport. There is a great difference between a .22 caliber rifle and a .27 caliber rifle, one could easily kill with a .27 caliber rifle, and one would have to be very talented to be able to kill with as small of a round as a .22 caliber. The largest caliber round used is a .50 caliber round, these are very large - .50 means .50 of an inch wide, being fired at incredibly high speeds and velocities these rounds are effective at well over a mile depending on the shooter. (The video shows the longest kill recorded, the caliber bullet was .33, which is smaller than the .50 caliber round but it shows that the shooter counts for a lot.) The rifle that would be ideal for our group would have a .40 round (the prop rifle should replicate this) as it would be the most realistic for an ex-military man to have purchased.

Although we do want the shooter to look like he's ex-military, the rifle itself shouldn't be abstract or too complex, this would mean having a rifle prop that wasn't painted in camouflage colours or had a weird stock etc. The actor himself will be enough to create the ex-military look.


The rifle to the right is the best suited rifle for our Thriller, it has a silencer on the end of the barrel which would reduce the noise of the shot in real life, it would make sense for the rifle to have this attachment in our Thriller as to not alert the girl that the running man has been killed. Fortunately for my group we are in contact with someone who has a rifle prop which is very similar looking to the rifle shown above, and a bonus is that the rifle is completely black, making it look a little more professional and also a little more illegal and less military. I will make the necessary arrangements to make sure that the prop rifle is ready for us to use on shoot day.

Inspirations for our Developed Sniper idea.

We looked at a wide spread of Sniper rifle clips from films both modern and dated, sourcing inspiration for our Thriller, in particular the shots the focus on the shooter.

The first clip that caught my eye was the American Sniper clip:

For starters I really liked the transition from the institutions to the shot of the sniper looking through his scopes. The brief second long sound effect of a rifle reloading really intrigued me and I think that something similar would be a really good way to move from a shot of the sniper setting up his rifle to looking through the scope. It wouldn't be too hard too find an appropriate sound effect on the internet or on the school system, or we could possibly create the sound effect on location. Also the through the scope shots were interesting for me, there are a number of different styles to choose from but I like the total blackness around the crosshairs, it focuses the viewer's attention on the subject in the sniper's sights.  


Another clip that i really liked and thought was appropriate for our Thriller was this Jack Reacher clip of a sniper scanning his environment and taking out multiple targets.

This sniper clip is different to the American Sniper clip as obviously we see the deaths of the targets, and also the style of the scope is totally different, outside of the crosshairs the screen is zoomed out and blurred, and inside the scope it is focused and zoomed in, I like this style more than the style shown in American Sniper and if possible I would like to adopt this style in my thriller.
This clip also made me think that the death of our male runner needs to look realistic, so we will need a talented actor to play that part.

Weapon research

Initially we wanted to use a knife as the killer's weapon, a knife is a classic murder symbol and also the most visceral way to carry out a murder in my opinion, we wanted the audience to feel really engaged when watching our Thriller, a knife is about as personal as weapon can get. However a knife plays to much towards the horror conventions.

A pistol is a symbol of low level crime. A cheap, easy, close range solution to a problem. However our killer is NOT a low level criminal, he is a professional ex-military marksman. A pistol would not suit his character.

A Light Machine Gun (LMG), is a large, powerful piece of kit, they are difficult to transport without drawing attention to one's self. In the procedure of firing the round they often have a high fire rate, and devastating stopping power. HOWEVER, they are incredibly noisy, and the repeating noise of a round being fired is very uncommon in the surrey hills so it would draw a lot of attention and most likely law enforcement. I may not need to say this but in the spirit of covering all points, the weapon would make a mess. A BIG mess, and that's not very professional so we scrapped that idea. 


Ideal for close quarters combat and also easy to get hold of in England as it is one of very few firearms available to purchase. Again however it is a very messy gun and would require the killer to be quite close in order to effectively terminate the victim. And would most likely require a lot of running around for the killer, and he's a professional so it would look much more cool if he was stationary and chilled out.

The ideal weapon with very few flaws, the sniper rifle can be positioned at any vantage point and is effective at extremely long range depending on the rifle. It is as professional looking as it is effective. A silencer can be attached to the rifle which greatly reduces the noise made by the action of firing the round which adds a stealth element to this weapon. As a group we decided that a rifle would be the best choice of weapon for our killer.

Similar media texts

There are a lot of already existing media texts that relate to our film, some more than others. I will be evaluating the similarities and differences between each media text and my Thriller.

Similarities: Our Thriller is similar to The Bourne Supremacy as our protagonist suffers from post traumatic stress disorder after being a sniper in Afghanistan, Jason Bourne, the protagonist of the Bourne series suffers from a similar defect after committing acts of murder and extreme violence when he was a trained assassin. He has undergone significant traumas in his life and his girlfriend in the Bourne Supremacy is assassinated which gives him the drive to exact revenge on the killer. Our Protagonists are equally driven to right wrongs, and are both psychologically unstable. Also both protagonists have unusual aptitudes for hand to hand combat and operating firearms. As these conventions are shared between my Thriller and The Bourne Supremacy, our target audiences will be of a similar age. Both protagonists are on the run from law enforcement, or are at least evading capture.

Differences: Jason Bourne is an ex- trained assassin, our protagonist used to be in the military, they have different backgrounds. Also Jason Bourne may be driven to take down the enemies of his girlfriend, but he is avenging her death in this film, where as in our Thriller the Sniper is protecting his daughter from being killed in the first place. The Bourne Supremacy is set in multiple countries and the protagonist has been dragged back into his old life of which he wanted to escape, our Sniper couldn't let the combat zone go and made it his duty to protect his daughter, one protagonist is being pulled back into  life he wanted to leave, the other couldn't help but to carry on his life as a soldier. Also TBS is not orientated around the sniper aspect of the film, but around the chase and the Thrill of seeing if Bourne gets captured or not.

Similarities: Again, the protagonist of two minute warning is a trained killer. However instead of suffering from mental discomfort from his past, he is just plain psychopathic, with no prior reasons such as fighting in a war or coming from a background of being an agent for a government organisation. Our main character is arguably psychopathic as he takes out innocent people whom he thinks are threats to his daughter. The sniper shows no remorse for killing innocent people in my Thriller and TMW.

Differences: The sniper in TMW is hired by a group of armed robbers as a distraction for the police to deal with whilst they pull of a heist, our sniper kills on his own accord. Again the sniper's backgrounds differ, our sniper is of a military background, and TMW's sniper is a hit-man for hire. A lot of TMW is filmed in first person in the perspective of the sniper, this is greatly different to our thriller.



                                
Similarities: Mark Wahlberg plays a military sniper that has finished his time in the army, the film is high intensity chase to capture him for the murder of a president. In my Thriller our protagonist has left the army and is also being hunted down for the suspicious murders related to his daughter. 

Differences: The Sniper in shooter assassinates a president as is then on the run from authorities and agencies, In my thriller there is a chain of murders that are being investigated and then our sniper is on the run..or at least outsmarting the lead detective on the case.

Similarities: The protagonist in Leon is a father figure of sorts, he protects a small girl that becomes like a daughter to him. Our sniper strives to protect his daughter, there is a sniper scene that is very similar to ours in terms of shots and narrative as Leon and his daughter figure Matilda are on a roof looking for innocent people to pick off in a park below, they choose to follow a runner. Although in our Thriller the girl isn't involved with the killing of the male runner in or Thriller, the connection between the father and the daughter is strong and that is a big similarity between the two films.
Differences: The differences between my Thriller and Leon are that AGAIN Leon is an assassin...my protagonist is ex-military. Our sniper is driven by his protective instinct, yet in Leon, the protagonist is driven by revenge, but also a fatherly protective instinct kind of thing.  



Similarities: Jarhead is a war film essentially, despite the severe lack of combat. As a concept it is based around the sanity and mental state of the soldiers fighting in the war, which would be similar to our thriller, only set in the homely surrey hills, not in a war zone. There are a variety of sniper scenes in jarhead which are shot in a similar way to how we intend to shoot our thriller. The protagonist shows signs of serious stress and his mental state is clearly affected by the environment of the modern warzone, again similar to our protagonist.
A film I would reference in regards to being similar to our film in the same way as Jarhead is The Hurt Locker. This film also questions a soldier's mental state and dwells upon moments of outbursts and demonstrations of the detrimental effects of war on the brain of a soldier.

Differences: Jarhead is set almost entirely in the middle eastern war zone, the story focuses on the soldiers relationships with each other, themselves, their environment and the U.S government. There are almost no action scenes whatsoever. Our Thriller will also be orientated around relationships and the mental state of the protagonist, but there will be little reference to politics and governmental issues. Also there will be plenty of action sequences in our Thriller to appeal to the younger, male target audience who will be attracted to the film due ti the action conventions.

Similarities: Jack Reacher is arguably an Action Thriller, our thriller will have some action conventions to draw in a younger target audience. The sniper in Jack reacher picks off innocent people walking along the riverside. He shoots them from an elevated sniper's nest. The killer has no connection to the victims whatsoever, and again the sniper sequence is very similarly shot to how we intend to shoot our Thriller. The sniper is scared from his experiences in a middle eastern war zone where he was a sniper, he was kicked out of the military for committing war crimes, similarly to our sniper who was kicked out of the military for killing innocent civilians.

Differences: The sniper in Jack reacher is not the protagonist of the film, he is simply a narrative device that allows there to be a reason for Jack Reacher to be the main character and to give him a credible storyline. Where as in my thriller the sniper is the primary focus. Yet again the two snipers' motives for the murders differ completely, ours is driven by fatherly overprotective psychopathic instinct, and in Jack Reacher the sniper is simply driven by loathing for the public (as far as I can remember!)


Similarities: With American Sniper the similarities between it and my thriller are more to do with the shot style. We intend to shoot a lot of our Sniper sequences where we focus on our sniper setting up the rifle in a fairly similar way to how American Sniper was shot. For example lots of close ups of the sniper's eyes and fingers and also lots of abnormal shots of the rifle itself. Another similarity between my Thriller and American Sniper is the military aspect, the same similarity that our thriller shares with Jarhead, Shooter and The Hurt Locker.

Differences: The key difference between our thriller and American Sniper apart from the difference in genre is the fact that the protagonist in American Sniper is a national hero, where as ours is a villain, a cold blooded murderer and nobody knows who he is, there is no notoriety.

Fake Blood research

To add a little bit more gore to our Thriller we are exploring the possibility of using fake blood to perhaps attain a close up of the dead runner as he lays dead on the floor whilst the girl runs away unaware. I looked into buying some fake blood from Amazon, this was an easy option and also a fairly cheap option too. I didn't want to get blood that looked unrealistic so I looked at a few different products and read through some of the comments and reviews to see which one was deemed the best by previous buyers.

The first item I came across was a small sache of blood that cost only £2.50, it had had a mixture of reviews, and had a four star rating, as it's reviews were inconsistent I decided to continue my search.

 The next product I looked at was more expensive and was for a lot more product, I saw nothing particularly wrong with the product when looking through the reviews, but the amount of fake blood they were offering for the deal would go wasted and due to the expense I didn't feel like it would be worth the amount of money considering we would only need a little bit.

The best product I could find was this cheap and small amount of fake blood. All the reviews had deemed it a good product and it worked realistically and looked good on stage and on camera.

Another option is to make the fake blood ourselves, this would be significantly cheaper, but there would be more of a chance that the fake blood would look very unrealistic, regardless, we watched a video tutorial of how to make fake blood.

We have decided to use fake blood provided to us by the theatre department as this is a free option and we will be able to test if the fake blood looks realistic enough before using it.