Opening Sceneration - Miss Miller

Opening Narrative

The film Eternal is a revenge driven thriller which follows a woman's story after being left at the altar on her wedding day. After being left by her fiancée, she isolates herself from the outside world, the audience views her deteriorating mental state. From the pain she has suffered she plots revenge on her ex-fiancée slowly killing everybody close to her.
 
The film opens with the woman in her room, sitting on her bed, she looks distraught and her makeup is ruined from tears. We decided to use a mid-level shot to get both her wedding dress and the surroundings in to introduce the negative atmosphere in the beginning. There is suddenly a flashback to a scene of both the bride-to-be and the bride's best friend getting ready for the wedding, with happy music in the background to exert this. This was filmed in the style of a handheld camera to create a sense of realism within the scene. The flashback ends and we are back in the present, the woman writes over the decorations with deathly messages such as R.I.P. We used close ups so that the audience could read the writing on the balloons. There is suddenly another flashback with the men getting prepared for the wedding, again in the style of a wedding video with handheld cameras, we are introduced to all the victims. The flashback ends and the bride-to-be gets out a photo-album, crossing off the faces of each person who attended the wedding. We used close ups and a POV camera angle so that the audience could see in the eyes of the killer. When she crosses off their faces there is a brief flashback that indicates that the person has been killed, we decided not to include any actual scenes of anybody getting killed as this would not look as good and we also wanted the audience to be able to come to their conclusion by themselves thus using kuleshov effect. The film cuts a few weeks in the future when the bride puts a circle around the ex-husband's face, the ex-husband is with the bride's best friend and it is evident that they are now a couple and he has run off with her, we used a two man mid-level shot for this scene to get both characters in. The ex-husband goes to the toilet, as he walks up the stairs there is a high angle to indicate that this person is inferior and a victim. As he opens the door to leave to his surprise he sees his ex-fiancée brandishing a knife, this is an over the shoulder shot and we can see both the victim and the killer in the shot.

There are several elements that could improve our thriller and make it become more conventional:
 
Less dialogue - I had the idea of removing some of the dialogue within our thriller as usually there is less dialogue and more things occurring on the screen as it draws the audience in and is not boring. Our thriller opening however has a majority of talking and is more boring than we would have wanted, thus we will replace the dialogue with eerie sounds or violence.
 
Credits - Our credits drastically need improvement as they are not conventional to a thriller film, we must make them less colourful and change the font to make them scarier. We will take inspiration from the credits of the movie Seven as I have previously stated in another post.

Irrelevance – We were informed that certain parts of our thriller were irrelevant and thus we must cut out some scenes within the opening as it only confuses the audience, and this is not what we wanted to do.

Filming Schedule - Miss Georgiou

Filming schedules are important within the production of a film as they organise the filming of every shot, the location of every shot and who will be in every shot. Below is my filming schedule for the parts in which I filmed with my group.

In terms of sticking to the filming schedule we were very strict and followed every step the schedule told us to, my schedule is not complete as I was not present for certain scenes. There were certain parts that could not be done due to complications such as instead of the 4 males in smart clothing we had 3 as one of the actors was absent. However generally we stuck to it as we agreed that any changes would only complicate the entire filming process and narrative.

Shot	Date & time	Location	Content /Action	Shot type & Duration	Costume/ hair/ make up	Iconography	Personnel	Equipment
1	5:30 (26/11/13)	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Lounge)	A wedding video of all the men getting ready (flashback)	Handheld camera (15 seconds)	4 males in suits or smart clothing	Newspaper, phone, ties	4Actors, Camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
2	5:45 (26/11/13)	Debden, Essex (Outside)	One of the husband's friend is being murdered (flashback)	Mid shot (8 seconds)	1 male and "bride" in ruined make up and wedding dress	Knife, phone	1 actor, 1 actress, 2 camera personnel	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
3	6:00 (26/11/13)	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Kitchen)	2 of the husband's friends are conversing without knowing the bride is behind them (flashback	2 man shot (30 seconds)	2 males and the "bride" in ruined make and a wedding dress	Knife, tea mugs	2 actors, 1 actress, 1 camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
4	6:15 (26/11/13)	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Garden)	The bride is revealed to be looking at the men through the window	Close up (5 seconds)	Bride, ruined make up	Knife	1 actress, 1 camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
5	6:30	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Lounge)	The husband and bridesmaid are sitting on the sofa	Panning shot (8 seconds)	Casual clothing	Tv remote	1 actor, 1 actress, 1 camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card

6	6:40	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Stairs)	The husband walks up the stairs	High angle shot (4 seconds)	Casual clothing	Nothing	1 actor, 1 camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
7	6:43	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Bathroom)	The husband washes his hands and leaves the bathroom	Mid shot (5 seconds)	Casual clothing	Nothing	1 actor, 2 camera people	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
8	6:50	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Bathroom)	The husband opens the bathroom door and the bride surprises him with a knife	Over the shoulder, mid shot (4 seconds)	Casual clothing, bride with wedding dress and make up	Knife	1 actor, 1 actress, 1 camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card

Risk Assessment - Miss Georgiou

There were several health and safety considerations taken within the production of our thriller opening scene. Health and safety are the regulations and procedures intended to prevent accident or injury in workplaces or public environments.

The first and most important regulation taken was the use of the prop the murderer used to kill her victims, the prop used to kill the victims was a very large kitchen knife, we used this prop as it is a household item and could be easily obtained by anybody. We were very aware of the risks that the knife held and were very cautious when handling it, as it could cause very serious injures if we were to act ignorantly when handling it. The only person to actually handle the knife was Lily who was the actress playing the role of the murderer, we made sure that the knife was kept low and she moved slowly when carrying it.

Another health and safety regulation taken was when filming on the roads or near the pavements, during certain flashback scenes. Cars can be extremely dangerous and we were very careful when filming on the roads, being hit by a car could cause very serious injury or even death and we discussed how we would eradicate the health risks before filming on the roads. We decided to film on an isolated road when it was later at night, this was as there would be a lack of traffic, this worked out very well as there were no cars that passed and we filmed with ease.

There were several other minor safety risks that we had to be aware of during the filming of our media project. The leads during filming were a trip hazard and a general safety issue, to prevent this we made sure no wire was on the floor or covered the wire with tape so nobody would trip and injure themselves. When handling the electrical equipment we made sure that there was no liquid near to prevent electric shock or breaking the equipment. The group member who's house we were filming in made sure there were no health risks or trip hazards within their home.