Title Ideas

We are at this very moment undecided on what to name our thriller.

'The Lodger' was our first initial idea. The title is very basic and leaves a lot of loose ends for the viewer to find whilst watching the film. It creates curiosity to how Scott is going to be represented in this film, he is after all the lodger. Is he going to be interpreted as the good guy who's feelings get unintentionally hurt or is he going to be seen as the bad guy who murder's innocent Abigail? The title also sets the scene for what the film is about, the audience get some clue to the importance of the lodger.

Our second idea was 'Happy Birthday'. We felt this was a good idea because its almost a play on words. A happy message that in this case turns nasty. In a thriller sense we found it more chilling than 'The Lodger'.

However we are yet to decide which one we think is more suited.

Soundtrack ideas

Our thriller soundtrack has to be a pre-1950 recording. 

We have decided if possible to use a pre-1950 recording of 'The Rite of Spring'.

It has been difficult to get hold of this piece, we are however doing the best we can to get it.

The piece was composed by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky composed this piece of music for a ballet of the same name. The ballet was premiered on the 29 May 1913 and is set in Russia. Stravinsky's attitude has been described as patronizing, "...Stravinsky thinks he is the only one who knows anything about music." his personality is reflected through his music and could also be seen as reflected through our character 'Scott' who almost thinks he is the only ever to be effected by love, he thinks he is the only other person in Abigail's life. 

We feel that this piece works very well with our thriller and its adventurous rhythms and harmony's go well with 'Scott's' dangerous personality. The Violins almost represent Abigail's screaming as she is getting murdered. The violins also help build the tension and suspense of the thriller. 

Progression update

So far, we have had a few troubles with our filming but we have done our best to overcome this.

At first the camera had a few faults, we found that the tape wouldn't go down once put into place. We found a way to deal with this by looking up a solution on the internet.

Time has also been abit of a problem. As the three of us live very far apart it was hard to arrange a time that was convieniant for all three of us and well as arranging appropriate transport.

We also found it hard to find a male to play the boyfriend that could be there at the times we were filming. Although we shot a few scenes with Fraser Stannage, these shots had to be re-filmed with a new idea put into place. Instead of Abigail's boyfriend coming to see her, Abigail's best friend now comes for Abigail's birthday meal. This would also make it easier when changing the idea of smashing a wine bottle to dropping some flowers. Our reasons behind changing this idea were mainly due to health and safety. We felt that the glass would shatter to much and may cause an injury to either the actor dropping it or the person filming. This also helps when filming because we can drop the flowers as many times as we have to, unlike the wine bottle which would have had to be filmed in one take.

Another problem that we had to face was with editing. A format error came up when we were trying to capture our tape. We found a way around this by capturing it in a slightly different way.

Although we have found it a challenge to overcome these problems and changing a lot of our ideas we feel it will benefit us a lot when it comes to the final product.

Shooting maps

Shot one   This shot shows a close up of Abigail (played by Laura) cutting up meat on the counter. The camera is placed opposite the meat (not shown) also on the counter. Phoebe is filming and Libby is holding a lamp next to the counter, although she is very near the camera, she cannot be seen in the shot.

Shot two  This shot shows Scott (played by Nathan) emerging from the summerhouse and walking down the garden towards to back door. It is shot through the french doors. A close up of a wine glass filling up, poured by Abigail can also be seen in the same shot. Abigail does not notice Scott walking towards the house.

Inspiration

Our main inspiration behind our thriller film was Psycho.

Our femme fatale 'Abigail' played by Laura was very much based on the character 'Marion Crane' from Psycho. Like Marion, Abigail is a very classy, stylish lady. Furthermore like Marion, Abigail will not be portrayed as an over glamorous character that wouldn't look right in society, she will be portrayed as a normal moral human being. This makes her character more believable and therefore adds a sense of normality to the film, creating suspense.

Psycho also brought with it, the famous 'shower scene'. This transformed the 'cleanliness' vision that most viewers associated with a shower. We wanted our thriller to have that kind of impact on the audience so we decided to use a shower as the location for the murder in our thriller.

There is also an association with money and our femme fatale Abigail. It isn't a huge aspect of our thriller but she owns more money than 'Scott' and we can see this by there choice of housing. Maybe this is one of the reasons why Abigail doesn't really show much interest in Scott.

Abigail is however more innocent than Marion. As we see in Psycho Marion does not hesitate to steal the money as she has an affair with a married man. We feel that Abigail is portrayed through our thriller as a more down to earth girl, showing more innocence. 

Location

Location

We decided to use my (Libby's) house because the summer house is the main idea behind our production. We felt that the main house and the summer house represented well Scott and Abigail's importance and social status in the film. From the two different house's the audience can identify that because Scott is living in the summer house his worth and social status is a lot lower than that of Abigail who lives in the bigger main house. We also feel that my house will be good to use because of the antique decor and build it has. It is also very conveniant for our group because we can all easily access it, this will therefore give us more time for filming.

This is the summer house, it is positioned at the end of the garden. It is the main idea behind our thriller 'The Lodger'. The lodger 'Scott' is living in the summer house and has fallen in love with 'Abigail' who lives in the main house.

This is the kitchen. This is where Abigail prepares the meal for her and her boyfriend, which will be laid out of the table.

This is a close shot of a small counter within the kitchen. This is where Abigail prepares her meat for the meal, leaving the knife on the chopping board.

This is the meal Abigail prepares for her and her boyfriend. Scott can see her preparing it through the french doors pictured.

This is the stair way. Abigail will proceed up the stairs to the bathroom where she begins to take a shower. Not long after, Scott follows with the knife in his hand.

This is the stairway from a different angle. Taken from the top of the stairs.

This is the bathroom. This is where Abigail takes a shower before being murdered.

This is the shower in which Abigail gets murdered.

Costumes and Props

The costumes are as follows:
Abigail - White shirt, black skirt, black tights, black high heels. We decided to use these clothes etc because we feel it is a good representation of a femme fetale. However the white shirt indicates to the audience her purity and how she doesn't realise what effect she has had on her lodger.

Scott - Long black coat, black trousers, black boots. We chose this costume because we feel that the dark choice of colours represent how he is feeling.

The boyfriend - You do not see much of the boyfriends costume but simple clothing will be used.

We do not have many significant props in our thriller. A knife will be used by Abigail when she is cutting the meat. The knife will be fairly big so that the audience can identify what genre the film holds. The meat we are using will be easy to cut and will be oozing with blood, the audience may then question the blood and the events that are about to occur. Large scissors will be used by Scott who will cut up pictures of Abigail. We are using this prop because we believe it resembles Scott's heart being cut up when he falls inlove with Abigail.

Health and Safety measures:
We are aware that we are using a large sharp knife and precaution will be put in place when using it. When the bottle of wine is dropped, we are being very careful as to wear we are standing and the glass and liquid is going to be cleaned up immediately.


This image only gives an idea to what our femme fatale character will be wearing.    ----------->

Roles and Plot

Roles and characters
Laura - Femme fetale 'Abigail'
Nathan Stannage - The lodger 'Scott'
(Undecided) - Boyfriend 'Jason'
Libby and Phoebe - Mainly filming
Libby's cat will appear in the scene in which 'Scott' enters the house and picks up the knife.

Other roles
Libby - taking pictures of the location


Brief plot
A lodger 'Scott' is living in a lodger house at the bottom of the garden and 'Abigail' a classy business lady lives in the house. What she is unaware of is that the lodger 'Scott' is in love with her and his jelously is soon to be taking over. One evening while she prepares a romantic dinner for her boyfriend, Scott plots his revenge. While she goes upstairs to take a shower Scott comes through the back door with a knife, he then makes his way up the stairs. Meanwhile Abigail's boyfriend is turning up for the dinner. Scott makes his way into the bathroom and we are unaware of what happens next, the opening ends with the boyfriend knocking continuously on the door aware that something is wrong.

Original ideas

Previous to our current thriller plot we had another idea. The film would be shot at Libby's mothers house and would also use a femme fatale as the main character.

Although we hadn't yet thought of a solid plot, a rough guide would be that the main lady (a femme fatale figure) would be seen walking down the garden path towards a small wooden shed placed at the bottom of the garden. She would be dressed in smart sophisticated clothes to express the importance of her character. She would then enter the small shed, a few shots of her looking for something inside it would be shown. She would then emerge holding a brief case, as she begins to walk back up the garden path, a silhouette of a male figure would be seen in the window of the shed. This suggests someone was hiding inside the shed although the main character was unaware he was in there.

We decided that this wasn't suitable for our thriller as it contains too many horror aspects for example, the idea that a male figure was hiding inside the shed. We also felt that the ending would be left very open and the audience would be very confused as to what has just happened.

However we developed some of the ideas from this. We continued to use a femme fatale figure, and the idea of the thriller being set at her house. We also continued to use the idea of a dominant male figure that could potentially be a murderer.

Introducing myself

I'm Libby, i am a student at CNS school sixth form. I have created this blog as part of my AS Level in Media. I will update it frequently with as much work as possible.