Thriller: Finalised STORYBOARD

Key Thriller Project Features

Characters
Family: 

• Benjamin Scarlett
• Mum Scarlett
• Dad Scarlett
• Younger Brother Scarlett
• Younger Sister Scarlett

Ben's Girlfriend

2x Ben's Mates

The Boss (Ben's Employer)

Dentist (Female Receptionist)

Cast

Thriller Cast list from Jonty Harrison

Costume
Main male victim: "Benjamin Scarlett"

• black underwear briefs

Family:

• standard outfit

Makeup

Makeup Artist - employed by Hurtwood Media Department

Follow Jonty's board MakeUp Ideas on Pinterest.

• Pale white skin
• Blue lips
• Cut throat
• Dried blood
• Deep gashes in torso
• Dried blood
• Blood run down arm/hand

Set

Follow Jonty's board Set MoodBoard on Pinterest.

Props
Family photos:

• Family photograph (Full Family - 5 yrs ago)
• Sibling photo (victim and siblings)
• Parents photo (couple together)
• Full Family photo
• Wedding photo
• Ben's (child) photo
• Sister's (child) photo
• Brother's (child) photo
• Ben's (recent) photo

Broken Mirrors:

• Cracked living room mirror
• Smashed and bloody stairs mirror

Paint Pots:

• Two pots of used white paint (by door)
• One used paint brush (by door)
• 5 pots of used white paint (in bedroom)
• 3 used brushes (in bedroom)

Post/Letters:

• 15x random junk mail/ letters (by door) - some addressed to "Mr. Scarlett"

Kitchen:

• Bowl of mouldy fruit (bananas, apples, oranges, etc.)
• Old cups of tea and milk jug
• Lots of used plates/bowls/cutlery in sink
• 5x dead red roses in vase
• 10x empty cans 
• 3x empty cereal boxes

Bedroom Renovation:

• Small ladder
• Flickering lights
• Pile of clothes/washing
• Transparent sheets of plastic used for adding bloody hand prints etc.
• Lots of fake blood (check with makeup artist for details etc.)
• 20x Dust sheets (with added blood splatters etc.)

Location
Phil's House 

Answer Messages

Thriller: Full List (Journey) of Mise-En-Scene Items

Entrance

• Looking out through letterbox, letters are dropped in, and land on floor where there is a large pile of post from days before.

Living Room

• Rotate round and track past a countertop where there is:
• Family photograph (Full Family - 5 yrs ago)
• Sibling photo (victim and siblings)
• Parents photo (couple together)

• Pots of paint (white) with old/used brush
• Cracked mirror lying on floor against wall

Kitchen

• Old dirty dishes in sink
• Old cups of Tea or drinks on the countertop
• Dead flowers (red roses) next to cups

Stairs

• Family photos (each photo shown can the voice of the person on the answer machine):
• Full Family
• Wedding photo
• Sister's photo
• Brother's photo
• Ben's photo
• Another broken mirror with blood splatter
• Hand print on side of door frame
• Low track into room showing:
• white dust sheets everywhere
• ladder
• more paint pots/brushes
• blood-dripping hand hanging over bedside, 
• pans up to see bloody dead face 
• cut to birds eye view, body laying on bed, blood everywhere and knife in back.

Full Answer Machine Scripts

1. MUM - “Hi, Ben, it’s mum here! Dad and I just landed in Barcelona. We are heading straight to the beach for a sunbathe and a couple cocktails. Hope you’re enjoying the house all to yourself. Don’t forget to feed the cat, and if you get hungry, we left chicken in the fridge. Make sure you wash up and keep the house tidy. No parties Benjamin! love you lots. Kisses! Bye!” 
2. MATE - “Yo B, we still headin’ out tonight? We’re gonna get shit-faced with the rest of the boys. Hopefully you can pull some gash as well. I’ll text you the deets later, anyway gotta get back to work, text me yeah?"
3. BOSS - “Afternoon, Ben. We’ve got a mega order coming in tomorrow. 50 plus batches. I’m gonna need all the help I can get so can you get down to the shop, early tomorrow morning. Around 9amish good? Better be on time or I’ll be cutting you loose. See you tomorrow!”
4. MATE - “Hey man, what happened last night? I couldn’t find you anywhere. The guys are really pissed you didn’t turn up. Anyway, it ain’t a real problem. We had a sick night though. So much booze and so much gash. Couple of easy pulls you missed out on. Oh well! Holla at me soon man, I’m getting worried about you. Laterz!”
5. GIRLFRIEND - “Oi ben, stop playing hard to get and reply to my texts once in a while okay, I'm actually coming across as that clingy girlfriend now ugh, no seriously its getting kinda worrying so if you could just message me, yeah? Or call or something. Just so I know your not dead haha, anyways um, just gimme a ring yeah?”
6. DENTIST RECEPTION - “Good afternoon, Mr. Scarlett! This is Jenny calling from Botley Dental  Practice. Unfortunately, you missed your appointment with Dr. Richards, yesterday. Please call us back to schedule another appointment for your 6-month dental check-up. Thank you.”
7. DAD - “ Hi Ben, it’s dad here. Your mother and I are getting a little worried that you haven’t called us since we left a few days ago. We’re missing you and need to know you’re safe. Hope all’s well and don’t forget to feed the cat. Lots of love, bye.
8. BOSS - “Ben what on earth are you playing at. Where were you yesterday? I told you it was vital that you turned. You’ve left me no choice but to let you go! I hope your parents are proud. Good luck, Mr. Scarlett!”
9. GIRLFRIEND - *crying* ”Listen Ben, I’m starting to panic now. Why haven’t you called me back yet. Either you’re not interested in me anymore or something’s wrong. Please call me soon!”
10. MUM - *crying* “Ben where are you? Please call me. I’m so worried about you. Why aren’t you picking up your phone. If I don’t hear from you in the next 6 hours, I’m calling the police and getting the next flight back home. Please look after yourself. God bless. I love you so much, son. Please be waiting when I get back. Ben?” *echo*

Pitching New Idea to the Film Department

Feedback
In general, we received very positive feedback. They liked the idea as a whole, especially the answer machine soundtrack, and the one-take tracking shot. However, although they thought the long path tracking shot would look beautiful, they said it would be incredibly difficult to pull off and take up a very long chunk of our shoot time. They suggested we should attempt it with the best image stabilisation equipment we could find, as long as we had a backup story board ready if we decided to shoot the house mise-en-scene in a sequence. As well as this, they notified my group and I of how much work and preparation we would have to put in before the actual shoot day, in order to keep the continuity and complete the shoot within a single day. This included all the family photos in frames, broken mirror, pots of paint, and all the blood splattered white dust sheets. This meant on the day we could turn up to the shoot location, just line the house with everything we had made so we could start shooting as soon as possible.

Evaluation
Once they gave us their opinion, they mentioned the key aspects of the idea that needed to be decided and completed by the end of the term:

1) Location: They suggested a specific teacher's house due to its necessary spaciousness, but they found it hard to think of any other options.
2) Cast: We needed to cast the main victim, as well as the whole family, the girlfriend, the boss, the dentist receptionist and the best mate very soon in order to take the photos and write and record the answer machine messages.
3) List of mise-en-scene: including all the specific family/childhood photos, the paint pots / brushes / redecoration equipment / white dust sheets, broken mirror, fake blood/red paint, answer machine, aged mouldy fruit bowl, and other signals for passing time.
4) Write scripts for all the answer machine messages and decide order and times of day/week.

Although, the target my group and I have set our selves will be very challenging, both the teachers and my group think we can pull it off in quality fashion. I would agree.

Decided Film Plot

At the funeral, girlfriend overly sad at funeral, afterwards she is really happy, shopping, living life normally. Friend of dead boy, tries to prove that the girlfriend killed his friend. He finds LED light in glove box of girlfriends car, sees blood everywhere. He then realises that the answer phone messages she left was to make sure she wasn't implicated.

Thriller: List of Iconography to Use

1) Family Photos - Framed pictures of a cast family featuring the victim (son) and couple photos of the son with his wife.

2) Paint Pots - used pots of paint and brushes sitting on the inside of the door.

3) Broken Mirror - cracked mirror hanging on the wall with small drips of blood on the shard edges.

4) Lots of Post - days of post/letters on the floor, by the door, addressed to the victim.

5) Answer Phone Messages 
Day 1
a) Message from mother of victim calling in about their holiday, enjoying it, cocktails, beaches, if he wants anything from Spain etc. Explaining there's food in the fridge, do the washing etc. (9am)
b) From mates asking if victim is still up for going out on the "lash" (for a pint at the local pub) tonight. Caller assumes victim is going to come. (2pm)
c) Victim's boss calls in asking him to come in to work tomorrow as boss needs extra help / big order etc.

Day 2
a) Mates call in asking where he was last night - it was a great night etc.
b) Girlfriend asks victim why he isn't picking up his mobile, she hopes he's ok, she'll see him soon, she loves him etc.
c) Dentist reception calls up saying victim missed his appointment and he needs to reschedule.
d) Parents call again and they're getting worried about why he isn't calling back, they miss him, reminding him to feed the cat, they start to panic. 

Day 3
a) Boss calls in very angry, asking where he was on Day 2, he gets fired etc.
b) Girlfriend calls, she's fretting and worried about where he has been, she wants to know if he's safe and if he still loves her, she sounds very teary etc.
c) Mother calls up late very worried, in tears, needs to know if he's ok, the dad's getting angry at her, drinking a lot, the holiday has got worse etc.

New Thriller MoodBoard

Here I have used Pinterest to find lots of inspiration for different parts of our new thriller idea. I pilled them all to my own pin board, and then downloaded them, and placed them under sub-heading in this post.

General Mise-En-Scene

Tracking Up Stairs

Bedroom Mise-En-Scene

Brand New Idea

Today, my group and I came up with a fresh new idea for our Thriller Opening Sequence.

Set in a normal house. A camera tracks through the house and slowly up the stairs. 

The camera continues tracking low showing blood under a door...

Continues into the bedroom lined with white dust-sheets/ tarpaulins, with an increasing mount of blood on the floor. The camera then reaches the side of the white bed (dripping with blood) and tracks up the side to reveal a close up of a drained bloody dead face. 

This whole sequence is one entire continued shot through the house, using a steady cam. Then it cuts to a birds-eye view shot of the body lain on the bed covered in blood, with blood thrown everywhere. 

During the first half of the sequence, various answer-phone messages play in the background, from friends/family/employers/etc asking where a certain person was. 

As well as this, lots of hinting props are shown during the track through the house. For example, family photos featuring the victim, a broken mirror, and buckets of paint and a brush, etc.