Pre-production planning

In this post I will be discussing the different areas of post-production planning that myself and the rest of my group have completed in order to create a successful psychological thriller trailer as a part of our A2 media coursework. Below are the types of post production planning that I have completed and that I will be presenting in this post:

• Props
• Shotlists and storyboards
• Location/setting ideas
• Organisation of actors/filming schedules
• Risk assessment

Props

Two examples of props that we created are ones that will be hung up on the detectives notice board - which will feature a number of times in the trailer. We decided to use these particular props as it will help the audience develop a better understanding on the narrative of the film. The long shots of the detective analysing the notice boards and sticking things on it will help the audience understand what role this detective has in the case. Also, close ups on the newspaper articles and the victims of the psychopath murderer in our film will allow the audience to create assumptions on the type of character this psychopath is - and they will also be interested in trying to figure out what his motive is after his escape. 

The newspaper articles are ones that the detective has put up, both on the psychopaths previous killings, as well as his killings after escaping from the mental institution he was placed in - this will allow him to work out who the psychopath is now targeting. The second prop is pictures of the victims that he has killed after his escape, and where they were found on a map of the local area.

This is how these props will be used in the product in the detectives office: 

As you can see by the image on the left, we have also used some pictures that we took of murder scenes on the notice board, and spread them across his desk. This will promote he idea that this is the only focus for the detective and that he is getting worked up over this case. Another prop that we were going to use is a knife - this would be the killers weapon of choice. The knife isn't going to feature in the actual footage for the trailer, however it is mentioned all over the notice board as his weapon of choice - and it is likely that we will use a knife presented on the poster for our film as it is a stereotypical convention of thriller films that a antagonist has a weapon of choice for his killings. 

The last prop that we have arranged, is this mask. This mask will be used for both our trailer and our movie poster. This is a stereotypical convention of psychological thriller movies - for example in the film 'Halloween' the main antagonist has a mask. We decided to use this mask as it appears emotionless and this is how we want to portray our psychopath. We want him to appear to have no emotion and no care for any of the murders that he has committed. We also want his face to be hidden, this is because we want him to have a hidden identity so the audience can create assumptions based on his appearance.


Shotlists

These two pictures are of the storyboards / shotlists that we created. These involve pictures that we drew that give us a perspective of the type of shot that we will use and the characters / props that are in each shot. We have supported these pictures with the shot number, a detailed description of what occurs in each shot, the shot type and how long the shot will be used for. This will give us much better organisation and preperation ahead of filming so we know what we need to do on the day. This will help us more time efficient and organised. 

Locations / settings ideas



As you can see in this image I used earlier of the notice board - we have taken pictures of a variety of different locations / settings that we are going to present in the trailer to give the audience a better understanding on the areas that the psychopath has committed his killings. The other locations that we will use are the detectives office, which was shown above, and the main character's house. A detectives office is a stereotypical location for a psychological thriller as there are usually always detectives - like in the film Se7en for exmple: 

Detectives office in Se7en

Also, the reason that we used the location of a home setting is because this is considered a 'safe place' by audience viewers, and that conception will be tested in our film as the psychopath breaks into the main character's house - therefore making it an unsafe place. The break in will make the audience uncomfortable due to the misconception of the home being a safe place and it will make the film a lot more appealing to see how the main character reacts to the situation. 

Organising of actors / filming

We arranged all of the actors that we will need for filming through asking them at school, and messaging them using social media. We were able to organise all of the actors that we planned for filming, and we arranged a filming date with them that they were all able to be present for. We decided on the different dates for our filming which will all take place next week before we break up for school - this will allow us to have the end of the week and January to edit the trailer using Final Cut Pro. 

Risk assessment 

We had a teacher present when we were designing the detectives office - and this helped us to ensure that everything in the room was safe and that there were no concerns for health or safety when putting things up on high shelves for example. He helped us put things up on shelves that were out of reach for us and we tidied up the floors and desk too. We also tidied up the house which we intended to use for our filming and made sure that there were no risks to filming in there. We arranged particular outdoor scenes in places that were not likely to concern our health and safety.