Risk Assessment 1 - Filming in Science Lab

Lighting

As mentioned before in the Conventions post, we could consider the use of the shadow for dramatic effect, and to do this, we will need to think about the lighting.

This is set during the night, so as mentioned before in the Props post, we may need to have characters using their phones or torches as lights to see if the characters are outside.

When the characters are in the house, we could use dim lights to tie in with the mood being conveyed, or a night vision mode on the camera.

Location

For the scenes that are in the house, we are considering filming in Ben's house, as it is the most convenient from the school and a house is needed for the opening scene. The main part of the house that we will be using is the shots of one of the characters watching the news report on the television.

We may need to use another building as well for the scene with the main character and the science experiments and conveniently, the best location for this will be the science laboratories in the school.

We also need some outside locations to convey a mysterious mood, so for the exterior shots of the house, we will either use the outside of Ben's house or perhaps a forest or another leafy area.

For the scenes with the news report that is being watched in the house on television, we may have to use somewhere in the school like a large cupboard or small room but there are problems with that because there will need to be a lot of editing behind the news reporter as news reporters are not usually reporting from cupboards!

Props

For the character's props, clearly weaponary will be needed, as the main character is in the army. The characters may be seen with phones as well, so the main army character could have an iPhone. As there are other characters as well, some may be rich and others perhaps not as wealthy, so the phones could range from the iPhone to a basic £2 phone from Tesco if we decide to explore this area in further detail.
If this is set at night time, it may be necessary to include the character's with torches, if they are in a location such as a forest to help make the mood more mysterious and convey a dark mood. As the characters may not be prepared for any mysterious events, instead of having their torches, they can use the light from their phones in the night to explore the area.

Costume

As a group, we have decided that the main character will be in the army, so this will be what the character will be mainly wearing. This tells us what connotations he carries, so from his uniform we can tell that his background is military and his badges will show experience and rewards.

 This image is typical of what army officers wear, however, this is a US army uniform, so we might have a slightly different costume.

Conventions

Convention 1


One of the main conventions used in the thriller genre are cliffhangers: in Alfred Hitchcock's films, cliffhangers played a dominant role. In Saboteur, they had a literal cliffhanger:

The man on the Statue of Liberty was very good for its time, which was 1942.

Also there was the scene in Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest in 1959, in which there are 2 people hanging from the top of Mount Rushmore.
These two scenes show that cliffhangers/scenes that are very high above the ground are common in major Hitchcock films.

Convention 2

The use of music and suspense are very important conventions in thriller films. This is because they keep the viewer watching and is done well in the Hitchcock film Psycho, where the use of music keeps us watching when the woman gets killed at the beginning but the killer is not revealed and there is a feeling of suspense.

Convention 3

The use of blood, obviously, has a dramatic effect and is a key characteristic for this style of film. In the famous shower scene in Psycho, you can see the blood falling into the plug of the shower, and even though it is black and white, you can still tell that it is blood, which must have been difficult to do as it was made over 50 years ago. Also, you see the motion of the killer stabbing but you do not see it going into the victim's body.

This scene may have influenced other film directors to use blood as Hitchcock was one of the first thriller film makers, and it set the boundaries for thriller films, until over the years films became more graphic and you do see actual people being stabbed.

Convention 4

A very powerful way of keeping the viewer watching and making them know a murder is about to happen is the use of the shadow. The viewer knows that someone could be killed or is being watched, keeping the tension and making the viewer wanting to know what will happen next. When focusing on filming when we are considering the lighting, we could think about using a shadow for a dramatic effect on the viewer.

Conventions of Thrillers

There are various different conventions that Thriller films have. One is use of close ups. In various Thriller films, close ups are used to provide emphasis to different things. For example, a close up of a gun can provide emphasis for something about to happen. This is shown in this image:-

We could use this idea in some way to provide emphasis for the army theme that is strong in our Thriller. Or even use this idea for the science theme that is strong in our Thriller. Here is an example of that:-

Another convention that is strongly used in Thrillers is the over shoulder shot, this gives an emphasis of following/stalking/chasing. I'm not sure if we could use this, but it is a heavily used convention in Thrillers and if we find a place to use this, then it is good to use. Here is an example of it:-

A convention that is used in many Thrillers is the film being about Good vs Evil, or the Protagonist against the Antagonist. We could use this in a sense with our character. Here are some examples of it:-