Effectiveness of the pre-production planning

The pre-production planning was very effective and useful because it enabled the actual shooting day to run smoothly because it was well organised.
The story board and shot list was most useful because we knew exactly what we wanted to do when shooting, and didn't miss anything out because we had a list.
The props and costume list was useful because the props person was able to get everything without forgetting anything because it was written down.
The whole process taught me alot about film making, that the shooting day and the person holding the camera are not the most important thing, that everyone in the crew matters, and planning precisely before hand is vital.

Shooting Schedule

In the morning we met in the editing suite to make sure we had everything we needed.
We then went to the butchers to film the beginning and endings shots.
We came back, had lunch, and filmed in the studio for the rest of the afternoon.

This document is important because we needed to know when we were going to the butchers for our own knowledge and for the butchers so they knew when to expect us. It also meant that we were less likely to run out of time, or miss things out, because we have planned what we were going to do.

Account of props and costumes

We needed alot of props to represent the charcter being a butcher. We needed:

• Meat - from our biology department and supermarket.
• Syringes - from the sanotoriam.
• Rusty knifes - from one of our students home.
- Kitchen knife
• Cardboard Box - from one of our students home.
• Fake blood - fromt the theatre department.
• Cleaver - from our teacher Guy
• Apron covered in blood stains - theatre department.
• Pair of big black boots - from our teacher Guy
• Dirty work top- wooden - theatre department.
• Transparent jar - biology department.


Our props person was a day student, therefore was able to buy some of these things easily.

Casting Decisions

Our thriller only needed one character, the butcher. We through it would be highly appropriate if the character was a man, because it is more believable for the evil character to be a big, masculine, strong man. The main area of the character that would be seen would be the hands, because he is cutting the meat, therefore we wanted a pair of big hands to show that he was a man. Therefore using a schoolboy would not be realistic. We decided to use our teacher Guy, because he had experience in butchering, therefore his acting was believable, and he had large masculine hands.

Locations

Most of our thriller will be filmed in the school studio which will be adapted to look like the back of a butcher, however an actual butcher will be needed to establish setting. We looked for various butchers close by to school, and found one in Godalming. This site was perfect because it had a back door for the main character to walk through, because he was trying to be secretive, it would be unlikely that he would walk through the front door. The inside of the space was quite large, and had lots of work tops where the meat would be usually worked out. The best bit of the site was that there was a big walk in fridge, with a huge silver door. We used this so that the main character walks through the huge door, and then inside we go into the studio where he deals with the meat.
The studio was a small space acting like a room. It had dark brown/muddy walls on all sides, with a hook on one wall to hang his coat. There was a light hanging in the centre of the room, lighting up the table in the middle covered in blood with knives, syringes and a poison box.

Target Audience

The target audience for this thriller is between the ages of 18 - 40. Due to the rest of the film being rather gruesome and gory, the teenage age group would be interested in it because they would like the horror of it and also the people affected in the film are teenagers, therefore it would make it more relevant to them. However the older age group would also be interested because the topic is something which is very relevant in today's society: contaminated meat. Parents are concerned about the quality of meat, constantly trying to get organic meat from pure farms, and always anxious about diseases like salmonella and food and mouth. Therefore with this spin on the topic, that the organic meat farmers and purposely contaminating the meat, they will be intrigued to see it. There would not be a social class restriction on the thriller because the use of meat is relevant to almost everyone. Both men and women would be interested in the film, men because they will like the blood and gore, but also women for their caring side that a well known topic of people becoming disease by meat is being shown. It is a complex plot with a fascinating topic that most people would be interested in.