set with the actors in it

This shows our first shot of Niki walking in to the room and sitting down with the boys. You can almost see the tracks we laid down on the floor (on the bottom left side of the frame) to navigate the camera around the table. Also, the atmosphere on the table can be seen in the photo. We put a door into the back left side of the set because it was needed for three people to walk in through: Niki, Luke and Guy. The door was very important for the most important characters to make an enterance as it is very central in all of the frames. The authenticity of the table was very important for our thriller. It was crucial it looked real to make the right effect on the audience.





After, long consideration we have come up with a concept of how we want our sequence to look. OPening with the poker game and a lady walking in wearing a red dress. and ending with a gunshot, and for a red 'blood' curtain to fill the screen.
We like how the James Bond 'Casino Royale' credits are floating around a 'card' animation of the Queen of Hearts, Ace of Spades etc.... In order for us to have the ability to do this, we do need to draw some animations to use.
I like the effect that it brings to an actioned scene before, as the card game is the focal point of the narrative. Due to the cards playing a big factor in the film itself. Another reason why I am interesting in us trying this, is because it isnt your convential credits.

Our set

This is a picture of our set. This how we created the mise en scene for our shoot using bottles of whisky and a poker set.

Account of the shooting day

We shot our thriller yesturday and only had a few minor set backs mainly because the set did not match our set design. Despite this, we found a table and seven chairs, a bar and got Tom to fit a door onto the walls. It took us about an hour then to set up the poker table and lay out all of our props for example, ashtrays and whisky bottles. Props were very useful in the particular shoot as it makes to whole sequence more genuine.Once the smoke machine was turned on to give the set some atmosphere, it looked realistic and how we hoped it would. The lighting really suited the mood we were trying to convey in our short piece. We had one long dangling light bulb from the roof and larger lights that were attached to the ceiling. The next task was to do all of the boys hair and give them costumes we had selected earlier. All of the boys wore suits and had either their hair gelled back on gelled into a side parting. Some wore hats and others were given cravats, we decided that bow ties would not look that great in the final edition so we didn’t use them. Meggie, used make up to add age to them, she put eye shadow under their eye lids to make them look more intimidating.
The first shot that we filmed was suing tracks and a dolly. Niki walks into the poker room and sits down saying “deal me in boys”. The majority of the shots were done using a dolly, however we also experimented by using a tripod. The most enjoyable shot was using the lifting crane! We used it at the end of the scene when Luke gets shot. The crane lifts up the camera to show a birds eye view of the room, it was very effective and showed all of the players different reaction to Luke being shot. For example, Seyi takes the money and runs. Felix makes sure if he is ok and Niki steals his wallet and leaves. We also took close ups of each persons face and extreme close ups of their eyes. These were very important as it could be said your eyes can give everything away, especially in such a high stake poker game. Many shots were also taken on players dealing cards and putting in poker chips. There were imperitive to our shoot as it gives the game a more believable feel to it.
Another problem was that our shooting script was not detailed enough; we did not include the poker players speaking and their conversations about the game. Because of this we had a delay as we had to sort out what we wanted them to say. In the end, we had them speaking in their own languages. As our actors come from many different parts of the world: Germany, Korea, Nigeria and Ukraine it really brought effect that they spoke in different languages. As they all did this it gave a sense of knowledge that they have and showed that they be very important.
In terms or how the set and actors looking on the monitor, it looked very authentic. We were very pleased with this aspect as we were worried that as we could not use older people it would not look right.
When recording the sound we used a piece of apparatus none of us had seen before. We used a boom microphone, a long poll with a fur covered microphone on the end. It was one persons job to point it in the direction of the speech and anothers to do the "cable bashing". This was to ensure cables did not get mixed up and caught in a knot with eachother.
When filming i took on the role of cable bashing, montitor watching and directing. My most enjoyable job was coming up with ideas of what the actors should talk about and what they should be doing at different moments. Equally cable bashing also meant that you got very close to the action and are very able to see flaws in the production. As a team we worked well together and took a hands on approach to filming. We were all very capable and willing to do each job it takes to make the sequence to look good. In that respect we were very supportive of eachother and readily helped eachother on tasks. It was very important that we all switched what we were doing each scene and got involved.
We did not finish shooting in the studio until 5:30 pm. So it was a long day when we started shooting at 11:30 am, although I think we shot all of the scenes until we were all happy with them. Our last bit of filming was at a different location, although it was still on the school campus. We needed a shot of Guy (the killer) walking along an alley revealing his gun and looking very dangerous. After deciding on the walk way between the common room and the boy’s toilets, we set up the camera onto a losmandy spider dolly, and decided we did not need the light we had also brought. We took five shots of Guy walking along at different speeds, using different camera angles. For example we had one of him walking towards the camera then did another where we followed him down the walk way. The shot really worked well as there are pipes in the corridor and the light was scattered, casting a shaddow on Guys face. This made him look more mysterious and scarey.
All in all I think the shoot was very succesful!

lions gate

Our distributor would be Liongate as by reading through their list of films they have a large range of genres. It seems they do not mind as much the theme of the film as long as they are high in quality and interesting films. An example of this was distributing “Saw” a film unlike any other they had done before, which went on to be a very well known franchise now releasing Saw 7. I think because of their success of picking low budget movies in the past they may be interested in our idea. By taking a chance and ditirbuting a lot of thriller/ horror movies, Lionsgate may like the concept of my thriller.

Shooting Script

“Ace” Shooting Script

ENTER: tracking shot of Nikis shoes (high heels) walking along an external road

Pan shot of her walking down the road from the behind.

Luke steps into the frame and shows them walking along the street together

Enter: Niki and Luke in the poker room set. Niki shrugs her coat and thrusts it into Luke’s arms. (Camera is placed behind her)

Laughing and groaning from the table of poker players

Mid shot: their reaction to a woman entering the room

Over the shoulder shot: Niki sits down and is dealt a hand

Mid Shot: Luke goes and sits at the bar and orders a drink.

CUT IN to Guys shiny loafers walking a long an external road

Close ups of some of the poker player’s eyes and faces

Shot of the bar and the barman mixing drinks and taking orders.

Barman is followed over to the table where he places a drink and walks back to the bar.

CUT IN to another shot of Guy’s feet walking fast this time

Close up of Lukes eyes gazing at Niki

The money being gambled increases into drugs and car keys

CUT IN to Guys feet walking very quickly

Extreme close up of guns put onto the table

Close up of on gamblers eyes

CUT IN to Guys feet walking stops

Gamblers are now laying down their cards

Mid shot of the poker room: Guy bursts through the room and instantly pulls up his arm and fires a shot at Luke

rough outline of roles and props needed

BLANC PRODUCTIONS

‘Ace’
Film Info.
· Name – Ace
Tagline – It’s the luck of the person… Not the deal

Group Roles
· Distributor- Lions gate
· Production Company- Blanc Productions
· Producer- Steph
· Director-Cat
· Sound Engineer - Lauren
· Cinematographer- Meggie

Cast List
· Seyi- Poker
· George gillies - Poker
· Min -Poker
· Oleg - Poker
· Tym- Poker
· Niki- gang boss
· Guy- killer
· Alex moss – bar tender



MISE EN SCENE

Locations
· Studio

Costumes
· Poker Players – Suits
· Woman- smart dress and heels
· Bar tender- shirt and waistcoat
· Killer- leather jacket and suit
· Toy boy- open shirt and suit


Props
· Poker Set – Green Cloth, Cards & Chips
· Alcohol – Whisky & Vodka
· Drugs – Cocaine
· Guns
· Money – Gambling
· Cigars/ Cigarettes
· Cocktails mixers

Our set

This is a sset design our group primarily came up with, we needed a bar, and a large round table. Although we later found out the space we had to create our set was much smaller so a full size bar was impossible. Instead, we used a smaller bar but still a large table.

Casting

Me and my group of Megan Knowles, Cat Dixon and Lauren Thornton- Clark are filming next week on the 27th. Alothough it had been a sturggle to get everything ready and organise our ever changing cast it seems everything is planned now. The biggest difficulty was getting six boys at As level who look the part and a were willing to be in our thriller. We were looking for older looking boys who looked like they may be gangsters or just powerful men. One of the big problems we had was asking and organising with some A2 boys to be in our short clip, after giving them blue cards ( to get out of lessons) their teachers told us that we were not allowed to use A2 students as they have their mocks around the time of our shoot. Despite this, I am still very pleased with our poker playing cast.
For the women gang boss we are using our carer’s advisor Niki, we decided to use a woman as it will cause more shock to the audience, they may expect it to be a young woman.
As for the toy boy we will be using Luke Chapman. We chose him as he has a less stern face then the poker players. By allowing him to wear a shirt instead of a suit (like the poker players) this will also differentiate him from them. Whilst the poker game is happening he will be sitting at the bar watching the bar man poor drinks and mix cocktails.
For the role of the murderer we will be using our very own Media Studies teacher Guy Stanley. We though Guy would not only be perfect for this part because of his build but also because he like Niki, is not a teenager. The audience may be able to link them together this way.

Storyboards

These are a few of our story bords we used when filming. These are used to give the director a more detailed outline of how the shots should look. In our group Cat Dixon made these after the group collectively joined together to talk about what was needed in each frame. This First storyboard shows how we are introduced to the main character (Niki) we see a tracking shot of her feet first, then the camera pans up her back until we can see he her. Next a man comes and joins her in walking down the road. Followed by a shot of her walking into the poker room. She wastes no time and sits down and says “ Deal me in boys” as if she is unfazed by them and perhaps they fear her a minimal amount. Bellow the pictures are some lines to specify the action and choice of shot occurring in the particular frame. It is very important to fill these out as the picture may not portray the action you think should be going on in the shot.