First production group meeting

For the thriller sequence we chose Davina's idea. I liked this idea because it was original but had aspects of other thrillers and horrors to create a tension building opening sequence.

The thriller is based on the character Elizabeth Carter, who is a loner and constantly gets bullied by her peers. Elizabeth Carter is constantly being bullied at school due to her autistic disability. She is an incredibly keen writer and reverts to her black diary for comfort in expressing her feelings about her peers.Suddenly two of the four bullies die, in horrific ways. Elizabeth discovers that the deaths match the way she wanted them to die according to the writing in her diary. Once she discovers this, she turns suicidal and delusional.A few days after the deaths, Elizabeth is announced dead. An investigation is put into her death where they discover she committed suicide.Just when everyone thinks everything is solved, they find a new picture in the diary, and another bully dies. Once again, an investigation is put into this, with the same investigation team. They eventually link all the evidence back to the forth bully, and then the twist that it was her all along, unfolds.Davina, the forth bully is then announced missing, and is nowhere to be found.

In the first production group meeting after deciding which idea we were going to use, we decided on group roles. These were;
Davina- Director
Ross- Producer
T-K- Chief Editor
Me- Director of photography

I was incredibly happy with the decisions made. I think Davina makes a good director because it was her idea and she would have a clear understanding of the plot and how she wanted the opening scene to look. I think Ross makes a good producer because he is organised and is good at making decisions at appropriate times. T-K has a very clear understanding of editing. In the preliminary task, it seemed she found editing easy to cope with and enjoyed the process of editing. I was pleased I got the director of photography and did volunteer myself to have this position. In the preliminary task, I shot the sequence. I think I am very able to use the camera and have the skills for the director of photography. For example, a steady hand and an understand of the 180 degree rule.

In the meeting, we also discussed the opening sequence. We decided in this meeting we wanted the opening sequence to be the hanging scene which is mid way through the film. We thought this would be tense and would make the audience ask questions which would later be answered .

We had many ideas that expanded from Davina's initial idea. In Davina's initial idea the face of the girl was shown as she adjusts the noose and ties it around her neck. I came up with the idea of not showing her face and just showing her feet walk up to the stool, climb on to it and then hang. I thought this would add more of a sense of mystery and would leave the audience wanted to know more for example, who is this girl? Is she the main protagonist in the film? Which will later be answered as the film progresses. I thought this idea would also mean that the audience are even more shocked when the twist is revealed because they thought all their questions were answered. Ross came up with the idea of flash backs of her writing in her diary. This would add another element into the opening sequence and make the audience aware of who the girl is and the importance of the diary in the film. Although this is a good idea, I did feel that flash backs would be hard to edit so that they are fast and professional, but also it answers all the audiences questions within the first two minutes. Just showing her feet, although it may not be as exiting as the flash backs has more tension and atmosphere and makes the audience ask questions rather than have them answered which is an important part of a thriller.

I thought our first production group meeting was successful because we decided what oles we would have in the film making. This helps us to understand our capabilities within the process of this film being made.