Distributer for our film

 With our thriller, we think that the British production company Hammer, would be whom we would try to contact in order to help us create the film. Hammer is a well-known British production company, and they have a history of producing horrors and thrillers, which is what we are trying to produce. Most recently, Hammer has been responsible for the production of ‘Woman in Black’, which was a fairly successful British horror with a budget that is nowhere near Hollywood sized. Hammer are also known for their not so large budget films, and being our first film we would not have a large budget to use unless we could find an investor.

The main way that our film would generate revenue, would be through the sales of DVDs, and other film-related merchandise. This is because, being a first time director, and a British-made thriller, it means that it will not be a massive hit in cinemas, and we would not be able to afford to get the film playing in hundreds of cinemas. In order to gain an investment we would hopefully take the film to a film festival, in either the UK or in Europe. By doing so, we would hope to be picked up by a US distributor, someone along the lines of Harvey Weinstein, who is known for picking up low budget UK films, distributing them in the US and around the world and making them a huge hit.

Also, in order to generate more revenue, we would hope to distribute our film to television stations, by doing so it will also act as advertisement for the film, and this would hopefully encourage people to then go out and buy the DVD. We would aim for TV stations such as ITV and BBC, but then aim for the more movie-based TV channels, such as Film4, SKY Movies, which would be better for getting our film out into the market. By doing this, TV channels would buy the rights to show the film on their station, and therefore we can make more money through it.  They work with Millennium Entertainment to distribute their films. Once their film gets distributed, they could get more attention from larger film companies in the uk for example TV 4 and BBC therefore the film will be a bigger hit.

From our research into ‘Hammer’ we know that their target audience must be between the ages of 20+ I would say. Films such as ‘Woman in Black’, being a dark horror, are not going to be aimed at younger children, and neither are they aimed at people over the age of 50. However, Hammer has been around since 1934, and therefore they will have produced some films a long time ago, which would appeal more to an older generation, but the films they produced nowadays seems primarily based on a younger audience, from the age of 17-28.

Representation through Male and Female Characters

The main focus of representation in our thriller is to do with gender, between the male and female main characters. We also had to portray what people were like in the 40s. We decided to create a counter stereotype in our thriller, this is between the girl and the detective. Usually in a thriller, a middle aged man would always have authority and power over a young girl, however we have switched this around in our thriller and instead we have the young girl as the one with the power and authority.  The Blue Lamp is a film, which helped to inspire us to make our thriller, it portrays a young girl who seduces and older man, and this was a common sight In many films for the 1930s-40s. Her clothing suggests that she is wealthy because they are stylishly well cut and look expensive; she wears high heels, which elongate her bare legs, which she shows off to entice men. Long blonde hair and big blue eyes are also typical of seductresses in the 1950s as they wanted to portray themselves as innocent and beautiful because men where unsuspecting and attracted to this. We chose a blond girl to play the main part because we didn’t want her to look like a true killer or a ruthless assassin, instead we wanted to make sure that it is obvious that there is someone in the background who is making her commit all these murders. Women who kill did some research into real women who killed to find out there motivations and backgrounds in order to apply them to our own femme fatal and make our thriller more believable. The woman I looked at was Ruth Ellis (9 October 1926 - 23 July 1955).

Ruth Ellis was the last women to be executed in the UK, after being convicted of the murder of her lover, David Blakely. From a humble background, Ellis was soon drawn into the world of London nightclub hostess, which led to a chaotic life of brief relationships, some of them with upper-class night clubbers and celebrities. Two of these were David Blakely, a racing-driver already engaged to another woman, and Desmond Cussen, a retail company director, and former RAF pilot. Bakely beat. abused and continuously cheated on her in their violent relationship even causing a miscarriage when he punched her in the stomach during a heated argument. On Easter Sunday 1955, Ellis shot Blakely dead outside a public house in Hampstead, and immediately gave herself up to the police. At her trial, she took full responsibility for the murder and her courtesy and composure, both in court and in the cells, was noted in the press. Albert Pierrepoint hanged her at Holloway Prison, London.  She was a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown and this is what our femme fatal Dayana represents. However in Dayana’s case the detective did not abuse her but perhaps she is a victim of another man/group of men who have forced her to kill him.

How has our film matched the conventions of a thriller

Final Cut Pro

The software we've been using to edit out thriller with is Final Cut Pro. It is a professional non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia then bought by Apple it only runs on Macs. 

As you see from above, at the bottom part of the window you get all of your videos(including sounds) layed out like a track in the orders you want, the blue bars are the videos and the green ones represents the sound. Therefore you could drag around and cut the videos into how ever you want it to be and this means the same for the sound but for sounds we would use soundtrack pro which is another software that we use to edit out thrillers.

Change in title

We have changed the order of our titles because although the titles I have put on the blog below are how they would have been done in the 1940s-50s and we are doing a neo noir which is typical of this time we are not in fact making our film in the 1940s so therefore we have adjusted them to be more like those in a new film. On the software we have used scrolling text so that the titles all roll up the screen against the dark shadow on the wall, all except the name of the producer and director who’s names are in slightly larger American typewriter font than the rest and the are cross dissolved in and out in the middle of the page. This is typical of noirs as well as modern films to have the producer and director’s names stand out, as they are the most important. This can be seen in Chinatown 1974, which is a well-known old noir.  

Editing 1

So far in editing we have made a rough body of our thriller sequence on a programme called Final Cut Pro, putting together the successful cuts that were filmed on Tuesday and making them all run together smoothly. Now we are experimenting with effects and filters to make in black and white, adjusting the contrast where needed. Once this is done we will look at the sequence more critically and smooth out every detail correcting any mistakes and looking at ways to make the film look as good as possible.

Organizing the title

The titles will be ran at the beginning of the thriller along the shadow of the brick wall outside before the detective walks into view. We will learn how to edit them into our thriller next lesson but here is what they will say. In this same order they will include;

Name of film production company.......................MGIM Productions                             

MGIM Productions Presents.....                                                                            

Main Actor.......................................................Stephen Paxton

Main Actor.......................................................Dayana Pinaeva

Main Actor.......................................................Samuel Rhodes

Co Star Actors..................................................George Hill 

                        ..................................................Maggie Campbel

                        ..................................................Simon Wood

                        ..................................................Francessca Hoare

                        ..................................................Toby Baring



                        ..................................................Ivo Beckett

                        ..................................................Theo Bhat

Guest Starring Actors.......................................Maxim Bawldry

Casting by.........................................................Georgie May      

                 .........................................................Joel Hambly

Screen Play by..................................................Imogen Riley

Script Writer and Idea for Film........................Marita Hall

Director of Photography...................................Paul Mathews

Art Director (Costume design).........................Gregory Fellows

Set Director (and designer)...............................Mollie Cayzer-Colvin

Sound Director..................................................Luke Del Drago

Film Editors......................................................Giorgio Carta

                    ......................................................Mollie Cayzer-Colvin

                    ......................................................Imogen Riley

                    ......................................................Marita Hall

Make up Artists................................................Sophia Stanway

                         .................................................Eleanore Hemsley

Assistant Director.............................................Clifford Ricks

Music................................................................Giorgio Carta

Music Supervision............................................Matt Lucas

Produced by......................................................MGIM Productions

Directed by.......................................................Tom Christopher