Set Layout

On both day one and day two of filming I needed to use the kitchen, but I had to make sure the layout was exactly the same on both days. To ensure this, I took a photo of how the kitchen counter looked at the end of day one filming, and mimicked it the next day.

Final Prop List

I made a full list off all the props I would need on set and for each character, to make sure I had everything I needed for when filming began. This helped me stay organised and on top of all the bits and pieces I needed, so I was sure about location layout.

Filming Day 1 - Plan

These are my plans for filming on day one at the house. I estimated the time well because I got everything I needed filmed.

Props - Bloody Sheet

A key prop to my final scene is a bloody sheet which my main character bundles up, implying that he is disposing of the evidence of a dead body. Being so close to Halloween, I bought a lot of fake blood and found two old bedsheets. The first I left blank to be a 'before murder' sheet, and the second I made a blood pool with a few splatters and let it dry to be the 'after murder' sheet.

I used these images from actual crime scenes that I found on Google as a reference for my blood pool layout:

Here is me 'decorating' my own sheet:

A Final Re-cast!

Disaster struck when, a night before filming, my main male actor dropped out! Thankfully he organised a replacement himself, and filming will still stay on schedule.

Exit Polls

To broaden my understanding of how popular the thriller genre was, and with what age group, I researched two exit polls from the BFI website for two recent thriller movies. Exit polls are used to collect opinions of respondents.

The first I researched was The Keeper of Lost Causes, directed by Mikkel Nørgaard (A mystery/thriller film). This study found that 49% of their respondents were under 45, and 51% were over 45. This is a fairly even divide. The most common way that the respondents discovered the film was through online ads, which 20% confirmed. This was closely followed by trailers before a film at 18%. This proves that advertising is most effective when conducted online or by other media technologies, rather than traditional magazine advertisements.

The reason behind people seeing the film was because they were a big fan of foreign films, with a staggering 49% giving this response. The next highest was 39% of respondents saying they enjoyed the genre.

The second exit poll I analysed was for A Dangerous Method, directed by David Cronenburg (A drama/thriller film). This study found that 46% of their respondents were under 35, and 54% were over 35. This is, again, a fairly even divide. Interestingly, the most common way that this film was discovered was through magazine/newspaper reviews. I believe that this is because this exit poll was conducted in 2012, and The Keeper of Lost Causes was conducted in 2014, meaning that in just two years our reliance on and use of technology has increased dramatically.

44% of respondents said that they watched the film because it's based on the work of Freud and Jung. After some quick research, I discovered that these are both theorists. Freud believed that behaviour is driven by fears and desires locked in the unconscious mind. Jung believed in 'archetypes'- a representation at an unconscious level of everything we understand by a certain person; for example, a 'mother'.