Making Fake Blood

What technology have we used?

Filming Permission for Final Task

Above: Letter from the Facilities Manager of the Blue Fin Building
confirming permission for us to film.

Problems with Plot/Setting

To film at places such as Waterloo Station, Weybridge Station and on the train you need filming permission  so we set about it. I spent approximately 1 hour of time trying to find out who to contact on the phone to people from Southwest Trains and National Rail about filming permission only to get through to the person I needed and be told that they had 'too many requests at the moment, and that they could not provide permission for us to film at these locations or on the train. So we hit a brick wall with that part of our plot and setting!

This leaves us with the rest of the plot which we feel we can create our task without the train station and on-train footage as it isn't essential to the plot. This may however influence the fluency of our piece moving from the house to the building in London.

Target Audience and Rating

Our film like most thrillers, will not be suitable for young children, we have scenes of a disturbing nature such as suicide therefore these are not issues or events young children should be watching/experiencing. After looking on BBFC website and reading through the classification for each rating. We decided that due to scenes of imitable behaviour e.g. suicide, that impressionable people such as children could try and copy this and therefore we should rate it as a 15.

Our target audience will be people in their late teens as the actors will look similar to their age so they will be able to relate, this doesn't mean that older people are not in our target audience as they are very much included. This film will be suitable for everyone apart from people under the age of 15 years.

Final Task Costumes

Katrina and Ed were both dressed in fairly trendy clothes that make them look older than their age to fit in with the late teens/early 20's character we cast them as. There is no further meaning or purpose to these costumes as we want them to seem as normal/stereotypical as possible.

Final Task Plot

We brainstormed all of our ideas on an A3 sheet.

We had a variety of ideas for our plot:
   - Bullying
   - Arguments with family
   - Arguments with boyfriend/girlfriend
   - Family loss

In the end we went with the idea of an argument with a boyfriend/girlfriend and suicide. Although suicide may be interpreted as a quite dark and troubled matter, we thought it would give a slight edge to our thriller, this also allows us to stray away from the common stalker scenario that the exam board see every year. This allows us to use both genders and show the representation of them in different perspectives. 


Screenplay


Scene 1

A girl is on the computer while talking to her boyfriend in a different room. She gets a text which says "you'd be better off dead" , she grabs her work keys, runs out of the room, opens the front door and leaves, not shutting the front door behind her.

Her boyfriend hears this and sees the front door open, he realises something has happened and that her keys are gone so he grabs his coat and goes after her. Cuts to scene of her on the train and departing it.

TRANSITION SCENE - GIRL CRYING INFRONT OF TRAFFIC


Scene 2

She’s walking along the street, crosses a road and enters her work building. She then swipes her work keys and walks towards the lift.

She waits for the lift, inside the lift she is slumped in the corner crying. She then gets up and leaves the lift and turns the corner towards the balcony.

She then goes to the edge of the balcony  followed by her moving closer to the edge and looking over. Looks over the edge once again.

Audience hears her boyfriend shout her name. Brief dialogue (TBC at a later date) - outcome is he can't talk her out of it

Scene 3

Screen goes black

Face/body in mangled shape on floor, in blood. Boyfriend runs to her side and rings 999, brief call with emergency services. He then picks up her phone and reads the text (new one) that says "...knew she'd do what I told her". Boyfriend has vengeful look on his face as if he is going to go after the person harassing his girlfriend.

Final Task Setting

Blue Fin Building

(Location Works)

'The Blue Fin Building boasts a huge central atrium, very large 10th floor roof garden, winter garden coffee bar and a restaurant with views over the Thames. The building houses the headquarters of IPC Media, a leading UK consumer magazine publisher. The open-plan office floors have floor-to-ceiling windows with impressive views over central London and the City; facilities include state-of-the-art board-rooms, meeting rooms, theatre, wine-tasting suite, photographic studios, and test kitchens.'
(Location Works)

We chose the Blue Fin building for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is my dad's workplace and I was familiar with the layout etc, therefore it helped when we created the idea and plot of our final task because I could visualize where we would film and what shots we could take. Secondly it is a particularly large building with 11 floors which fitted in perfectly with our plot, even better there is a roof top garden and a balcony, with the latter being an essential in our thriller.


As well as our school media equipment we also will have access to a green screen and possibly even a recording studio. We are considering using the green screen for a very short segment of our thriller and if we are able to use the studio we would record the girl's voiceover to give the most professional audio possible to compliment the video.


The Blue Fin building has been used for professional filming in films such as:
• You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (2010) - Woody Allen's new project
• Salmon Fishing in Yemen (2012) - a film starring Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt


TV Shows such as:
• Hustle - BBC Drama (2004-Present)

and even adverts such as Norwich Union (now known as AVIVA):
 

Below is a video that is shown to anyone interested in renting the Blue Fin Building for filming:

London
We have decided to film our thriller in and around London (except for the opening scene), In my opinion this was because London is an iconic setting that is often used throughout films and therefore we felt that filming in London would give us the best effect, suspense, tension and drama for our thriller.


Method Statement
To film at the Blue Fin Building we had to create a method statement to give to the Facilities Director Jenny. This basically just tells her how we plan to go about our filming, because there are no real risks to be taken, a risk assessment is not needed

Above: Method Statement