The first of these lead roles is led by a male assassin who is under the name of Ken, the reason being that the name is simple, short and easily remembered. This matches the identity of the character, being that he completes jobs or ‘killings’ with little fuss and is quick to the point.
The other protagonist is that of Victoria, her name which was chosen because it reflects her personality as somebody that is elegant enough to appear feminine yet be capable of murder. It is a name that is longer and therefore more complex which contrasts Ken much like the tactics of either character.
Our third character that stars within our sequence is less significant and appears less so than the assassins. However, Scott's presence is still important in the sense that without his deliverance of either envelope or more importantly his role in bridging the two killers, then there would be no conflict between Ken and Victoria.
LOCATION
Our original idea for the first location was next to the main road, near Sidcup Place. This was because it had an ordinary park area that featured benches, trees and grass which complemented our storyboard preparations and earliest ideas for an outside location. However, this wasn't chosen, because the traffic nearby and the amount of people in the area became inconvenient as it would effect the performance of the character's and create problems in the background of the cinematography. Therefore, we decided upon using the other side of Sidcup Place, where it was a more remote location that consisted of similar benches, less people and more space to suit the expanse and environment of our location.
Location 1 - Park on Chislehurst Road, Sidcup.
Unit Call: 13.00.
Est. Wrap: 14.20.
The second place in our sequence was a car park within Sidcup, it is situated outside and thus offered a lot of space. This made difficult camera shots that required a tripod and stillness more achievable and easier to perform. The fact that it was built up of urban surroundings made it more realistic visually, because it matched the idea of an every day average place, which hoped to be accomplished in the second location.
Location 2 - Car Park on Grassington Road, Sidcup.
Unit Call: 11.40
Est. Wrap: 12.30
The final location we decided to use was a selection of public garages that were in the open showing day light. This made each shot a lot brighter, with a better focus that gave maximum emphasis to the characters that featured. The reason that attention needed to be drawn towards them was because this was the pivotal scene where contact is finally made between the two different worlds of Victoria and Ken. The fact that the garages are portrayed to be connected to Victoria's house, it puts her in a weaker position to Ken and makes her character more vulnerable.
Location 3 - Public Garages behind Sidcup Place, Sidcup.
Unit Call: 13:30
Est. Wrap: 15:00
CLOTHING
The costume of each character was tailored to fit their own attitudes and identities.
Ken:
To begin, we thought it would represent Ken most if he were to wear all black clothing that gave him a look of mystery and uncertainty of identity. Yet, this was decided against for it was too dramatic and possibly took the focus away from Ken's mindset and thoughts and put it on his appearance. Therefore, it was best to allow Ken to wear more casual clothes and normal attire that portrayed him as an average male in jeans and trainers. As it is this idea that makes him more of an unexpected killer that would not be suspected and would still murder in cold blood under a casual attitude. Also, by doing this, his involvement in the crime and murder was to come across as a shock and surprise, in something that the audience may not associate with him judging from his look.
Victoria:
To reflect the character of Victoria, we chose to concentrate on her personality. For instance, to represent her confidence she was shown in a grey dress, as opposed to a formal suit that may be worn to impress or satisfy someone. Wearing a grey dress, it enables her femininity to be highlighted and emphasises the role of the woman.
Scott:
Not being a key figure in the sequence it was important to keep Scott's identity quite concealed. This was because the main focus was on either killer and Scott was more of an anonymity rather than somebody to interact with. Considering this, his clothing is dark which isn't inviting to the audience, the exact impression we wanted to cover when deciding on certain clothing. The figure of Scott being larger than the other two characters gave him the power as he was in control of the situation, setting both of the characters up to kill one another as he distributed the envelopes.
PROPS
In Location 1:
Image of Victoria.
In Location 2:
Envelope.
Image of Ken.
Volkswagon Polo Car.
In Location 3:
Mobile Phone.
SLUGLINE
Two killers, with different identities but equal motives.
SYNOPSIS
Our plot consists of two characters who are both serial assassins, Ken and Victoria. They are handed envelopes by an anonymous character, Scott, that inside reveals photographs of either assassin. The anonymous character is known by both Ken and Victoria yet has assigned each of them to kill one another. While Victoria is on her way to carry out the killing, Ken has beaten her to it and is following her without her knowledge until Victoria senses something is wrong and that she is being followed. Victoria then turns around to find Ken watching her from behind.
INITIAL IDEAS
We initiated our own storylines for a thriller by making an idea brainstorm:
A man and woman both have a code to a vault containing a large sum of money, he woman kills the man, but doesn’t realise the man changed the code before he was killed. She must now find the new code from his person, place of work or family, before the account expires and his death is discovered. However, this would have been problematic in the sense of production because we do not have access to a large amount of money or an ATM machine.
A girl finds a bag of money and spends it, the man who owned this money later finds out the money has been used and wants her life in return. This idea was decided against because a similar storyline was attempted by class peers and they had great trouble in making a murder look realistic as well as cinematic, which deferred us away from the idea of a killing being shown on film.
A doctor's family is held hostage because a secret organization need one of his patient's life machines to be terminated. The group fear that the patient may make a recovery and thus
release information that is harmful to them. This concept became complex in itself and would be difficult to film as well as get access to a life machine, hospital environment and lots of characters.
TARGET AUDIENCE
From basic observation, the predominate age audience of our thriller is in the teenage years, this is deducible because when showing our opening sequence in a classroom those aged between 16-18 years were most interested and attracted towards what our sequence offered.
In terms of gender, both male and female characteristics are equally evident which makes there no clear emphasis on either audience gender. For example, the following themes indicate traits that may appeal to male as well as female audiences:
- Victoria and Ken share equal roles, where neither one is killed
- There is an unusual use of a female assassin instead of the conventional dominant male
- Victoria wearing a dress to carry out a murder is ironic for it subverts the idea that women don't belong in violent crime
- Ken is seen and detected first rather than him reaching and assassinating her
Through using 'www.pearl&dean.com' we have been able to see the future response of our product through similar products that are already in existence. The closest example we came across was 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith', it is a thriller themed film where two assassins have to kill each other, being the greatest similarity to what we produced. From Pearl&Dean it is noticeable that there was a majority of female viewers as compared to males who watched the film in the cinemas. This is contrasting because for the most part, thriller audiences are usually more male based. However, as this film has themes of romance and comedy, as well as Brad Pitt as a protagonist there is great reason to why more women went to watch the movie. Also, from the websites statistics we can see that the biggest age range who went to see this film was 15-24, which is similar to our product, for it is teenagers that we would expect to get the most views from.
