Cast List

Taken from Dash's blog

	Name: Zell Oxenham Age: 17/18 Character: Main robber Contact Number: 07936697832
	Name: Adam Grant Age: 39 Character: Robber 2 Contact Number: 07832455121
	Name: Mike Age: 30 Character: Robber 3 Contact Number: 07770823936

Name: Dave Fonseka Age: 50 Character: Wounded robber Contact Number: 07880439123

Name: James Hartman Age: 43 Character: Assasin Contact Number: 07950482712

RESEARCH TASK - Character guidelines

Post from Dasha's blog

Female Character Guideline:
Young woman that has a strong personality,dark hair, inherits a leader personality.

Robber 1:
Around a 35-43 year old man with a Liverpool accent, very short hair (possibly bald) and has a harsh personality and cares for his fellow correspondents

Robber 2:
A guy that is in his mid thirties, looks a bit different to all the other robbers. We are looking for him to have a quiet personality that helps out purely because he needs the cash from the mission.

Robber 3:
The last robber is an actual doctor in real life that has specialist skills and helps out with the technology and downloading part of the mission. He is in his mid forties and is non-white.

Mafia Man:
This man is very important and is ruthless. You mess with him, you have the whole mafia after you. White male around 30-40 to show experience and strength. Needs to have style.

Agreed costumes

Costume Research

For the robbers we decided on boiler costumes as in most movies they portray 'thriller' like feelings and often in many thrillers the robbers wear these. We decided to have the costume in dark tones as most people would associate robbers with dark colours. These suits are very common and therefore it would be difficult to identify the person underneath it. It is very important that all of the robbers look pretty much identical, but we thought that each one should have something small that differs from the rest. The boiler suit is very plain and it fits with an amateur robbery. Some of our might have difficulties getting into the costume, therefore, we thought that if it didn't fit in the from part then they could just wear a jumper and tie top of of the boiler suit to their waste. Also, plain white shirts underneath the boiler suite in order to make it all look very sleek.

In order to disguise the robbers I found a couple of different types of masks that could potentially cover their identity and make the sequence stand out a bit more. There are three options. Option one is of different types of animals, option two is plain theatrical masks and the third option is a storm trooper mask from Star Wars. Below are some of examples of these. It is important that we stick to the same mask for everyone, meaning that if we had 5 pig masks, each of the robbers would wear the same one.
They are going to wear plain black trainers.

PROPS

Taken from Haydon's blog

 • Two big guns – These guns will be the weapons that the amateur robbers use in the heist

• One small gun – This will be for the least experienced/ weakest member of the group

• Bat – This is another choice of weapon and because these people are amateurs, their weapons would also be amateur. This was partially inspired by “The Purge”

• First aid kit – We will use the first aid kit to treat the man that has been shot. It would be nice to get a few close-ups of the kit while the man is being treated

• Earpiece – This will potentially be for the guard that protects the main man during the stitch-up. We wanted a few options to see what looks best on the guard

• Van – This will be the get-away van that the amateur robbers jump into. The back of the van has no sight of the front. This would mean that they never know where they are being driven to so they just
trust the driver. This works perfectly for them to being stitched-up

• People Carrier Car – We have a few options such as a VW or a Nissan, but any big car will fit perfectly. This will be the car that the “professional” drive off in after taking the “amateurs” stuff

• Sunglasses – These will also be a potential for the guard. He will either wear the sunglasses with the earpiece, he could wear a balaclava or nothing at all

• Balaclava – Again this is a possibility for the guard

• Pelican cases – These will be what the robbers use to steal the goods. This way, we won’t need to see inside them so we don’t actually know what they have stolen. They also look quite high security

• Smoke machine – Inside the van, it will be very bland, so to create some atmosphere we wanted to have some smoke to make the van look a bit dusty

• Fake blood – Obviously we need blood in order to show that the guy has been shot. We will need quite a lot of it depending on how long we shoot the scenes of him bleeding

• Torches – As we will be using smoke inside the van and also due to the fact that the van doesn’t have any windows in the back, it will be very dark. Torches will light up everyone’s faces and will look cool with the smoke

• Cardboard boxes – These will just be used to make the van look a bit fuller and cramped as
normally there wouldn’t be much inside.

REASEARCH TASK - Prop Ideas

Taken from Haydon's blog
Masks with costumes: the actors playing the main characters are robbers and so to make them seem more threatening, we though it would be a good idea to have masks with matching costumes. This would also establish that they are a part of the same organisation. This was inspired by films such as The Purge 2 and The Town.

Sacks/Cases: We will need some sort of sack or briefcase depending on the item that the robbers will be stealing.

Fake money or diamonds: Depending on what is being stolen, some sort of object would need to be in the bag to give the realism of the weight of the items in the sacks.

Van: We are going to use a van for the robbers to get away in. We will use the schools bus.

Weapons: Similar to The Purge we will need different types of weapons. As these robbers aren't very professional, they would be using weapons like baseball bats and bb guns.

LOCATION:

Car Park: After the robbers have stolen the goods, the van will pick them up from a car park

Van: Most of the opening title sequence will be in the van. There will be some arguments as the robbery didn't go completely to plan seeing as one of the members has been injured.

Woods: When we find out that the driver has taken them to a different destination than originally planned, we see that they have been stitched up. For this we will use the woods thats all around our college as it gives the impression that they are in the middle of nowhere.

RESEARCH TASK - Mafia characteristics

Taken from Haydon's blog

Our thriller represents a Mafia looking boss character for a brief moment, towards the end. This post will be discussing Mafia, different organisations of them and my we decided to use one in our Thriller.

A Mafia is a type of organized crime syndicate whose primary activities are protection racketeering, the arbitration of disputes between criminals, and the organizing and oversight of illegal agreements and transactions. Secondary activities may be practices such as gambling, loan sharking, drug-trafficking, and fraud.



Why did we choose to have a British looking Mafia? Well, mainly because that we are making a small independent british thriller. So it would make sense to do that. We wanted to have some common robbers doing the job, subsequently interrupted with a higher authority. I will give a few real life Mafia Bosses that were inspired to create our character.


Al Capone, an American gangster from Brooklyn. A crackdown on racketeering in Chicago meant that Al Capone's first mobster job was to move operations to Cicero. With the assistance of his brothers Frank (Salvatore) and Ralph, Capone infiltrated the government and police departments. Between them they took leading positions within Cicero city government in addition to running brothels, gambling clubs and racetracks.
Capone kidnapped opponents' election workers and threatened voters with violence. He eventually won office in Cicero but not before his brother Frank had been killed in a shoot out with Chicago's police force.

Capone had prided himself on keeping his temper under wraps but when friend and fellow hood Jack Guzik was assaulted by a small time thug, Capone tracked the assailant down and shot him dead in a bar. Due to lack of witnesses, Capone got away with the murder, but the publicity surrounding the case gave him a notoriety that he had never had before.

Reggie and Ronnie (The Kray Brothers) were both exceptional boxers but chose the life of extortion and robbery that were among their illegal activities. They built up their own group known as "The Firm," which became a dominant force in the East End. Each brother had his own strengths with Reggie being known for his charm and brains while Ronnie was known for his might and short temper. Both loved to dress to the nines, and their high-end suits became part of their signature look. They ran several clubs and rubbed elbows with many celebrities, including singer Frank Sinatra and actor George Raft.

No amount of polish could hide the Krays' vicious actions, however. Reggie created a move called the cigarette punch. He acted as if he was going to place a cigarette in his intended target's mouth and then hit him while his mouth was open. The blow was meant to make it easier to break the victim's jaw. Both Reggie and Ronnie spent time behind bars for various offenses, but it didn't made a dent in their criminal activities.

Later in 2015, a film was made about the Kray Brothers called 'Legend'. Inspired by real life gangsters. Our character was inspired by the Kray Brothers outfits. Since they are a East-London organisation and have similar culture and clothes we decided to give our character a similar look ( A bit more 'Northy' look, but yet intimidating).

The Godfather film series consists of three crime films directed by Francis Ford Coppola inspired by the novel of the same name by Italian American author Mario Puzo.

The series follows the trials of the Corleone family, Italian Americans whose patriarch, Vito Corleone, rises to be a major figure in American organized crime. His youngest son, Michael Corleone, becomes his successor. All three films were distributed by Paramount Pictures and released in 1972, 1974 and 1990. The series achieved success at the box office, with the films earning over $550 million worldwide. The first two films have received wide acclaim since release; the former, The Godfather, is seen by many as one of the greatest films of all time. Its sequel, The Godfather Part II, is viewed by many as the best sequel in cinematic history. The series is heavily awarded, winning 9 out of 29 total Academy Award nominations.


Many films were made inspired by real life Mafia.

RESEARCH TASK - Dominant female leads

Taken from Haydon's blog.

Burlesque: Christina Aguilera
Christina Aguilera plays the role of Ali rose and she is a very independent woman. The film revolve around Ali becoming a burlesque dancer and trying to make a name for herself.
This is relevant to our piece because Zell is a dominant female role and they share similar traits. They are both very opinionated, they always argue with people and they never give up.

Kick-Ass: Chloe Grace Moretz
Although Chloe was a lot younger when playing the role of Hit-girl and she is much younger than Zell, they are still both very similar.
Hit-girl is an assassin and she is very deadly. Zell is a criminal so they both have a rebellious side. They are both very ruthless and get what they want.

The Avengers: Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson is also an assassin except this time its for the secret service rather than being a rogue. However she is still very violent and quite stubborn, which is much a like Zell.
The difference that Zell has to these all of these characters so far is that she is clumsy and blames other people. Assassins are very accurate and hardly ever make mistakes, but when they do they take responsibility.

Divergent: Shailene Woodley
 Personally I think that Shailene Woodley who plays Tris is the most like Zell. She is the around the same age as Zell and is very similar in terms of their personality.
Both Tris and Zell are old cards and are very unpredictable. They also love to prove a point and will never stop arguing until they feel they have won.




What really interests me about dominant female characters is their ability to stand their ground even when surrounded by men. They are warriors and are fearless. All of these characters subvert from the stereotype of a woman because they are extremely independent or in other words lone wolves. This is why I feel that a leading female character would work for our piece.

RESEARCH TASK - Filming in the back of a van

Post from Dasha's blog:

Most of our scenes are going to be based on being behind the van, therefore, my group and I had to collect some information on how to film in the back of the van and how it could potentially look. Below is an image of how the van will look without all of the set design and actors in there. 

Snatch (2000)

We researched into different movies that use similar techniques to us, a good example of this could be the opening sequence in Snatch. They all come in dressed up as Jews and then take off their costumes, leaving them looking as completely normal people. There is a bit of a contrast in the way that the robbers are acting compared to how we want ours to look. The whole purpose behind ours is for them to be stereotypical and unexperienced, whereas, the calmness of the robbers in snatch clearly shows that they are professionals.

In their opening they use the 180 degree rule, as we don't end up seeing what's happening in the front of the van. In our storyboards, we had planned to film in a way that we kind of see the front of the van, but then don't end up seeing the back of the van until the end when we get a glimpse of the mysterious 'boss man/villain'.

The van that we are going to use doesn't have windows, therefore, we have to install LED lighting before we start shooting so that we don't just end up shooting a scene with only excess light.

Below is an image of van doors that are open, this is how we want to film the robbers reaction to the villain. We are going to take lots of different shots like long shots, close ups and mid shots, they will provide a large set of varieties to choose from in the edit suite.

RESEARCH TASK - Haze!

So what is haze? Haze is that atmosphere you see in films, or in a dusty old room, which adds depth to scene. This is usually noticeable in a film when a protagonist is going through an abandoned building with a torch and you can see the light from the torch bouncing off all the dust in the air creating a golden beam of light.

So why the hell would I want this haze stuff in my opening title sequence? Well due to not much time being spent on the props for the van, as this idea was quite rushed, I thought it could be a easy cheat, due to it adding depth to a scene it makes, what is being seen on screen more interesting. As well what haze does is diffuse light, this would appear nicely within the van, as we can only have one light in the van, instead of it being a harsh light and making highlights over exposed, it would give a more gentle light.

Gentle? Yes, while it would give a gentle atmospheric feel, it would as well give a darker more gritty look. This would compliment our dramatic action packed sequence. Haze is very similar to fog, and what effect does fog bring… thats right… mystery. Not only does fog add depth and light dispersion but mystery as it hides a lot more, meaning not all is given away creating intrigue, therefore suspense, therefore we have a thriller element.

Haze would also be very interactive within the scene, due to it creating visible shafts of light. We could have the actors use flashlights to investigate the gunshot wound on the dying character, creating beams of light, this gives a selective view of what the audience can see, building that very important intrigue.

Right so wheres your haze machine thingy? Haha good question. Well I don’t have one of those things laying around, so my plan is to ask our theatre department at my school weather they have…. a fog machine. Yeah I bet you didn’t see that coming. However the problem with using a fog machine is that the fog can be too thick and therefore look like fog rather than haze, making it less atmospherical and more foggy. And it looks rubbish, because why would there be fog in van…. haze yes, fog no. But if you get the right consistency it can look like haze.

Our storyboards