Updated Storyboard

Presentation of our Thriller Plan

 

Thriller Plan: Improvements

1. Develop cast list - compare to such shows as Breaking Bad...
2. Look further into costume and how we can obtain them, compare them to other films and relate them to the thriller genre.
3. Lighting - compared to other films
4. Look into props (e.g. white van, boxes, how would we obtain?)
5. Research location + take photos, compare to location in other films
6. Storyboard + Analyse
7. Research police failures to catch drug gangs (e.g. return of the Essex boys)
8. Research non-diegetic voiceovers from other films (e.g. Good Fellas, Blow)
9. Research 'The Business'
10. Compare Ted and Theo to actors in 'The Business'
11. Film the run through. 

Our Thriller Storyboard

We initially tried drawing a storyboard on paper but found that we weren't able to accurately represent the detail we wanted. We then attempted to recreate the pictures of the shots using the Paint application but we encountered the same problem. We then found the storyboarding website http://www.storyboardthat.com/ incredibly useful because we could pay precise attention to detail as well as add textables and arrows easily and quickly to help the illustration of our idea.

Thriller Character Research

Most thrillers have the formula of the good guy and the bad guy. However, in our thriller we keep an ambiguity as to which side the audience are supposed to be on. We show quite a lot of the thriller from the perspective of the criminals but we also bring the audience into the life of the police officers.

Marlin Brando as Don Corleone from The Godfather (1972)
He gives of the 'calm killer' feel we want Ted to give.

Having said this, the character in our thriller who is closest to being a protagonist is Ted who is the don of the gang. We are not going to give him a vast amount of dialogue because rather than being a loud-mouthed vulgar stereotypical representation of criminal leaders in films, we want him to be quieter and 'cooler' by making him more mysterious. We want to show him being aggressive to one of his employees though to still give him that 'silent but deadly' feel.

Theo and Ollie were initially going to be portrayed as the two bumbling idiots which appear in most films, thriller or not. However, our thriller is starting to gain a sense of deeper meaning so rather than conform to the 'Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee' comic duo cliche, we have decided to show realistic representations of people their age. Theo is much closer to Ted and helpful as we see him carry in boxes of merchandise while Ollie is more troublesome and does not admire Ted as much as Theo does. If Ted is to represent a sort of father figure to them in the business, Theo would be the cooperative son making him proud while Ollie would be more of a rebellious problem-child. We want to give the two young characters more emotional depth and dip in to their world a little more than most thrillers normally would.

This is how Theo and Ollie would have been represented had we stuck to them being
the comic relief element to the thriller.

Tony from Skins season 1 is similar to my idea of Theo's character because he is presented as
composed, in control of life and happy to carry out responsibilites (despite
his disrespect towards his parents)

Sid is could be similar to Ollie's character in that he is more insecure than Tony and is different
in his low self-esteem, low self discipline and typical teenage attitude towards jobs.

Research for our Thriller

The Departed

Set in Boston, the Departed is about the state police force waging war on Irish-American organized crime, much like in our thriller where we have the police tracking the criminals working for Silk Road. This influenced the implication in our Thriller that the police have been onto the man in charge for a while.






We're the Millers

‘We’re the Millers’ isn’t a thriller but a comedy about smuggling Marihuana, a concept that is close to our idea. This film influenced the use of a comedic and farcical touch in our thriller. It also made us want to have a slight sense of the drug distributors looking unexpectedly 'normal'.

 








Hot Fuzz

Hot Fuzz is a hilarious parody of police crime thrillers. This film inspired us to have police as a prominent feature in our thriller with an action scene. This also made us want to do something comical involving the police in our thriller.







The Business

 

THE BUSINESS is an action packed gangster flick set in Spain's sun drenched Costa Del crime. Charlie, a young man, soon becomes one of the gang, and finds himself drawn into a flamboyant and violent world of organized crime. This inspired the idea of having a young gawky assistant in our thriller. The film also inspired our idea of having the don of the gang wearing a smart suit and the non-diegetic voice-over about his dream of a luxury lifestyle.

Storyboard for our Thriller

We initially tried drawing a storyboard on paper but found that we weren't able to accurately represent the detail we wanted. We then attempted to recreate the pictures of the shots using the Paint application but we encountered the same problem. We then found the storyboarding website http://www.storyboardthat.com/ incredibly useful because we could pay precise attention to detail as well as add textables and arrows easily and quickly to help the illustration of our idea.