Thriller - Shooting Day

Group: Paula Riemann, Holly Finlay, Emily Benson Rhodes, Mehran Karimi
Cast: Helena, Ted Jackson
Locations: Cornhill Manor, Ewhurst Place, Staff Rest Room

 

Before we started filming, we organized the set, got our actress ready and arranged all the props. Holly went to the costume departement a few days before and got a red dress and black high heels. She also took her fur coath and a red bag. We tried to make Helena look as sexy and cold as possible, as she is supposed to be the gold-digging, icey Step-mother. I was in charge of the photography, as we needed pictures of Helena and Ted Jackson, looking like a couple. We put the pictures up in the whole house and later shot a few close-ups of them in order to give the viewer an idea of what is going on and who this woman is. Paula took the main role in getting Helena ready for the shoot. She did the hair and helped her with the make-up. Emily brought a lot of hygiene products with her which we needed for the shower scene we shot later in the day.

The day began in the studio were we checked if we had all our props and went trough our storyboard one more time. Soon we were already on the bus to Cornhill were one of the main difficulties immediately took place. The kitchen of the family was obviously used by a family consisting of parents AND children. In our original concept, the couple was supposed to be living on their own, without children, showing how selfish and cold the protagonist is. We improvised and changed her character to the cold,sexy and gold-digging step mother, which is made visual to the audience by her being very annoyed at things the children do. At first we were slightly annoyed that we couldn't stick with out original idea,but as the shoot went on we learned to embrace all the good things that came with the new idea. Apart from the very big change in the storyline, we changed a lot of small things aswell. Most importantly the ending. Originally we intended the burglar to be visible in the end. Luckily we changed that and only showed an over the shoulder shot plus the protagonists face in fear. If we would have shown the burglar at the end it would not have seemed right. You're not supposed to introduce the killer that early in the movie. We realized that we are shooting an OPENING SEQUENCE, not a short movie. The final product is supposed to slowly dive into the plot, not reveal everything there is to it.

One of the highlights of the day were Helena's acting skills. We casted her mainly due to visual reasons. She looked how we wanted the character to look. Surprisingly, her acting was superb. We thought that her italian accent was going to be difficult to convince the audience but it made the image of the cold stepmother even more convincing. All of us agreed that our casting choice was perfect. The fact that Helena looks older than people her age but still not old enough was perfect. She was the perfect rebound woman for "Teddy".  She was very professional and just

 

All four of us are very creative people, all of us in different and their own ways. At first our opinions how to do a certain job clashed but we succesfuly managed to incorporate everyones ideas. We dealt with the situation in a mature way and decided as a group trough votes, which idea we would take.