Character Profile: Hillbilly

Making Blood

How to Make Blood Video

Ingredients:

• Red food colouring (one cap, 2.5ml, half teaspoon)
• Blue food colouring (very small amount on cocktail stick)
• Flour (5ml, 0.16oz)
• Syrup (20ml, 0.67oz)

I am presuming you have these ingredients around the house but otherwise they are sold at most supermarkets. Above are the amounts of the ingredients you need, it only makes a bit for testing to make the right colour, just multiply the amounts to make more.

Quick Steps

1. Mix 5ml of flower and 20ml syrup in mixing bowl
2. Add one cap of red food colouring
3. Dab (very small amount) of blue food coloring and mix in
4. Put in container for use on set

More

• RUMOUR: add washing up liquid/powder makes the fake blood wash out of clothes (not tested, only use on old clothes first)
• Try different colours by varying amount of blue food colouring
• Thick blood by adding chocolate sauce
• Thinner blood by adding water

Hunting for Props

Props Moodboard

Props are an important part in making an effective thriller. We want to make sure that we use realistic props to avoid our thriller look cheap and tacky. When choosing our location, we found that broken glass was already present and therefore will add violent aspect to the caravan. We will create our own blood so that we can control the amount and coloring of the substance to suit our needs when achieving the availability on the day of filming. Throughout our thriller opening, there is a constant reference to a little girl victim and therefore will provide different props to display this. We will include a charm bracelet, a tire swing and a ribbon for her hair to portray her youth and innocence. All of these will be consumed in a glass jar to portray them to the audience as his keep sakes for all his criminal offences. To make our main character seem scary and possessed we will include white contact lenses and his costume will be smothered with blood to show him in a violent nature. Other props will include a petrol can and a box of matches which will contribute to other torture procedures.

Location and Props Photoslide

Why We Chose 'Compulsion'

Other Students Work

Other student's work

When submitting your thriller video, you have to consider various issues that might not be correct with the video. We have seen a range of different thrillers created by other students, both successful and un-successful videos and have been asked to mark them with a professional point of view, giving them our own opinion and a final grade.

What went wrong

- Lighting, in some of the thrillers we have watched, the weather has not always been the same, creating an effect on the lighting in the shot. If the lighting appears to be different in the same scene, then don't film. Check the weather and film on days which the weather is the same. If you're aiming for a high grade, this is an essential part of your thriller.

- Sound, make sure you have considered the music before using it as the soundtrack as some of the videos have not matched the theme of the thriller, causing the audience to question what type of thriller they are actually performing. Also make sure there are no silent moments in your video, insert a soundtrack so it isn't just natural sounds.

- Props, we done research and found out that if you sort out what props you are going to use way before you start filming, it will be a lot more successful. If you were to leave them till the last minute, the props you end up using may not be as convincing, making the audience confused.

What went right

- Themes, the ideas used for each students video was very well thought through, creating a much more believable story. By using a realistic situation in your video, will automatically cause you to get a higher grade overall.

- Camera Angles, all of the groups used a various amount of different camera angles, making the thriller become much more advanced and to create an interest for its viewers. If you were to use basic camera angles, it would make you get a lower grade.

- Acting, although the acting in your thriller isn't marked, by having good actors it makes your thriller look much more professional. Watching a video with bad acting, makes your audience become bored and un-interested.

 One main thing you have to make sure you have when filming is a tripod, this is essential to use in your thriller as without one, it makes your video look very cheap. The disadvantage of not using one restricts you from getting different camera angles, making your thriller become very basic. Also, make sure you choose an appropriate location to film your thriller at. By selecting one which matches the theme of your thriller, it makes them merge together with your idea very easily, without creating confusion to your audience.

Our Initial Title Idea: Convulsion

Convulsion

Our group have made a decision that our final thriller is going to be called Convulsion. The word Convulsion is a medical condition where body muscles contract and relax rapidly and repeatedly, resulting in an uncontrolled shaking of the body. Convulsions are also consistent with an electric shock. The term "convulsion" is often used interchangeably with "seizure," although there are many types of seizures, some of which have subtle or mild symptoms instead of convulsions. Seizures of all types are caused by disorganized and sudden electrical activity in the brain. Convulsions usually last from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. However, if a seizure is prolonged, or if multiple seizures happen and the person doesn't awaken in between, this is a medical emergency. It can be caused by different things such as choking, epilepsy and head injury.

We decided that we wanted to use this word due to the fact that out thriller consists of quick small scenes, which show our main character collecting mysterious objects from various victims. Also, by a convulsion being a medical emergency it creates a tense atmosphere for the audience, making them feel on edge. It fits in with our theme very effectively as we have based it round a horror theme, using spooky music and a scary location. So occurring convulsions during our 2 minute thriller will engage the audience and make them question why these convulsions are happening and whether the victims are going to make it out safe. The experience the victims are going to have with the main character are going to be things associated with torture, so convulsions match this ideally.

First of all 'Convulsion' was the title of thriller, but we done a lot of research on what this word actually meant and realised it doesn't fit in with the theme of our thriller as much as we would like. We have re-considered our title with various names and now have a new one.