Teacher Gone Mad...

Our group's ideas have changed drastically over the past few days; attempting to make our work more original, we wanted to include a Political element to the opening of our thriller, creating something beyond the limits of typical thriller codes and conventions. The idea of a psychological thriller has always been something I pushed for in the group, but only now with our current ideas do I think we can include psychological elements whilst still maintaining something that is suitably fresh and unique. Our concept for our opening explores the idea of supposedly 'normal' members of our society losing their sanity; this is something I believe is topical at the moment, what with the shootings in Norway as well as the 'Batman' cinema killer, and I believe that grounding our opening within the confines of reality will make our short more horrifyin and, of course, more thrilling. The opening follows a teacher at a local school plotting to assasinate the Prime Minister as he visits the school that our psycho- teacher works at. The opening will essentially be made up of a montage sequence as our teacher readies himself for what is to come. It's important to me explore that the mental illness aspect of things is dealt with seriously and not in a stereotyped fashion; also, we'd like the audience to gauge the fact that our protagonist is leading this double life, trying to hide his demons behind the facade of teacher/family man/ respectable member of the community that hides an altogether more frightening truth. Below are our developed ideas in regards to what we are planning on:

* Worked on this plan with Hannah Dunsdon*
1)The name of our production will appear and over the top will be diegetic sound of the interviewer asking the Prime Minister why he is deciding to visit the Chalfonts Community College; this image will then fade out menacingly.

2)We then open to a mid shot of the Prime Minister from waist upwards. There is a seconds pause to give the audience some time to understand the context of the shot (ie. news programme interview) then begins to speak with blood dripping down his face. However, neither interviewer nor interviewee react to this at all. 

3)Jump cut to a extreme close up of teacher with a sly creepy smile, although in the background the Prime Minister is still talking from within the television that our teacher is watching. 

4)Jump cut back to news frame, there is no trace of blood on him which comes to the end of the interview, shocking the audience as we realise the cruel intentions of our aspiring teacher. 

5)Pan out to teachers room which will be messy, strewn with newspaper articles, surveillance photos, alcohol, prescription drugs etc. and then cut away to the title sequence. The screen will display 'Directed By...' ; a distant husky laugh can be heard as this is displayed.

6)We will then have a montage sequence of him preparing for the assasination, intercut with the titles.

7)The scene will end with the teacher's oblivious wife calling from downstairs 'Dinners Ready!', reminding the audience of the double personality of the teacher. He then shuts the door, the camera zooming in on a dartboard attached to the back of the door, the Prime Ministers face stuck to the datboard, a dart stuck in the middle of the Prime Ministers proverbial 'head', acting as a metaphor for what the teacher wants to achieve. We then cut to black, displaying the title of the film.

Characters and Casting:-

We decided on the characters costume as well as colour palette.

Prime Minister- Sharp suit and haircut, white shirt and blue tie (professional and smart)

Interviewer- Smart/ Casual suit, preferably smart hair.

Teacher- bedraggled/wasted look, suit, messy hair, round glasses which sit on the edge of his nose, maybe the colour green- has connotations of illness, lack of sanity.

Teacher's Wife's voice in background- won't need a costume as we only need the voice of her.

Hannah has her friend to help her with the makeup that is needed for our Prime Minister. In terms of casting, I feel that we can get away with having our fellow students play the interviewer and the teacher's wifes' voice. However, I feel as though the more adult roles (especially the teacher) should be played adults to make our film look more professtional, and less student-ish. We are actively looking to cast these roles relatively soon, and find people who can play the roles within the short itself.

Props Ideas:

-Alcohol.
-Orange tinted pill cases.
-Newspaper cuttings about relevant events (i.e. 7/7 attacks) 
- Surveillance Pictures.
-Pinboards strewn with highlighted newspaper articles/ documents.
-Map of local vicinity.
-Small TV.
-Picture frame of family.
-Desk. 
-Lamp (red lightbulb).

I've also had ideas for the non-diegetic music to be played over the top of the montage sequence, and I feel this piece encapsulates the intenity, sadness of our scene. Obviously we would have to find a non-copyrighted version of the song itself:-



Overall, I'm really happy with our ideas and our group dynamic, everyone contributing ideas and accepting the various roles and responsibilities that are required to be successful. I love it when a plan comes together..