Poster Research

I looked at posters of films that are the same genre as our media product to gather some ideas.



Despite the tone of most of these movies being dark, the posters are relatively saturated. I also notice that the majority of the posters use a photo of a protagonist or important character in the film. The text also relates directly to what happens in the film.

Personally, I like the idea of a close up of the protagonist's face (In our case, Patrick Maloney), however this does not seem to be conventional of any of the genres our film covers.



I especially like the Harry Potter poster- the dark colours used, the shadowing and the positioning of the face.

It is important to follow international standards for dimensions when making a poster for a film. This means that it will be easier to have your film displayed in a number of different places like the subway, the cinema etc.

Posters and Use of Colour

Below is a Prezi I made about the use of colour in various crime, drama, thriller, and satires.

Risk Assessment

Shooting Schedule

20th March- 14th April: Location Scouting and Planning

16th April: Practice Filming day

17th-21st April: Further planning

23rd April: Filming

24th April: Review footage

25th-26th April: Any necessary reshooting

27th April-11th May: Editing and sound production

Character Profile- Mary

Character Fact File

Name: Mary Maloney

Age: Early 30s

Gender: Female

Mary's Story

Mary is the breadwinner of her and her husband. An independent, cold woman, she resents her husband for holding her back in life. We based our Mary off Roald Dahl's Patrick. Mary cheats on her loving husband with another woman and only tells him after a long time. She is murdered by Patrick after he finally snaps.

Casting Mary

We were limited when it came to options for casting Mary. Our only option was to cast an A Level drama student who had some experience acting. However this experience was in stage acting, not TV or film acting, and so filming Mary's scenes took longer than we would have hoped.

Character Profile- Patrick

Character Fact File

Name: Patrick Maloney

Age: Around 35

Gender: Male

Patrick Maloney is based on Roald Dahl's original character. Our decision to base our media product off Dahl's story made planning much less complicated than it could have been. Our decision to swap the roles of Patrick and Mary meant that we actually based our Patrick off Dahl's Mary.

Patrick's Story

Patrick Maloney is an unemployed house husband to his wife Mary. He has no children and relies on his wife for company, income and support. He adores his wife but she is completely indifferent to him and resents his constant nagging. After his wife tells him she has been cheating on him, Patrick snaps and murders his wife. His genuine adoration for his wife becomes and act he puts on for the detectives that come to investigate his wife's murder. Patrick changes from a subservient, meek house husband to an emotionless killer in a matter of minutes.

Casting Patrick

As we are A level students, our options were limited when it came to casting Patrick, as we had no budget or access to actors. Luckily, one of my group had a cousin who is a professional actor. He agreed to play Patrick, and he fitted the character perfectly- he is 31 and we had him grow a moustache to further fit. His acting experience not only affected the portrayal of the character positively, he was also able to give us directing tips and make sure our shots were as accurate and continuity driven as possible.

Changes to the Original Story

We decided that to make our piece original, and set it apart from the Roald Dahl story, Mary and Patrick Maloney's roles should be swapped. In our production, Mary Maloney is a strong female businesswoman. It is also insinuated throughout that she is actually gay.
Patrick Maloney is presented as a meek, spineless house husband, who adores and worships his wife. We are basing Patrick's character on Mark Gatiss' character, Alvin Steele from League of Gentlemen.

We have edited the grocers' scene from the original Roald Dahl piece. Instead, we decided that a shot of Patrick walking back to his house with a bag of groceries would be enough ti show that he left his house.

We added some dialogue between the two detectives standing outside the Maloneys' house, to further reinforce the idea that Mary and Patrick are completely mismatched.