Here is a detailed breakdown of what the video includes:
- Costume:
- Why did we make these choices?
- We made the costume choice of the victim to be a white tank top and white shorts; we did this because we wanted to insinuate that he is in his undergarments, in order to show vulnerability; if someone is in this kind of costume, it shows innocence and purity as they would otherwise be unable to do anything else anyway; it is usually that a state in which people wouldn't like to be seen and therefore we thought it might be the best kind of costume because it shows that the victim is powerless and can't do anything against the killer.
- We gave the killer this kind of costume because it gives a greater contrast to the victim – he is portrayed as being fully clothed, which gives him more power over the body he is working on. Next to this, it shows that he is the stronger one of the two because he actually has something proper to wear. Also, in addition to this, because of the dark colour of the costume we attempted to show that he was psychotic and evil. Lastly, his jumpsuit was clean, which could also mean that he has put on new clothes in order to work on this new project.
- What do your props, costume, etc. Suggest about your characters, narrative. What hints do they give towards the rest of your plot as an opening sequence?
- The jumpsuit/boilersuit we gave our killer is supposed to connote that his profession, now or before he became psychotic, is being an artist. It should give the audience an idea of what he is actually trying to do before they realise what is actually going on, and by revealing the profession of a character it can say quite a bit about them.
- What problems can you foresee with your decisions... Did this happen on the shoot day, and if so what did you do?
- We didn't really think that there would be any problems with our costume choice... Perhaps the NIKE Logo on the trousers was something we should have thought about beforehand, however it didn't turn out to be too much of a problem. We hid it slightly by folding over the trousers on one side.
- Something that we had a bigger problem with was that the Studio was much colder than we had anticipated. Since our actor was only wearing white shorts and a white tank top, there was little left to cover him up whilst he was lying on the table, doing nothing except for playing dead. In the end we did get a portable heater in an effort to warm our actor up – it didn't help as much as we had hoped, but at least he didn't end up getting hypothermia. Next to this, his skin became much paler, which was something we were able to work with – it made him look more dead. It sounds quite morbid, but reality acting is useful.
- Lighting
- Why did we make these choices?
- We wanted high key lighting because it would help us to exentuate certain features with harsh light, and would also help us to create darker and harsher shadows. This all helps with the creepy look, especially when the lighting falls so that there are shadows which especially define parts of the body which would otherwise be ignored or only softly highlighted.
- We could have had darker lighting to make it more eerie, and make it obvious that the setting of our thriller is somewhere where the light doesn't reach, however that would have made it more difficult to shoot, and would have possibly made our shots look like they were bad quality.
- What do your props, costume, etc. Suggest about your characters, narrative. What hints do they give towards the rest of your plot as an opening sequence?
- Using shadows in a specific way can help to make something more difficult to identify. By using these shadows and negative space it was easier for us to show parts of the victim without it being too obvious that it was a body, because the shadows make the subject a little more abstract. This way we have the ability to build tension and go along with the idea of the body being revealed in the end.
- What problems can you foresee with your decisions... Did this happen on the shoot day, and if so, what did you do?
- A rather big problem we ran into was that when filming, our shadow or the shadow of the camera was sometimes obvious and in the shot. We had a difficult time shooting the shots we wanted to get without us being in the shadows and usually had to contort our bodies into weirder positions in order for us not to be seen in the video, however in the end we did make it work by slightly repositioning the camera or by doing something like crouching.
- Props
- Why did we make these choices?
- The props we got were to give the audience the impression that the killer is an artist. The paintbrushes, easel, paintpalette, palette knife, etc. Were added to enhance this particular aesthetic.
- We also got a white cloth for the table that the victim was lying on; because the two tables were school tables, they didn't look particularly nice together. Next to this, it made the overall feel of the victim being on an „operating“ table, or on a „display“ table. Also, the blood showed up better by doing it this way.
- We used a canvas to put the blood on because it made it seem more like the psychopathic killer was an artist at the same time, and actually had an ambition to make an artwork out of the carcass. At first we wanted the killer to paint and cut into the victim only, however we thought that this may make things more confusing.
- Fake blood was an obvious choice to show what medium our killer was working with and that the victim was seriously injured throughout the entire thriller opening. It was also to show what had been done to the victim and where the „paint“ really came from.
- What do your props, costume, etc. Suggest about your characters, narrative. What hints do they give towards the rest of your plot as an opening sequence?
- Our killer is a psychopath. That is obvious by the way he uses a body to drain blood from and paint with. But his surroundings and what he is actually doing gives the audience an idea that he used to be an artist, and perhaps that he had suffered something that had caused him to become so harsh and rash with his actions.
- What problems can you foresee with your decisions... Did this happen on the shoot day, and if so, what did you do?
- At first we wanted to use a black cloth, however when we couldn't get one of those, we settled on a white cloth instead. This proved itself to be quite useful because it a) prevented the black cloth from blending with the background and made the table stand out more, and b) it gave it a more gruesome look as the blood showed up on the white cloth, making it seem as if the victim had been lying there for a longer period of time (the cloth ended up being drenched in fake blood, which showed up on th camera very well and made the entire setting look more morbid).
- Location/Set Design
- Why did we make these choices?
- We were always set on using the studio. Any other place would have probably not been as effective and we would have probably not had the freedom to do what we wanted. Next to this, in our opinion, we had a better chance of using proper lighting as everything was available to us in the studio.
- What do your props, costume, etc. Suggest about your characters, narrative. What hints do they give towards the rest of your plot as an opening sequence?
- We made the studio set design look old and disgusting. We wanted to make it look like it was a basement, and because we didn't have a basement available anywhere (except perhaps in Ewhurst), we decided to use the studio.
- What problems can you foresee with your decisions... Did this happen on the shoot day, and if so, what did you do?
- It was a good idea to use the studio because we had the ability to use it in any way we wanted. Next to this, we had more than enough space to expand. If we had used a basement or a different spot, we may have been confined by the layout of the place. One problem we did run into was the temperature of the studio; it wasn't exactly very warm and therefore very difficult to deal with because our actor did end up being very cold. We couldn't really avoid this, however I think it was manageable. If we had used a basement we may have had a larger problem because the temperature there may have been even colder.
- Performance
- Why did we make these choices?
- We got our victim to open and close his eyes and shiver a little bit when we thought necessary because we wanted it to seem as if he was fading in and out of conciousness, as if he was about to die because of blood loss.
- Our entire idea was based around the killer and his psychotic acting. We wanted our killer to portray that sense of being insane, and this was made possible through the actor we chose in the end. Had our killer just been concentrating on his work and didn't really show any sense of emotion the thriller would have been less interesting.
- What do your props, costume, etc. Suggest about your characters, narrative. What hints do they give towards the rest of your plot as an opening sequence?
- This character had been tortured to death and is now slowly waiting for darkness to set in. I think if the victim was laying there lifeless, it would have been less interesting and less tension building. This way it gives the thriller a little bit more energy and adds to the shock factor more.
- There is something mentally wrong with our killer. It's obvious just by what he's doing, but also by how he's laughing and how he's getting the blood into his hair and into his mouth, and by how he's acting. It gives a sense of this killer being obsessed with his artistic work.
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