Deconstruction of Killer's Den:

Deconstruction of the killers den:

ATM (2011):

~ In ATM, three colleagues are trapped in an ATM by an unknown man, two of them die and the third one is framed for the crimes (as 'THE MAN' did not make himself shown on the security cameras), in the final scene of the film, the hooded man is returning to his lair (a storage locker). It all looks normal until he moves a few boxes and we can see there is a hidden room behind one of the walls, containing all of his information.

The Man opening the locker.

~ I like this shot as I think the silhouette of the hooded man is really effective against the white of the locker. We still don't know who the hooded man is and I think it is clever that he does not have an identity or personality at all. I think we should definitely consider the idea of the killer remaining anonymous, or only revealing certain aspects about him as it can be good to leave the audience in the dark for the majority of the film. I also think that if the majority of our film opening is filmed in the killers den, it would be extremely important how we should the location on screen and the mise en scene. The killers den is often an extremely vital insight into the life of the villain and who he is exactly.

The 'normal' room.

Secret door.

~ I also like the idea of the villain having a way of stopping people from entering their den, like seen in ATM, he has a normal room, so if someone were to open the locker accidentally, then they wouldn't be suspicious of what they would find, as it all seems like a normal storage locker. I think when considering the location of our villain's den, it would be important to consider how easy it would be for someone else to enter it, for example the police, if making a raid. Also the idea of a secret room shows his intelligence and his urgency of not wanting to be found.

Sitting at his desk.

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Desk

~ Then we get a shot of the wall above his desk, and it is filled with bits of paper which we find out are things like maps, pictures and blueprints. This shows that all of his murders are extremely planned out, and the pictures of the security cameras with details is clever, meaning that he is never caught on tape and so is never seen as playing a part in these crimes, making the victims themselves look extremely suspicious and often getting blamed for the murders.

~ The fact that the lighting comes up through the tracing paper makes his hands look darker and more like a silhouette, adding to the creepy effect. We can also see the detail that he goes into when annotating his sketches and blue prints. A small detail but important, the pen he uses is red, symbolising the blood of his victims, it's the small details like these which can be really effective if the viewer is paying enough attention to pick up on them and that is why mise en scene is extremely important in a killers den.

~ Here are some more examples of the things located around his desk. There are the blueprints of a building and he would need to use these to plan out exactly where everything will happen, including himself. The picture of the security camera looks like he has taken it himself and I can personally imagine him going to these areas before hand, to check whether they would be suitable for his plans. He's also written on it that the focal length is 120, this would be useful so he knows where to stand without being seen clearly but also must be quite difficult to find out, assuming he had to research the specific type of camera and this shows the depth he goes into to find out out the correct information.

~ There are also a few maps on the wall, this would be needed so he knows where the best locations are to commit this type of murder, obviously he likes the idea of ATM's and my guess is that he goes to all the local ATM's and checks whether his idea would work successfully or not. In the last screenshot, he is drawing a line with a ruler, I particulary liked this as I thought it represents his mind almost, that everything single thing has to be precise and accurate and that everything must go according to plan.

~ I believe that the general area that our film is set in, isn't as imporant as some other aspects as we are limited with locations to choose from, not being able to travel too far. I think it would be more important and also effective to focus on the killers den, as the villain is the main part of our film opening, and with our current idea we are planning on focusing on them more with flashbacks of their previous murders, and if they are mostly inside then the outside location isn't as important as the inside of their den.