Deconstruction of Mise en Scene of Specific Items

Having looked at general mise en scene within the killers den, the final step is to look at specific Items within the "den", how they look and how they are placed.

We know that we are going to have one desk for the killer to write in his diary, two possible bookshelves that hold books on the anatomy, surgery and medicine in general- being that our idea for the killer is that he will be an ex-surgeon, or have a background in that field. There will also definitely be a "torture" table that his victims are tied down to, with a chair sitting along side it. Plastic sheeting will also cover this side of the room to reduce the "mess" that would be produced as the killer cuts into his victims. There will also be a smaller table that the killer puts his "tools" on along with any excess body material that he has to take out to get to the foetus that would be put into a special bowl.

On speaking to my group, we have decided against our previous idea that the killer would turn on a record mid-way through the scene, so we don't need to think about the table and record player mise en scene. This will be replaced by the killer whistling to the song that we were going to have playing on the record player.

So from this review, I needed to research and deconstruct the mise en scene of the following items within the slasher genre with a "doctor" aspect manipulating where things are placed and how things are ordered:

• desk
• book shelves
• books on bookshelf
• "torture table"
• plastic covering
• chair near torture table
• table for tools
• bowl for excess body material

Desk

Looking through different movies, I found it hard to find a killers "desk" that looks how I imagined it. I ended up looking at ATM again, looking in more detail at the positions of different things and what was actually shown in the sequence:

ATM

Below shows screen shots of the scene where the killers desk is shown, with annotation commenting on specific features within the room, making comments on ideas that we could take as inspiration for our film opening:

Bookshelf and Books on Bookshelf

 Looking for "killers bookshelves" and the types of books on it in films was harder than I first thought. I couldn't really find any films that had what I wanted, giving a good view of the

Instead, I researched into bookshelves in general, looking at types of books that would be on the shelf of someone with a background in medicine, in particular looking in the idea of a surgeons bookshelf. I came across a number of different results in my search, but the best photo that I found is shown above. On this bookshelf, it has a number of books related to the theme that I was looking for. This reminded me that my mum has a large amount of "anatomy" books from her past choice of jobs, ones that we could use in the film opening.
 I then looked at the actual bookshelf design and layout of the books on it. To the left and right you can see pictures of the basic designs that I found that I felt would fit our overall genre and mise en scene.

The bookshelf to the left is a plain, old looking one with a dark polish- something I could imagine our killer having in his "den", and the books shown to the right show a structured, organised, but "creepy" looking assortment of books. I feel that our killer who has a background as a surgeon would be quite organised and careful to keep things clean and neat, hence the non-dusty, organised bookshelf.

Torture Table 

The torture table will be a big part of our film opening, so it is important that we get it to look appropriate to our genre, and not a kitchen breakfast table that would just "do". 

Again looking on the internet rather than in films, as the torture table is never really shown in detail enough for me to analyse the mise en scene of it, i found the tables shown to the top and bottom right. (The fact that the torture table is never really shown is a point that we will have to think about in our film opening, not to have too many shots highlighting the mise en scene, and look more at the action within it).

The tables that I found when typing "torture table " into Google were the old fashioned torture tables used to punish people "back in the day", but this isn't quite what we wanted. To rectify this, I typed "scary table" into Google instead and it came up with the black and white concrete table shown above. This was a really interesting one as it had a draining system where once the victim would be dead, the blood and guts could be washed away with the tap into the drain, removing evidence much easier than plastic coverings. However, none of my group, nor do I have anything like this, so, even though this is a good idea, it would be unrealistic. 

I then found the wooden table above the black and white one, and the table shown to the right. These tables looked really cool, and when covered in the plastic covering would look fine to use. We would have to find an old table that is sturdy enough for someone to lay on, and make it look old and worn, but not dirty as our "surgeon" killer would make his "den " really clean from his background in medicine.

Plastic Covering

Dexter

 For the plastic covering research, I knew that Dexter would be the tv-series to deconstruct.

Dexter's method of restraint and performing an untraceable murder is to use cling film, plastic and duct tape.

Covering the whole room in plastic covering and cling film, Dexter takes the table in the room, covers that in plastic and then wraps his victims in this cocoon of cling film and duct tape so that they are unable to move.



To the left shows an idea of what one of his "killing rooms" looks like. This could be a feature that we take on, covering the whole room in a plastic of some kind, and getting the killer to peel it back to get to his desk to start writing about his victims death.

 

Table for Tools

The next step was to research into the table and the tools that the killer would use to kill his victims. Keeping the idea of the surgeon in mind, I looked at tools used in surgery, how they were laid out, and what platform they usually stood on.



I found the images shown to the right and below, representing what kind of things were on the platform, and also indicating that a metal tray was placed onto a table for the tools to sit.

 If we are able to get the scrub costume, and a tray with some of the tools seen to the left, this part of the mise en scene in our film opening will be exactly what I imagined when we were writing the storyboard.

 Bowl for Excess Body Material

 The final thing that I had to research is the bowl that the excess bodily materials would be dumped into. Because the tools and the tray, that the killer would have near him, are both metal, it would probably be good to have a metal bowl, like the one shown in the pictures to the left and right.

In our film opening, if we filled the bowl with organs that we can buy from the butchers, along with fake blood, it would be really realistic. I typed "organs in a bowl" into Google and the photo shown below was one of the results. I think this kind of thing would be what we want.