Additional Ideas for Storyboard

For the killer's diary, we have decided to use very formal, and fancy handwriting as seen in Anne Frank's diary, because it is adds to the old-fashioned theme of our project (which includes a record player and old music being played).

Similar to Anne Frank's diary, we will have pictures of folklore foetuses and pregnant women, as mentioned in a previous post, to emphasise his obsessive nature to the audience.

Also, I think that we should have an extreme close up of some book titles (idea of books from Annie's post) - we have a book called Fear is Key, and we could get some books about pregnancy, post-natal depression, operations, sedatives, women's health and so on. This close up will give the audience a greater insight into his obsession with women, so I feel that we should include this, even if it is for a split second.

From our trip to Shoreditch, Annie and I went into a vintage store and saw a basket with women's purses in it and this gave us the inspiration to, perhaps, have a basket with all his victim's clothes in. If we were to have this, the clothes, shoes, purses and so on would serve as souvenirs of his victims which, again, highlights his fascination and obsession. This can be shown using a close ups so the audience can see the items properly.

As well, in the middle of the room there is going to be a table so the victim is the centre of attention for the audience. The table is going to have plastic on it so the blood collects itself to make the death more gory and gruesome. From Annie's post, she included pictures of a victim on a cloth on a table, however we want to incorporate some of Dexter's room (in the same post) so we will use plastic instead of cloth.

My group decided that the killer is going to wear a mask to cover his face which will have Adore & Endure carved into his forehead. In the chase scene he will be wearing a mask, then in the operation scene he will be wearing a doctor's mask and scrubs to tell the audience that he is a professional, but crazed and does not operate to save people, he does it to kill them. This is similar to an episode of Hannibal where a mentally unstable doctor operated on someone, taking out their organs one by one to see the minimum number of organs the victim can survive without.

 



The Killer's Written Diary Investigation

After creating our story board, I realised that we would have to rethink our diary idea taking the initial idea of it being a story book that the killer keeps and puts photos into, changing it into an actual written diary.

To make this written diary, I got a plain lined note book at the pound store.

 I wanted to make the pages look older and more used, so I coloured them with tea staining. This also made them look wrinkled and used, which is what we want.

To the front cover, I thought that it would be an idea to make it look as if it is skin, and the killer has made this diary out of his victims skin. I covered the the original cover in tissue paper mache in layers, sewing the sides to make it look like the killer put the diary together himself. I used tissue with a texture to make it look realistically like dried skin. Once it had dried, I painted the textured cover in skin coloured tones.


I then decided to experiment with the writing type within the diary. I thought that it would be a good idea to make it look like the killer uses blood to write with, instead of ink, so I got a red ink, and started to write a few pages of possible entries that the killer would have written, putting myself in his shoes. Below shows the result of this investigation:



The only problem with these entries is that on camera, the "blood" looks too pink to look realistically like blood. This being a problem however, I liked the rough, hard to read writing that I felt that the killer would have, showing clearly where he was feeling passionate and emotional about what he was writing, having it in large, scratchy typography with droplets littering the page, adding the effect of making it look more realistic, old fashioned and creepy.

From this first trial, I decided to develop the design of it further, making the outside look more realistically like skin, and the blood ink look more like blood, deepening the colour.

I started off with deepening the colouring of the tea stain on the pages, making the whole book look tea stained in irregular shapes and tones.

I then slightly adjusted the colour of the covering to make it look more leathery and dried. Covering the outside in liquid latex was an idea to make it look look more like skin. Peeling sections back and creating texture and blistering. Below shows the result of this effect on the outside of the book:

     This shows the front of the book cover                                  This shows the back of the book cover

The next step in making this look better was to deepen the colour of the "blood" writing.

To do this, I mixed the red ink with some black ink, using a quill to write the entries. As you can see from the photos to the left and right, this time, the product was much better, and on camera, it looks more realistically like blood.

Now that this is finished, we can use this prop in our film opening. It will be used as the killers diary and will appear within the opening when the killer writes another entry about the murder he has just undertaken. The final product is shown below:

Practical Investigation of Content in Killer's Diary

I was trying to find some pictures of foetuses, especially ones from folklore such as devil or animal foetuses. Unfortunately, I was not able to find much however I came across sketchings from Leonardo Da Vinci of foetuses and pregnancy women.









 Looking at Da Vinci's work, it would be interesting if our killer was to draw pictures of pregnant women and their foetuses because this would emphasize his obsession and fascination with foetuses and pregnancies. The audience will see him as mysterious and obsessive but also memorable.
Here, I have taken pictures of what the killer's diary might look like with the pictures in and words circled in red pen - red = blood, danger, lust, and (ironically for this) love.

 Here, there is a sketch of a dead woman with a small devil on top of her, looking at us smugly. This devil could represent the killer and his love of killing innocent women. The words "no more moaning, no more crying" have been circled which could be interpreted as the woman after being killed.

 Here, one of Da Vinci's foetus sketches have been scrunched up so to represent the killer's carelessness of state; he is only focused on killing, not making things look neat. "Assaulted", "damaged" and "fractured" have been circled which could indirectly tell the audience about what happened and of the victim's injuries.

 The words "That man's a killer", "killing" and "unemotional" are circled which are words very appropriate to the killer; he loves killing, knows he is a killer and is unemotional, and almost seems proud of it.

 Here, there is a painting of a baby cannibal, looking possessed and scary, and this would be like the killer's 'idol'/role model. The killer does not eat the foetuses as in the picture, but he does still kill them (and enjoy it). "Pain", "murderer" and "kill" have been circled and, as mentioned, it tells the audience that he acknowledges what he is and what he does, and deems it acceptable.

 There is a picture of a devil foetus with horns, a spiked tail and spiked wings. The picture being in black and white makes it seem older and more traditional - like folklore. "Sick with fear", "Crazy mad" and "trembling" have been circled, "sick with fear" and "trembling" are circled to describe the victim and "crazy mad" the killer. This gives the audience hints of what both the victim and killer are like when he murders them.

 Here, the words "bent my head and sniffed", "had been shot when sleeping in bed", "killed" and "dead" have been circled. "Killed" "dead" "had been shot when sleeping in bed" describe the victim, but they will not be shot, they will either strangled, hit over the head, or bled to death. I circled those words just to ndicate to the audience of his obsession with death. We thought the killer could have a habit of sniffing his victims, this is a common feature to horror films - Don't Let Him In, the killer drools and in Batman, the Joker licks his lips.

 Here, there is a picture of a radiating pregnant woman and her stomach and foetus are hard to make out. This picture represents how the killer is engrossed by pregnant women and their unborn babies. "Struggle", "violence", "death" and the words above ^ are circled and if we used a close up shot, this is what the diary will look like.

 Da Vinci's sketches have been placed inside the book and "afraid", "evil men", "power", "darkness", "scream" and "limp" have been circled. These are all words used to descibe the killer (evil men, power, darkness) and the victim(scream, afraid, limp). These are horror and slasher conventions and stereotypes of what a killer and victim are like.

 Here, there is a drawing of fairies around a cot and a baby who has a devil face. The fairy picture represents how many care for babies, however, for our project is it the opposite - the killer is killing them before they are even born. The devil baby ties in with the fairy picture - he believes foetuses should be killed because they are devilish.

This is what the book will look like, there will be pictures and sketches coming out to, again, emphasizes his carelessness - he has thrown them into the book as accounts and self-reflections to keep record of.

 Overall, for our final project, we will make the killer's diary look messy with random words circled describing the killer, victims, and the murders. For the opening, these words can be focused on to show the audience of the killer's obsession; obsessive killer's being a slasher convention in order to frighten the audience more.