Deconstruction of the Mise en Scene of the Killer's Den

So that we can plan and create our own "killers den" for our film opening, I decided to do a deconstruction into the mise en scene of the den, thinking about what type of things are in it, how tidy or messy it is, how spacious, where the killer's plans develope, whether the "den" is where the killer takes his victims, or if it's his own little place and finally the placement of different objects that we plan to have in our film opening.

ATM

So, yet again, I looked at the film ATM. This film, however looked at a few times previously by others, I wanted to look at again, specifically focusing on Mise en Scene, and where different things were placed, ignoring the killers attire, unless it linked to the layout of the scene. Knowing that everything in each scene within a film is put there for a reason, I took screenshots of the scene that showed the killer's den, analysing it. This is shown below- within the screenshots, it shows the "play" button for the film, which I was unable to get rid of-:


Within this film, the killer's den seems to be some kind of storage unit within a public building. To the left and right, you can see the look of the outside of the den.


As it shows the killer open the door to his "den" within the storage unit place, stacked up brown boxes are shown to be in the room- nothing special-, however, these boxes and this room is just a "front" so that if anyone went in there, they wouldn't see the real purpose of the room. There is a hidden compartment that when the killer moves a section of the wall away, leads to the killers main room.



The killers real den isn't shown at much length or in much detail, but what is shown is his desk, where he draws up his plans, with photographs and drawings littering the wall surrounding his desk. The small room is quite cluttered and messy, but in the "killers mind" organised so that he knows exactly where everything is.



From what I could see in the different angles and the editing of the film, I drew up a simple diagram of how I think the layout of the killer's den looks like:

 Pretty Little Liars- A's Den

I then went on to look at the Mise en Scene for another "den" of a killer/stalker within the tv-series "Pretty Little Liars". The killer, "A", has an apartment as a den, full of large, framed, expensive photographs of the girl that he is stalking.

 Two large white boards reside in the "living room" of the den, holding a timeline with photos, notes and mementos from when the killer first started stalking his victims, to the present day.

Below shows a wall covered in photos of different people in his victims life, such as friends, family etc.

As the camera moved into the "den" further, the computer system where the killer puts all his research, surveillance material and information that he has collected about his victims that he uses for blackmail.

This "killers den" is much tidier, organised and spacious, linking to the different profile that this killer would fit. Having a large apartment to fill with the materials that he uses to commit his murders, he has filled it appropriately, indicating that he spends a lot of time in here. The room being so organised, however, gives the impression that not just one person goes in this room, possibly two, needing it to be more organised so that they can both still use that materials that they have collected- different to ATM.

The floor plan that I imagined, from the angles and editing that were shown, is shown below:

Our film opening floor plan

Now that i have done two deconstructions of two different "Dens", I have found the following "rules" that we should follow when designing our killer's den:

• When there is only one killer, the den is quite messy, but organised so that the killer knows where everything is- it is quite dependent on the type of killer.
• There must be a desk with the killers notes
• There must be a "collage" of photos, mementos, notes etc on some part of the room
• The objects in the room can make it cluttered or spacious, depending on the size of the den- but if its larger, the room must be full, not empty.

Thinking about all of this, and knowing that we are going to use Raman's garage as our killer's den, I drew up a simple first draw up of what our den should have in it, and where it should be placed:

 

Because we want the killer to kill his victims in his "den", I have indicated a "torture table", chair, table and plastic covering in the top left corner of the room. The torture table is where the victims will be tied down, the chair is where the killer will sit when he cuts the foetus out of his victims. The extra table is where the killer will place the organs and intestines, in a dish, along with his tools, such as a surgeon would have. And finally, the plastic covering is there to catch the blood that might fall onto the floor.

The table in the top right corner holds the record player with the song that the killer plays when he kills his victims.

And finally, the desk, two shelves and chair is where the killers notes and plans and photographs will be kept along with his diary.

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:

Point of view- Victim/Killer Deconstruction

Really starting to think about the filming of our film opening, I decided to do a deconstruction on the points of view portrayed through camera angles and editing within different films.

First of all, I wanted to look at the way the camera portrays the point of view of the victim through angles, still making them look like a victim within the sequence. This is a favoured type of point of view to portray within a Horror/Slasher movie as it gives opportunity to create "jump" scares and red herrings, tension when it is unclear what is going to happen next and terrifying mystery when the audience is forced to go into darkness, not knowing what is within it. It also gives opportunity to add "clues" for the audience to decipher who killer is and why he wants to hurt his victims.

Saw 3D

I looked at Saw 3D first, a well known, successful slasher film, to see how the many victims within it are shown with camera angles, and how their points of view are portrayed on screen.

To the left and right shown screen grabs of a few of the different victims within the film. The scenes that they are in show their points of view, and I wanted to see how they did this.

 The first thing that I noticed was that their faces are used as a visual aid in deciphering their emotions and thoughts at each time, having close up shots on this.

They generally have mid shots of the victims rather than showing their entire bodies, to emphasis the idea of "fight or flight" reaction and the fact that their  self survival is all in their mental ability to get out of the "trap" that jigsaw has placed them under. The only exception to this is when the victim wakes up, from having been taken by jigsaw, and the situation that they have been put in is revealed to the audience so they know what is happening with establishing shots of the room and mechanism they have been put in.

Scream 4

The majority of Scream 4 is in the victims point of view. Most of the death scenes are shown in the You Tube clip embedded.

 The different ways that I noticed that the camera represented the victim's point of view were firstly they had close up shots of their faces- just before the killer started to attack them. The face was illuminated with high key lighting in a generally low key lighted surroundings, so that the audience can see the victims emotions at that time.



Throughout the "chase" of the victim by the killer, the camera always followed the victim running firstly, and then as the victim hid somewhere, it would stay with the killer, to show the audience what is happening, opposed to only letting them know as much as the victim would know in that circumstance.


Camera angles also changed when in the victims point of view, with high angle shots, making the victim look more venerable, reflecting their terror in the image shown on screen.

Finally the lighting was another interesting feature within the death scenes. The victims were always much more illuminated  than the killer, and, as seen in the last three screen shot above, when the victim is on screen, and hurt, the killer is always in the shadows, in the background, symbolising the fact that the victims are no longer concerned with the killer hurting them, as they already have been hurt, they are simply thinking about themselves- this is what the audience would be thinking also because of the positioning and lighting reflecting this view on screen.

Having looked at the victims point of view- an aspect that we may wish to use within our film opening-, I am now going to look at the point of view of the killer. This is POV not widely used, as it takes the element of terror at not knowing who the killer is, or what his/her story behind the killing is. It reveals the killer to be what he/she is, letting the audience see them completely, making it harder to scare them with "jump" shots. This also brings psychological components, making the audience think into the mind of the killer.

Killer and his "Father" conscience

Dexter

The first thing that I thought of when the idea of the killers point of view came up, was "Dexter". This, though a television series, is in the point of view of a serial killer named Dexter. From the very beginning, the series starts with it being in his point of view, and until it ended, the series was very popular, especially in America.

Features within this TV series that make it a good "killer's point of view" include the continual close up shots of the killer's face, showing his emotions and relaying his thoughts through his facial features.

A voice narrative symbolising the killers thoughts is also used to allow the audience to get a better idea of what the killer is thinking, used mostly when he is stalking his victims or when he is worried about getting caught.

The killer's father- Harry- appears when he is struggling with something or making a decision that could effect his future. His father, being dead, is just a ghostlike portrayal of the killers mind and conscience, reasoning with him to make him make decision such as would not get him caught killing people. The fact that this "conscience" appears to the killer as his father symbolises "daddy issues" that are present also.

The Fall

The fall is another really good TV series that shows the killer's point of view. A few of the different techniques that represent the killer's POV are shown below:

Close ups of the killer's eyes are used to show his emotions during his kills.

The camera also follows the killer, and the audience are exposed to scenes and scenarios that they wouldn't see if it was in the point of view of the victims.

Following the killer, it allows the audience to get an idea of what his "ritual" of killing is and why he does it. You get to see his ability to kill, his planning, his technique and understand it, rather than are afraid of it.

Low key lighting is used to make the killer look as if he is in the shadows again, like in the scream deconstruction of the victims POV, but the shadows represent something different- his ability to get away with what he is doing and still be able to have a normal family and life.

The killer is always the subject of the scene. It is focused on him when he is in the shot. This lets the audience see inside of the killer's mind linking to the physiological aspect of looking at the killer's POV within a film.