Roles and Plot

Roles and characters
Laura - Femme fetale 'Abigail'
Nathan Stannage - The lodger 'Scott'
(Undecided) - Boyfriend 'Jason'
Libby and Phoebe - Mainly filming
Libby's cat will appear in the scene in which 'Scott' enters the house and picks up the knife.

Other roles
Libby - taking pictures of the location


Brief plot
A lodger 'Scott' is living in a lodger house at the bottom of the garden and 'Abigail' a classy business lady lives in the house. What she is unaware of is that the lodger 'Scott' is in love with her and his jelously is soon to be taking over. One evening while she prepares a romantic dinner for her boyfriend, Scott plots his revenge. While she goes upstairs to take a shower Scott comes through the back door with a knife, he then makes his way up the stairs. Meanwhile Abigail's boyfriend is turning up for the dinner. Scott makes his way into the bathroom and we are unaware of what happens next, the opening ends with the boyfriend knocking continuously on the door aware that something is wrong.

Preliminary task

Original ideas

Previous to our current thriller plot we had another idea. The film would be shot at Libby's mothers house and would also use a femme fatale as the main character.

Although we hadn't yet thought of a solid plot, a rough guide would be that the main lady (a femme fatale figure) would be seen walking down the garden path towards a small wooden shed placed at the bottom of the garden. She would be dressed in smart sophisticated clothes to express the importance of her character. She would then enter the small shed, a few shots of her looking for something inside it would be shown. She would then emerge holding a brief case, as she begins to walk back up the garden path, a silhouette of a male figure would be seen in the window of the shed. This suggests someone was hiding inside the shed although the main character was unaware he was in there.

We decided that this wasn't suitable for our thriller as it contains too many horror aspects for example, the idea that a male figure was hiding inside the shed. We also felt that the ending would be left very open and the audience would be very confused as to what has just happened.

However we developed some of the ideas from this. We continued to use a femme fatale figure, and the idea of the thriller being set at her house. We also continued to use the idea of a dominant male figure that could potentially be a murderer.

Preliminary task preparation

180 Degree Rule

Two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects it is called 'Crossing the line'. The new shot from the opposite side is known as the 'reverse angle'.

In film making this rule is very important and will always be taken into consideration. However film makers sometimes cross the line intentionally to create disorientation. The axis can sometimes determine how emotional a scene can be, the close the camera becomes to the axia the more emotionally intreged the audience will become.

Psycho notes

Psycho (1960)

Psycho opens with an establishing shot of a city which is then discovered with an exact date and time.

The camera pans across sky scrapers filling the sky, it then settles at random on some windows on a high story hotel building, this random selection of the building and windows creates some normality for the audience, it also introduces them to the idea that it could be any one of their lives at a point of focus. The camera pauses before it begins to enter a window again at random, as though it is hesitant as whether to enter. It goes through the window, taking the audience in and engaging them.

Now that the audience is in the room, they are introduced the femme fatale Marion and her lover Sam. Various shots of Marion's reflection can be seen in different mirrors, this creates voyeuristic shots. It introduces the audience to Marion's cheeky personality. She is wearing a white costume which suggests maybe she is innocent and pure. Her underwear then later changes to black when she is on the bed (a feature of impurity) with the money and her suitcase being packed which is a clue to the theme of the film. The colour change of underwear suggests a change of morality and the idea that she is a good girl gone bad.

Marion's get away with the money consists of an un-glamourous mise-en-scene of wet roads and lights. The lights could represent Marion reflecting back on what she has done.