Femme Fatale

Our character 'Abigail' played by Laura holds a lot of femme fatale aspects.

"...is an alluring and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire..."

She is a very alluring and seductive women, her business career track brings this role to her character. Our thriller is very much wrapped in a love triangle, with a bond between Abigail and her boyfriend and a bond between Scott and Abigail. Her charm has two men falling deeply in love with her.

"...Her ability to entrance and hypnotize her male victim..."

Abigail almost hypnotizes Scott with her love. He is the victim of the love triangle, he is the individual who doesn't gain anything from the relationship. She entrances him to fall deeply in love with her. She can do all of this without anybody else realizing who even herself for that matter.

"...She may also be (or imply to be) a victim, caught in a situation from which she cannot escape..."

Abigail has found herself in a situation in which she doesn't know even exists, therefore she cannot escape. She is caught by Scott then murdered, the triangle turns around and she is now pronounced his victim.

"...She usually drives him to the point of obsession and exhaustion so that he is incapable of making rational decisions..."

Scott has gotten to the point where his anger takes over. Abigail still doesn't pay attention to his love desire for her and he is incapable of controlling his emotions. He is obsessed with her and exhausted with the twisted love affair he finds himself positioned in.

Another aspect that Abigail holds is mystery. She is a young business women with a desirable lifestyle, how did her life become so complete so soon? What business does she undertake? Her life is very much a mystery to the viewers who do not have a passage to her past.

(Quotes taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femme_fatale)

Inspiration

Our main inspiration behind our thriller film was Psycho.

Our femme fatale 'Abigail' played by Laura was very much based on the character 'Marion Crane' from Psycho. Like Marion, Abigail is a very classy, stylish lady. Furthermore like Marion, Abigail will not be portrayed as an over glamorous character that wouldn't look right in society, she will be portrayed as a normal moral human being. This makes her character more believable and therefore adds a sense of normality to the film, creating suspense.

Psycho also brought with it, the famous 'shower scene'. This transformed the 'cleanliness' vision that most viewers associated with a shower. We wanted our thriller to have that kind of impact on the audience so we decided to use a shower as the location for the murder in our thriller.

There is also an association with money and our femme fatale Abigail. It isn't a huge aspect of our thriller but she owns more money than 'Scott' and we can see this by there choice of housing. Maybe this is one of the reasons why Abigail doesn't really show much interest in Scott.

Abigail is however more innocent than Marion. As we see in Psycho Marion does not hesitate to steal the money as she has an affair with a married man. We feel that Abigail is portrayed through our thriller as a more down to earth girl, showing more innocence. 

Progress on filming

So far we have shot alot and i am very pleased with our progess. We only have a few more shots to complete and we shall hopefully be done filming after another session. We have a range of shots and have really progressed with our shooting skills when experimenting with them. The variety of shots we have used so far are, tilt shots, close up, extreme close up and over the shoulder and low angle.

Shots filmed so far:
 - A close up of Abigail's hands while she cuts up the meat for the meal.
 - A close up of Abigail's face to show the audience a clear view of Abigail.
 - A mid shot through the french doors, showing a close up of the wine being poured on the table and a long shot of Scott walking towards the house from the summer house.
- Tracking shot of Abigail's body going up the stairs.
- Tracking shot of Scott's hands as he goes up the stairs.
- A close up of Abigail taking her shoes off and her clothes being thrown on the floor.
- A mid shot of Scott's feet walking towards the bathroom on the landing.
- Close up of Scott's hand beginning to open the bathroom door.

My contribution:
I have provided the location, props and asked my dad to be one of the characters. I have also filmed a few shots. I have done alot of directing, contributed my ideas and controlled the lighting of each shot. I also took photos of the location.

Phoebe has done an excelent job with shooting most of the shots and considering the perfect lighting for those shots. She has also taken care of the camera equipment and made sure we are fully equiped for each of our sessions.

Laura has played one of our main characters very well and has also contributed her ideas where she believes necessary. She has also filmed a few shots and provided her own costume.

So far all members of our group have been to all shooting sessions and arrived on time fully equipped. We have all equally contributed and i am very pleased at how well we all work together.

Location

Location

We decided to use my (Libby's) house because the summer house is the main idea behind our production. We felt that the main house and the summer house represented well Scott and Abigail's importance and social status in the film. From the two different house's the audience can identify that because Scott is living in the summer house his worth and social status is a lot lower than that of Abigail who lives in the bigger main house. We also feel that my house will be good to use because of the antique decor and build it has. It is also very conveniant for our group because we can all easily access it, this will therefore give us more time for filming.

This is the summer house, it is positioned at the end of the garden. It is the main idea behind our thriller 'The Lodger'. The lodger 'Scott' is living in the summer house and has fallen in love with 'Abigail' who lives in the main house.

This is the kitchen. This is where Abigail prepares the meal for her and her boyfriend, which will be laid out of the table.

This is a close shot of a small counter within the kitchen. This is where Abigail prepares her meat for the meal, leaving the knife on the chopping board.

This is the meal Abigail prepares for her and her boyfriend. Scott can see her preparing it through the french doors pictured.

This is the stair way. Abigail will proceed up the stairs to the bathroom where she begins to take a shower. Not long after, Scott follows with the knife in his hand.

This is the stairway from a different angle. Taken from the top of the stairs.

This is the bathroom. This is where Abigail takes a shower before being murdered.

This is the shower in which Abigail gets murdered.

Costumes and Props

The costumes are as follows:
Abigail - White shirt, black skirt, black tights, black high heels. We decided to use these clothes etc because we feel it is a good representation of a femme fetale. However the white shirt indicates to the audience her purity and how she doesn't realise what effect she has had on her lodger.

Scott - Long black coat, black trousers, black boots. We chose this costume because we feel that the dark choice of colours represent how he is feeling.

The boyfriend - You do not see much of the boyfriends costume but simple clothing will be used.

We do not have many significant props in our thriller. A knife will be used by Abigail when she is cutting the meat. The knife will be fairly big so that the audience can identify what genre the film holds. The meat we are using will be easy to cut and will be oozing with blood, the audience may then question the blood and the events that are about to occur. Large scissors will be used by Scott who will cut up pictures of Abigail. We are using this prop because we believe it resembles Scott's heart being cut up when he falls inlove with Abigail.

Health and Safety measures:
We are aware that we are using a large sharp knife and precaution will be put in place when using it. When the bottle of wine is dropped, we are being very careful as to wear we are standing and the glass and liquid is going to be cleaned up immediately.


This image only gives an idea to what our femme fatale character will be wearing.    ----------->