Mise En Scene

A large part of our production was mise-en-scene and it was very important for it to be right so that it set the time frame right and looked believable. The main thing we did was to set the film in a church and churchyard and the church we decided to use is not near the main part of town which means it is isolated and is not near anything that looks too modern. There are also plenty of trees surrounding and we used this to our advantage. We took a camera shot within the trees, which we believe really depicts a weird, "stalker" effect, as after all the girl is being followed by a crazy axeman, who we later find out to be her husband.

The outside of the church helps with the convention for an old church, the walls look aged, and the steps that Alice takes up onto the grass field are covered in moss and look aged like the walls. The girl heads towards a grave which is among a wooded area and because of this location, the place has an eerie sort –of feel, she then places a rose down upon the grave, the rose is a very important part of the mise-en-scene for this film as it is used to show the love the girl has for the person in the grave, and also when she is murdered the murderer places a rose upon her chest. This gives the audience a hint that the murderer could be close to her. When the murderer follows Alice down to the church we have a shot of him looking from the church out, where you see only half of his body and the axe by his side, anchoring any belief that he will be a murderer.

The beginning of the film is just a shot of a reading from the murdered girl’s diary, as somebody writes it. This shot is done in colour to represent present time. As the diary is read, the credits roll between shots. We decide to use red calligraphic writing because it seemed to fit the timeline of this film, and a convention of any period genre film is old fashioned writing. The black and white camera shots after this, show the audience that those particular shots are set in the past.

We have our murder in the first two minutes of our film, and it is set in a church, both of these are conventions of horror/murder/mystery films, and even some murder mystery TV series such as Midsummer Murders. The church is a protestant church, and so is therefore very understated and there is not much going on inside, which makes it feel very open meaning that the audience start to feel that the girl is isolated from anyone else. This also adds to the feeling of being alone that Alice and the murderer have together, as if there is no one there to help Alice.

The costumes we decided to have for our two main characters were quite simple, Alice wore a black dress and black heeled shoes, we tried to make these costumes look as old fashioned as possible. It also gives the feeling of death being around, seeing as black is the colour most people wear at funerals.

The murderer wear a black shawl, which he wears kind of like a cloak, he uses it to cover his face to keep the sense of enigma around his character. George (The Murderer) also has very white hair, contrasting the shawl he has around his head, and the main theme of darkness.

Props

There were a few props used in this film, the main ones were:-

-The Candle

-The Diary

-A Lamy Pen

-A Rose

-An Axe

The candle was used to provide light for the person writing, without having to use a modern light. The candle is a convention of older times, as there was no lighting used commonly. The HD camera picked up the flames intensity quite well.

We used a diary, made from a Bible, with plain paper on it. The diary is a convention of many films anyway and was popular and used by many people back in the Nineteenth Century. The thickness of it showed the audience that the girl had a lot of history. All the words were pre written, by a member of Edward Green's family.

We used a Lamy pen, as it is a fountain pen, a common type of pen, back in the Nineteenth Century. We also used an ink pot, as we felt that really emphasised how long ago the film was set, as there were no ink cartridges, back then. Also the Lamy pen also looks to be quite old fashioned.

The rose was quite important in our film, as the rose signified the Widow's love for her mother, when she places the rose by the grave, however when the husband comes back to haunt the girl, and murder her, we see him lay down the rose on the girls chest as she lays there dead. The rose somewhat signifies the two's love, and the rose leaves any thought in mind about the two, whether that be that the husband still loved the girl, or whether it was mockery. A rose is also a conventional symbol of love in many films and a flower is a sign of respect at a funeral, when they are placed by someone's grave.

The axe was a very important prop in the film. We could see at about half way in the film George with an axe, so we knew he was likely to kill Alice. We see a shot where the murderer is stood in the door way, you can only see half his body. The murderer, we felt looked scary enough, but decided having the axe clear as a silhouette really added to the atmosphere. We  got the idea for an axe from the film The Shining and it looks right, and due to its size it looks very intimidating and scary.