Location scouting / walk-through

This is a sequence of stills from our 'location scouting' which, as you can see, turned into an informal run through of our opening scene. Maybe with just one look we realised that empty cornfields = dramatic murder, who knows, but the fact of that matter was that we decided straight away we wanted to use the field. A flaw in our plan was that on one side of the field is a very modern looking housing estate - a slight departure from the timeless, neutral feel we were hoping to acheive - so this run through also served the purpose of working out how best to avoid the estate sneaking into shot. We hope to film at dusk as this will create more tension than this unusually bright, sunny day did.

This is the alley way that leads into the field. We thought that it would look especially menacing at night, and that the main character could walk down it into the field oblivious to the murderer lurking in the shadows behind her.

Our victim would then proceed to walk accross the field. A panning shot would be used.

The victim, having become unnerved and suspicious she is being followed turns and looks over her shoulder. The camera would follow her head as it turns around and the killer would be then seen in the background silhouetted against a tree. (The details of this shot are not finalised as of yet.)

Quick cuts will then be used between the victim approaching the tree...




...and the murderer, here preparing an invisible piece of rope to use as a weapon.




The cuts quicken as the victim gets closer.




The murderer appears silhouetted/half in shadow. This is when the murder will then be committed, drawing inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' whereby no explicit violence is shown but fast cuts are utilised to give an impression of panic.


We will then cut to a long shot of the field. The next scene will start with the same long shot, only at a different time of day to show the time lapse and differentiation between the scenes. Originally, we contemplated a shot where the sky is filmed overnight and then sped up so the shot lasts a few seconds to show the time passing, but the technical and logistical issues with this meant that it was an unrealistic idea.