Prop Design - Bottles

For my medicine bottles I wanted really old looking glass with an old looking label and Top. I went down to the chemistry department in school and asked if they had any spare bottles, I was in luck because they gave me 20 smaller brown glass bottles and 5 clear glass bottles. I then made different labels using Photoshop and a font which I downloaded form www.Dafont.com 
I wanted the labels to look old and simplistic, so the font is an old type writer font with extra spacings between each letter. The label also has a simplistic navy blue boarder. For the lid the bottles originally had plastic tops but in 1912 injection moulding was not around so I decided to use corks instead. I was given a big bag of corks from Mama Fitch and I cut each one down to size to fit the tops of the the medicine bottles.
I researched other drugs other than Diamorphine and Morphine, such as Arsenic, Candonum, Opium and Chloral.
I then listed how I could make replicas for the bottles.

Arsenic – White crystals – flour

Morphine – clear liquid – water

Candonum – pink liquid – water and food colourings

Opium  - flakes when raw / brown rock – Corn flakes

Chloral – Colourless oily liquid – water

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloral
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium#Chemical_and_physiological_properties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic#Chemical

Survey For Thriller

Thriller Questionnaire

How old are you?    17, 24, 16, 17, 19, 18, 20, 35, 48, 32.

Are you male or female?       Female, Male, Female, Female, Male, Male, Male, female, Male, Female.

What Sub-genre of thriller do you prefer? (max 3)

Sci-fi: 3

Based on true events: 3

High adrenaline action: 4

Murder mystery: 6

Conspiracy: 2

Set in the past: 3

Set in the future:

Psychological: 7

Horror : 2

Do you watch a lot of thrillers?
Yes, yes, yes, Yes, yes, yes, No, yes, Yes, Yes.

When watching a Thriller how do you like it to begin?

Straight into the action: 4

Time taken to set the foundations for a more complex plot:  6

Do you prefer a Male or Female protagonist?

Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Female, Female, Male, Male, Male

Do you like to know who Antagonist is straight away?

No, No, No, No, No, No, Yes, No, Yes, No

Do you prefer a Male of female Antagonist?

Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Male, Male. 

Thriller Production - Initial ideas + Research

Initial Ideas:

When Borders book shop was closing down, I found a book called "Daily Mail. True Crime - Classic, Rare and Unseen." I bought it with my thriller in mind because most Thrillers are based around murder. This book showed old news paper article's dating back to 1910 - 2001. The book basically brings all evidence and background story together. The first story which catched my eye was The West or as the press called it "House of Horrors". A couple who killed people in the late 60's/70's and buried them under their floor. one of which being the first mrs.west...I decided against this because I thought it was a tad too much for an opening and it sounds more like a Saw film rather than a thriller opening.

The next story which caught my eye was the story of Doctor Harold Shipman whom which the tabloids called "Doctor Death". It was revealed in 2001 and made alot of news. Harold Shipman overdosed his patients with diamorphine, He targeted old women who lived alone and few relatives. He made the women write out large sums of money to him, or he would forge them. In one case the one that discovered him, he made Mrs Kathleen Grundy leave every thing to him in her will. This then led to all his crimes being revealed. Doctor Shipman Killed 297 Patients.

This story was alot more thriller potential in comparison to the wests. So I decided to base my Story on Harold Shipman, but with a twist, Instead of it being in 2001 I have decided to set it in 1912. I chose to do it in the 1910's for several reasons.

1.I chose 1912 because I wanted a type writer in my film and I researched when the typewriter became commercialised and it was 1910.

Standardization: By about 1910, the "manual" or "mechanical" typewriter had reached a somewhat standardized design.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter)

2. I added on two more years because it’s the year the titanic sank and I would love to use a newspaper in one of my shots to help the audience relate to what time period it is set in.

3. Diamorphine was banned in 1914 and was discovered as a worse version to morphine, as before it was the replacement of morphine because it wasn’t addictive. Diamorphine is better known as Heroin.

4. Insperation from Dr.Hawley Harvey Crippen -1910- He also used his medical knowledge against the people that trusted him and in his case, loved him, he killed his own wife by given her hyoscine hydrobromide, the quantity he aquired was enough to kill her 7 times over. Once he killed his wife he married his misstress.

5. By setting it in this time period, I beleive the story of Harold Shipman makes more sense and intresting. It makes more sense because people were more unaware of use of drugs. And intresting because 2001 is normal, seeing something in the past is more engaging.



Props needed:


Glass bottles -
From the 19th century, various types of fancy glass started to become significant- so a mixture of glass brown and clear.

Wall paper



Two period costumes –
Fashion 1910’s:

Male

formal daywear - includes wing-collared shirt, three piece suit with wide lapels and pressed trousers 1912

three piece suit with characteristic collarless vest or waistcoat. His short has a tall, stuff collar -1912

Female

High waste gowns
Lots of fur coats
Big hats with feathers
a craze for Orientalism






Old curtains becuase curent look too new

Glasses - small oval

Syringes - Glass + metal

Paracetamol

Table/ old chair

Book shelf

Flour /talc

Medicine shelf

Light with filters

Newspaper -

Desk light / research when it was made -

electricty was standalized in 1900. Could not find any history on the desk lamp, but if there was, it would be a very low wattage. maybe 10watts max.

 Cheque-

first recorded handwrittern cheque in the UK was 1659.
http://www.chequeandcredit.co.uk/information/-/page/history_of_the_cheque

Thriller Analysis

One of the Thriller openings I am going to analyse is David Fincher’s Panic room. In the opening title sequence we see an urban landscape with titles on top of buildings. By opening the film with an urban landscape it sets the scene and lets the auidence know it’s in a big city and in this case New York. The titles are 3-D and are placed parallel in front of the building, this is done for aesthetics and just makes the opening title sequence more interesting than a 2-D Title cards. After the titles we are introduced to the protagonist (Jodie Foster) and her daughter then we are introduced to were the film is set the house. The music used is all string music which really creates atmosphere and keeps the auidence on edge suspecting some thing bad is going to happen.
There is not much which I wish to take from this extract in my own work other than use of string music to build tension and make intresting titles.
The extract below is only 1:51 because I couldnt upload or find a longer extract.


The next thriller opening I am going to analyse is Mary Harron’s “American Psycho” (2000). The opening is miss leading, it makes the audience start to think that there is blood coming down the screen and just to reassure you it blood there is a couple of blood splats. But then you see a squiggle of red then you question which you first thought thinking maybe this is art? Then a massive knife comes into shot with the protagonists name on it! Yet again making you question what you last thought. Harron keeps making the audience think from the first second and this keeps the audience engaged and wanting to know what is happening within just the titles sequence! Harron then goes on to set the scene in this extremely high-class restaurant were we meet our protagonist suggesting that he is also high-class. Harron has also used string music at the beginning but it isn’t as minor and as eerie as Fincher’s “Panic room”.


I would defiantly love to use some elements of this in my thriller such as the engaging beginning and string music.
here is the link to the extract because the user has disabled embeding this clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bXESFT2sRQb


The next thriller Opening I am going to analyse is Bress and Grubers "The Butterfly Effect" (2004) The opening is a title card with quote saying "It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterflys wings can ultimatley cause a typhoon halfway around the world - Chaos Theory" The title card is white on black showing its quite serious and the quote also has a serious nature about it. Unlike most of the other thrillers I have seen or writern about this one goes straight into the action without introducing the actors or cast. We see a person walking on the other side of the glass, but because the glass is textured we cant tell if it's male or female or protagonist or antagonist. This adds and air of mystery to the beging. We are then introduced to our protagnosit who kicks the door open wearing what seems to be a patients scrubs. He is quite a rush he jumps under the desk with a pen and paper and starts to write what he is going to do, which now seems very odd.