Props and Set Design

For our film, the mise en scene of the production is very important as there is very little time to connote information to the audience, so the background must connote as much as possible. How me and Conor plan to achieve this is by creating a very realistic set design to our story, and by using props that look real and are well chosen.

Props
The props me and Conor use will be all chopse very carefully so they all have meaning to our story and fit in with the image. Me and Conor have gone through our storyline carefully choosing the props, but of course we may decided to add in more as we are filming, I will add in any extra props to the bottom of this post. Here are the props we have chosen to use:

• Tents- I will be using tents to show the abandoned site of victims of the killer.
• Bags- By leaving bags by the campsite, this shows the people made a quite exit, or did not exit at all!
• Object's to Discard- Creating the same sense as the bags.
• Ropes- Used to tie up the blonde women. 
• Knives- In the background to signify she is about to be killed.

Me and Conor have already collected all the props we will need in preparation to filming.
 

Set Design 
A lot of thought and trial and error has gone into creating the set, especially for the house, me and Conor had to try a lot of ideas before coming to our final conclusion of the set design, this took a lot of time but was important for the mise en scene of our film. Here is our final idea:

The three main settings are the 'Traveller's Camp-site' the 'Abandoned House' and the 'Males House'. Here is how we plan to set it up:

Traveller's Camp-site- This is the first setting in our film and will be made to look like the area has been abandoned due to a quick exit. Me and Conor plan to do this by scattering objects that would have been in use before the quick exit along the floor, and by having the tents still up with sleeping bags inside. To create the visual effect that the campsite was used we will need to step into the mind frame that we have just been robbed or attacked when setting up the objects, and not just scatter the objects on the floor.
We will be putting fake blood on some of the objects and tents to make it obvious that the quick exit was because of a violent attack, although we do not want to give too much away about this.

Abandoned House- There will be no set design for this as it will just be looking up at a house from a distance that me and Conor have already chosen due to it's spooky feel and perfect placement.

The Males House- Another hard place to set up might be inside the boys house. We have to try and make it so that it has the feel of an operating theatre in a hospital but in someone's house, so clean,white and sterile, but also have the lighting so that the audience cant tell that it looks like this at first but then eventually realise it as the twist is revealed. To bypass this problem we might leave the house as it normally is for the shot when he comes in just using a really low lighting, maybe just a candle to highlight his face, then stop filming, set up the kitchen with the surgical theatre theme and then re film using the blue lighting that I have installed in my kitchen when we turn on the lights. 

An Inspiration! 
Obviously by now I have watched so many Horror films that the reason I was able to pick out the ideas for my set design and propps based on ideas that I have picked up wile watching these short films. 
As explained in my Genre Research I was inspired because of the way they used the mise en scene so well to create tension, one paticular film which I found created an excellent mise en scene to show a sense of isolation was The Thing. This was my main inspiration to create the camp-site to look like it had just been abandoned, by doing this I believe that my film also create a sense of isolation.
  
Update on Props and Set Design in the House
After me and Conor looked over the footage of our rough cut, we noticed that the house scenes were simply not scary enough and did not create a good enough twist to our film. This is why we have now decided to change the set design and the props used in this clip, it will create a better mise en scene and make the scene much more scary, helping to anchor our preferred reading.

New Props Used:

• Fake Blood- We created our own fake blood to add onto the knifes.
• Drill- We now use a drill as me and conor like the idea of challenging the codes and conventions of using a knife.
• Paint Sheet- We put up paint sheets for the background and covered them with fake blood.

New Set Design:

Our new set design meant putting up blood covered paint sheets to block of back lighting and anchor the preferred reading that over people had been killed in this area, as for the girl was not bleeding.