Props, Actors and Costumes

Here are all the above aspects of the production that we incorporated:

The first appearing actor was Simon Davey, who is seen here wearing some standard middle class workers uniform clothes. This costume was adopted in order to represent the every day life clothing of the standard middle class person. Due to the cuts between the shots including this character and the young female character, the character appears to be a paternal character which is another stereotype of a typical middle class man. These combined allow the character to be seen as more relate-able to a wider audience as it broadens the target audience of the production.

The character is seen to be holding one of the two explicitly outlined props, this being the mug. The mug shows the word 'shy' on it, which is used in order to represent the character's persona and also to challenge the common stereotype of males being very strong willed and strong physically, as the word, being but a small part of the prop, represents his vulnerability better than any other mug at our disposal.

This is the character that we chose to be the killer, played by Steven Douglas. We chose the dark coloured clothing in order to present possibly the darkness of the character's heart, as he is a killer with no motives. The costume we also thought could link to the characters in 'The Strangers', the sinister torturers who hide in the shadows of the house.

Here is the knife we made obvious in a shot, along with the 'shy' mug. This is made particularly obvious in order to engage the audience into believing that this will have some significance in the scenes to follow.

Finally, this is the final character that we employed in the sequence, the stereo-typically naive and vulnerable teenage girl, who is followed in the alley setting by the killer. She is represented well in our view as we made her wear her own clothes, to show that she is the typical teenage girl in the middle class environment.

Health and Safety Recce

There were three noted locations within the production of the thriller opening, these being the kitchen, living room and alley locations. In order to ensure actor safety, we made the following procedures:
Kitchen:

Here we removed any close-by knives from the setting to prevent interference with them and to prevent any damage to the actors/actresses. This procedure also allows the acting members to be available for additional filming.

Living Room:

Realistically, there were no threats in this area besides any possible objects on the floor, or the cup of tea visible. These were either removed entirely from the setting or they were moved out of reach and movement of the acting members. There was also a bearded dragon lizard in the same room, which was carefully returned to it's enclosure so that it was not trodden on, or so that it did not distract any of the actors/actresses.

Alley:

Here, we spent a good while checking for any broken glass or other dangerous objects which would greatly harm the actors. Once this had been checked, with a positive outcome of no danger, we also checked that there was no animal leavings and were sure to inform the actors of the location, purely for their comfort and content.

Therefore these procedures were followed and allowed the safety for all the crew throughout the production.