The Harlequin

The scene opens with a long slow establishing shot of the setting: a graveyard, while the opening credits are played. The tilted angle is used to imply use of a crane as it swings around the walls of the crypt finishing to reveal the floor of the setting where the graves are. The use of the disorientating angle creates a sense on unease already. Non diegetic sound is used - dramatic orchestral music to suit the drama and suspense of the scene commencing.    
 This fades to the next shot -

Non diegetic sound fades out as diegetic sound becomes clearer (no dialogue, just the sound of her walking) A medium long shot of the main character/lead/female protagonist/heroin (character name: Chase  ) walking towards the grave. From her costume we know she is grieving (possibly/most likely a widow). We do not yet know whose grave she is visiting. We gather that Chase is possibly a well off character as she is wearing stiletto shoes and a hat, iconic for upper class grieving widows (1990's?).

When Chase has walked up to the camera, the camera tilts upward to reveal a medium, low angle shot of her holding a rose to her chest and looking remorseful. (Diegetic sound; she sighs). The walls of the crypt behind her shows she is surrounded and therefore revealing undertones that she is prisoner to the graveyard itself - she is surrounded by it, with graves in its walls, at its mercy.

Cuts to a long, point.of.view shot (using a handheld camera to distill unease in the audience along with diegetic sound -heavy breathing) from a distance watching Chase talk to the deceased. We do not yet know who is watching her or whose point of view it is. As the shakiness of the camera becomes more vigorous, it cuts to -  

A medium shot of Chase kneeling before the grave as she places the rose on the ground. (diegetic sound - she begins to cry).

Cuts to a close-up of her face. The dramatic make-up (part of mise en scene) shows she is devastated, (diegetic sound - crying sobs become progressively more emotional) implying whoever She is grieving was important to her and possibly important to the context of this scene.

Cuts to a medium shot from behind her as she looks over her shoulder as she gasps in fear; possibly because she heard a noise or because she is paranoid and on her guard as she shouldn't be there. She is cautious and weary before turning back.  

Cuts to a medium shot as Chase rises to her feet She takes off her hat as a mark of a last respect and places a hand on the grave saying goodbye (diegetic sound - she is speaking to the deceased), preparing to leave.

Cuts to a medium shot as The Harlequin watching Her is revealed and the audiences suspicions that She is not alone are confirmed. (non diegetic sound is again introduced with a short sudden burst of restrained pitchy violins).

Over the shoulder shot (two shot) that creates suspense as The Harlequin steps out from behind the tree and hides behind the grave , as he watches Chase walk away. (diegetic sound - he is breathing heavily).

Now that she has gone, the camera follows him as he emerges and turns to face the grave. (diegetic sound becomes more prominent - his heavy breathing becomes a scream of rage). This is a low angle medium shot as he glares at the grave with contempt, insinuating he loathes whoever she has lost, or loathes her for missing them so much? This raises questions for the audience. In this shot he is dominant, showing power; his face is barely recognisable showing he has the advantage and there is fear in the fact his identity is not certain.

Jump cuts (the diegetic sound of his scream is overlapped with the sound of the car horn blaring) to a medium two-shot of inside the car as Chase gets into her car and breaks down, crying on the steering wheel in the foreground, unbeknownst to her The Harlequin is leaning in watching silently from behind.

Medium shot continued - in a fit of grief she throws herself back overcome with grief, attempting to compose herself; The Harlequin is suddenly gone and the diegetic sound of the car horn suddenly stopped and her frustration becomes determination.

Cuts to a high angle shot (looking down at her turning the ignition preparing to drive away). Non diegetic sound - dramatic orchestral music builds up again as she drives away. Camera pans, following the car as it drives down the road, music fades as the car becomes more distant. As this shot is looking slightly down at her, it is showing her power being slowly taken away as she is weakened and victimised.

The non diegetic sound fades to silence as there is a dissolve edit to the establishing, low angle shot of the house at night (low key lighting), we assume this is the house Chase accommodates (as her car is in the drive). The door is open insinuating that somebody has broken in. This shot shows the house as dominant and powerful, giving a sense of foreboding for what is about to happen inside.  

Cuts to a tilted (shows incoherence - reflecting the influence and disorientating effect the wine has had on her) close-up shot of an opened, half drank bottle of wine on the table surrounded by tissues. We assume Chase has returned home and has become further victimised and weakened as she has resorted to drowning her sorrows.

Cuts to medium two-shot - in the foreground Chase is distraught, crying while drinking wine, while he is watching from behind a closed glass panelled door. This evokes a sense of dread as he is so close but she is completely  unaware. (diegetic sound - crying/sobbing).

Cuts to close up  over the shoulder shot (two shot)as The Harlequin enters the room, praying on his naive victim. (non diegetic sound begins, subtle, low key building suspense).

 Cuts to extreme low angle, medium shot of The Harlequin drawing out a knife while staring intently at his victim as he approaches her. (Shots become more fast paced building suspense). (non diegetic sound becomes staccato and builds pace building tension as he draws closer to her).

Cuts to extreme close up of the killers face, low key lighting emphasis the insinuation of night and he darkness of his character, and the extravagant make-up. We finally see his face clearly for the first time. (the non diegetic sound climaxes with one final piercing note from the violin).

Camera pans to a medium shot as Chase as she staggers to get up to get more wine; clearly drunk and depressed she struggles to get to her feet.

The non diegetic sound suddenly stops - the violin stops as diegetic sound is introduced with screams from the victim and laughs from The Harlequin.
Cuts to low angle medium shot as The Harlequin approaches Chase and seizes her by her hair so that she falls to her knees, he presses a knife to her throat as she struggles and fails to break free. He cuts her throat, and she falls to the floor, he is left standing dominant and victorious looking down at Her dead body.

Now there is a long slow tracking shot from the living room, down the hallway and up the stairs, that builds suspense to reveal one last shock to the audience in the denouement of the scene. (Non diegetic sound builds again during the tracking shot, building suspense. starts off with slow orchestral, melancholy music.)

  It is revealed that a boy (who we assume is her son) was asleep upstairs in his room, he is now waking up having heard noise from downstairs. A fear of dread is evoked in the audience as they can predict what will happen. (The music builds and becomes more dramatic although does not increase in pace to show sadness at the prospect of what may happen).

Sure enough, the camera cuts to a long, high angle shot to reveal the boy climbing down the stairs. This angle shows him as being weak and vulnerable, in part due to his young age. He gets smaller as he descends, weakening him more the further he goes. (The non diegetic music becomes more dramatic but maintains its mournful style in respect of the innocence of his character).

Finally, the audiences worst fears are confirmed when the camera cuts to a high angle close-up shot of the door frame just as the boy appears peaking round the corner of the living room door, having seen the killer standing over the body of his dead mother. 
(The non diegetic sound climaxes with one final melancholy note to make the boys discovery more emotive and descends into lower keys). The shot ends with the boys eyes welling up and about to scream as the picture fades in a blur of white light (representative of the light people supposedly see when entering heaven, and displaying the sadistic beauty in the sadness of his discovery, hopefully provoking an emotive and shocked response from the audience).



Storyboard Evaluation/ Reflective Anlysis - The Harlequin

For my storyboard I have shot an opening scene to a dramatic horror film involving three key characters which are introduced: the lead protagonist (the heroin) Chase Johanson, her unnamed son, and the lead antagonist The Harlequin (i.e. the killer); as an opening scene it ends on a cliff-hanger as the audience are left with unanswered questions. What happened to the boy? Whose grave did Chase visit? Why did The Harlequin kill her and why does he loath the resident of the grave? Who was The Harlequin and why was his appearance so specific? And lastly, how can she be the heroin if she eventually dies? The main part of the film would then effectively be a flashback explaining the events leading up to the conclusion of its opening in technicolour, the opening scene leaves the film wide open for an eventful intriguing narrative.

I have used a wide range of camera angles, shots and edits including close-up (of the murderers face to finally reveal his identity), medium, long shots and medium long shots, low angle (of The Harlequin to show he is a dominant threat), high angle (normally of the victim to show weakness and vulnerability) and over the shoulder shots (as The Harlequin watches Chase walk away she is completely unaware of his presence and how close he is), a jump cut (from the murderers scream of rage to the car horn), a dissolve edit and a fade edit. I have also used a hand held camera (to create the idea of a point of view shot that Chase is being watched), a crane (for the establishing shot) and a tracking shot to show the slow reveal of the boys presence in the house and to build suspense as the audience previously had no inclination there was anybody else there.

The scene is shot in black and white as the chronology of the film is in reverse i.e. it has a non linear structure, taking influence from the stylistic features of Joel Schumacher’s ‘The Phantom Of The Opera’ as it opens with the present day in black and white, which fades to technicolour as the film becomes a flashback to explain the events in present tense. I loved this feature and its dramatic, theatrical style and thought it gave my scene more meaning as apposed to simply another slasher style horror film.

However it does have ‘slasher’ elements in terms of the style of the killing (paying homage to Wes Cravens ‘Scream’ franchise) as I adore the way he builds suspense as the victim is followed by the killer. I also like the idea that the entire plot revolves around the lead female protagonist (in Screams case – Sydney Prescott) and so have based Chase Johansson’s character on Neve Campbell’s character in terms of her being a strong female figure (although in the sequence I have constructed she is portrayed as the opposite, the rest of the narrative would begin with her being a strong character and illustrate her disintegration into a nervous wreck.)

I have also used an element from Nicholas Roeg’s ‘Don’t Look Now’ in terms of ways to shock an audience – the use and manipulation of a child's innocence in order to evoke and emotional response from an audience I think makes the scene more powerful and immediately draws the audience in and makes them sympathise with the boy.

Finally, in terms of non diegetic sound (the soundtrack/musical score) pays homage to Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ and takes influence from its ‘psychotic’ inference and contemporary style by using the infamous pitchy, off key violins. However in the opening credits of my scene the music is typically sinister theatrical orchestral music, that builds steadily therefore referencing the opening titles to Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’. I particularly admire the development of Jacks character as he becomes more psychotic, a theme of which would be developed in ‘The Harlequin’.  

Codes and conventions of the horror genre play a subtle role in my storyboard through mise en scene; low key lighting, the knife as a murder weapon and using a traditional gothic setting such as a graveyard are all typical conventions of horror and verging on a modern take of gothic horror while maintaining its modern slasher element for example, by shooting the graveyard scene in daytime instead of at night. Although blood is the most important convention of horror, it is not shown in my storyboard because the equipment required to show it were not available so I compromised and instead shot the killer ‘about to’ cut her throat as apposed to showing him in the process of doing so, or showing her dead body with her throat already cut. Given more time and availability of make-up/special effects etc I could have made that shot more impactive by shooting the killer as he is cutting her throat. Another problem with shooting the storyboard was that the lighting for the house scene wasn’t quite right – because of the time of day I was shooting it the lighting is brighter than desired however I have attempted to overcome this with editing the shots, although it is not quite low key lighting.

The comic book style (such as Batman i.e. the joker, V for Vendetta or Repo: Genetic Opera etc) character of The Harlequin would possibly attract a teenage audience, while at the same time the stylistic features may attract an older audience, overall targeting quite a wide demographic without compromising the quality and depth of the plot. However due to the brutal reveal of Chase’s body, the child is extremely victimised making the subject possibly quite controversial as it holds no sympathy for his innocent character. There is also a ‘comic book’ style element to the main characters name; ‘Chase’ is the name of a character from Claudio Sanchez’s comic book series ‘Kill Audio: In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3’, who is also a very strong, dominant female character. However it could possibly appeal to an educated audience as her surname ‘Johansson’ pays reference to an American psychologist, which is relevant to the psychological elements in my storyboard due to the weakening of her character. The name ‘Chase’ also reflects her fragile lifestyle and the nomadic nature of her character, giving the audience the impression that she is always either being chased or chasing after someone or something metaphorical, her life has no meaning therefore she cannot settle. This further develops the complex nature of her character and stirs ideas about her relationship with her son.

To conclude, I have used a range of camera/editing styles such as hand held cameras to create suspense, high angle and low angle shots to create a specific impression of a character, and a jump cut to trick the audience. I have paid attention to the codes and conventions of the genre by using low key lighting, conventional camera angles and a traditional style of murder, however I have also challenged the genre by making the plot more in depth and the characters have more meaning as apposed to creating a murder simply on face value. As an opening scene to a horror it immediately draws the audience in by asking of questions; however improvements and further developments could have been made such as lighting and special effects. I have also inadvertently attempted to aim this at quite a wide demographic by having an intricate plot/narrative combined with modern pop culture references such as the comic book style killer.

Alexandra Jayne Hackett