Initial ideas

I want my film to be set in a desolate place. As I live in Jersey it has many cliff tops and gorse lands which would create brilliant film settings because there are big wide open areas as well as tight contained spaces.

Ideas for location

- Portelet Common

- Beauport cliff top

Actor

Kimberley and I are looking for a young girl who looks innocent. We have an actress in mind named Vanessa. She is an 11 year old girl with Philippino roots who has a simple innocence to her. She also has a very versatile look which is necessary as the girl in the film will need to be quite mentally unstable but still maintain a sane state, to fool others around her into thinking she is just another 11 year old child. We think she could be perfect for our murderer. I am going to take some profile photographs of her like the photograph of Mary Bell and see if she will be right for the part.

Camera shots

I want this movie beginning to be quick, striking, unnerving and perhaps shocking. I think the end of the film introduction could even be the most important part the film beginning. I had an idea of the murder happening at the end, perhaps of a body being thrown or pushed off a cliff, and all you will hear is the deafening thud of the body hitting the floor and the whole screen would turn pitch black - this would be the end of the film introduction. My intention is to leave the viewer shocked.

- Camera shots of the girl looking through the gorse at dog walkers or passers by searching for her next person to kill. All you would see is her hand pulling back the gorse to have a good look at the people walking past. The camera would be positioned as if it was the eyes of the girl (inspiration from Saw).

- A camera shot of the dead person’s body being dragged along the ground - the young girl would clearly struggle to pull the body of dead adult along - it would be a slow, uneven process, but the only thing showing would be the hair dragging and picking up mud and dirt which would reflect the girl's attitude that the person she killed means nothing to her, as if they are merely rubbish.

- Quick short flashes onto the screen of newspaper cuttings such as "CLIFF FALL MYSTERY CONTINUES"

- A camera shot of just the girl's face - she would look at the camera blankly without any emotion. This symbolizes that she doesn't have any feeling for her victims whilst killing.

- Shots that focus on something then turn blurry then focus again.

- Flashing camera shots

- Distortion on the camera

- Flashbacks to the murder

- Perhaps monochrome for the whole of the movie introduction to give mystery to the audience.

- I want a shot of the fall of the body from the body's perspective. Obviously the perfect way to do this would be to attach the camera to a rope and flinging it off the cliff but this is undoubtedly irresponsible. A safer approach would be to use a ladder at the bottom of the cliff and just shoot the last couple of seconds before the body hits the floor.

How is she going to kill?

This is a difficult one because the audience won't be expecting an 11 year old girl to use an axe or anything with great physical violence. Not because it's impossible but realistically a young girl would not necessarily have the strength to swing an axe enough to kill someone for example. Some more realistic ideas would be the following.

- Strangulation (like Mary Bell)

- Pushing off the cliff (the most likely method for my film)

- Knocked out by a rock then killed somehow (unpredictable)