The document discusses various props used in the creation of a thriller film opening, including a white mask, black gloves, pictures with red pen markings, scissors, a knife, a newspaper front page created in Photoshop, and a red luggage bag. The props were chosen and designed to conceal identity, create suspense, portray the killer as evil and perfectionist, and establish themes of danger, violence, darkness and mystery.

1. White Mask
I decided to use a white mask for my thriller
opening because it conceals the identity of the
murderer. The mask allowed me to be more
flexible when casting the murderer and it added
an element of suspense. In the initial planning
process I planned to use a black mask, however
I decided to use white because I wanted a sense
of irony within the opening (white has
connotations of purity and angelic personas but
the Masked Murderer is far from this). The
plastic mask cost me £1.75 and was bought
from Amazon.
Black Gloves
The black gloves were an additional prop that I added
when I filmed my extra scenes. I was inspired to add
them after re-watching the opening to Se7en. In this
opening the killer carves his finger prints off to hide
his identity. Obviously I didn’t have the resources to
make it look like the Masked Murderer was carving
his fingertips off so I used gloves instead. I felt that
the gloves would pair nicely with the mask because
they both hide his identity and therefore create
tension for the audience. The reason I only used the
gloves in the scenes inside was because I wanted the
Masked Murderer to appear more evil when he was
touching the knife (like he gets a sense of joy out of
touching it with his bare hands).
Pictures
Similar to the gloves, the pictures were an
addition that I made when filming the last scenes.
When planning I decided to use newspaper
clippings for the MM’s previous murders but with
the factor of time accounted for it would have
been difficult to make enough newspaper
clippings in time. Instead I used pictures with
crossed out faces which I think works just as well.
I used red pen to convey danger, blood and
violence. Also, red is a common theme in my
thriller opening.

2. Scissors and Knife
The scissors I used were long blade ones; this is because I felt it was more
visually effective in creating suspense and an evil emotion. The long blade also
allowed the MM to take more care and time when cutting out the article.
Thus, the MM’s perfectionist behaviour and sick dedication to what he does is
portrayed to the audience. Again, this part of my thriller opening was inspired
by the Se7en opening.
The knife was one of the most important props in my thriller opening. The
knife is a symbol of evil, danger and death. This is further portrayed through
the long sharp blade – a symbol of the many people the MM has killed with it.
It has a black handle to continue with the running theme of black.
Newspaper Front Page
As seen in my previous blog post, I created this page using Adobe Photoshop
CS3. I liked how effective it turned out and I especially like the extreme close
up of the individual words that I managed to shoot. This is because the
surrounding words appeared out of focus which emphasised the word that I
was pointing at.
Red Luggage Bag
This was used in the very opening of the scene. I
decided to use this particular bag because it
introduces the red and black themes that run
throughout my thriller opening. Red has connotations
of death, danger and violence (all of which feature in
my opening) and black has connotations of darkness,
evil and mystery (again, all of which feature in my
opening). The bag is also quite large so it allowed Efa
to rummage around and throw lots of objects into it.