Practical task - bloody weapons

For the practical task, it was my job to do tests of mise-en-scene. This meant creating props that could be used in our film opening that link to our genre - slasher horror. Immediately I thought of a lot of bloody weapons, for example sharp objects and hammers.

I went to the kitchen and found two knives, one large and one small, and then I went to the garage and found different hammers that I could use, a small saw, a chisel and a pair of clear goggles. These were all effective as props because they were easy to make look like weapons.

I used a tube of fake blood and squeezed small amounts of it onto a piece of kitchen roll and just dabbed it multiple time on the props. This made them look very bloody and gory, which was perfect for them. I also dabbed small amounts on the handles to give a splattered effect so it looked more realistic. To begin with, I also tested out techniques that I could make from the kitchen roll by dabbing and swiping it across the paper that I was doing it on.

I used three different hammers so it would give me more of a choice to see which would look the most realistic. The orange and silver-headed hammer looked like it was well used, however the blood didn't show up against the orange. The black and yellow hammer was large so it looked the most violent, but the head was too dark for the blood to show up again. The last hammer was the best, as the wooden handle and silver head looked quite old-fashioned, the blood showed up the best and looked splattered, and also there were a lot of brown dots of rust on the metal so it looked like dried blood - like it hadn't been washed. I therefore thought this was the best hammer if we were to use one.

 

The pair of goggles and plastic gloves were mainly extras that I found that I thought could be effective as the goggles are sometimes used in slasher films so no blood splatters into the eye when the villain is doing their 'work'. The gloves were also good because they reflect what a butcher may wear so their hands don't get bloody, and the villain's 'evidence' could be disposed of easily.

These are some other techniques that I tried to make it more gory and realistic. I discovered that the blood I used didn't photograph well, as it was too light on the pictures. After I took all the pictures I got some red food colouring and mixed a small amount with the fake blood. This looked a lot more real and photographed better, so I'll be using it in the future.

Advantages:

• blood was realistic
• it was easy to make the effects - not a lot of blood was needed for the entire thing
• it was fast

Disadvantages

• on photos / cameras, the blood shows up too bright and doesn't look the right colour
• it was quite thick so I had to add food colouring to make it thinner (this also made it the right colour)