Props

Props are involved in the making of the mise-en-scene for any film, and there is a lot more to it than just placing something in the background to make the room look filled. Certain props can allow the audience understand about a character’s story without anything even being said. For instance, A half-eaten mouldy pizza on someone’s kitchen counter can instantly be read as them being a slob or lazy.

Sketch Book

In our own production there is a very important part of the film which will be Cassanra’s sketch book, through this the audience will see things about Cassandra’s life and thoughts without her even saying anything about it.

To create this book originally I asked my German teacher to borrow a spare exercise book which looks like this;

Hannah, Sam and I then found two of our friends who take Art A-level and kindly asked them to draw some pictures of war and depression however when we looked at the finished result we were not very happy, the drawings didn’t match our interpretation of Cassandra which cannot be helped as we are the people who created her character whereas our friends didn’t understand Cassandra like ourselves. Furthermore, the drawings were done in black felt tip and we realised that Cassandra would not have owned felt-tips back in the 1940’s.

Having thought about the period aspect we also decided that the book itself looked too modern so we looked on the internet and found a much better old-fashioned book which is in fact a genuine exercise book from the 40’s.  The pages have a slight yellowy tint to them, there is rust on the hinges and there is no margin line, this makes the book look more authentic. 

However, we only ordered the book from eBay on Wednesday 12^th November and was due to arrive on 19^th November which was too close because we have planned to do our first film shoot on the 19^th. Therefore I emailed Lesley, the woman who I bought the jotter from, and she very kindly sent it in first class for us and I have now received it. It looks amazing and so much better than the previous jotter.

Fountain Pen

In the 1940’s people would write with fountain pens or feather and ink pens therefore we have asked around and Hannah owns a feather pen with a pot of ink and I own some fountain pens and ink cartridges. We will use these to write in the jotter as this is what Cassandra would have actually used.

We used a mix of blue ink and black ink and I love the pages, they really show Cassandra's character and inner-self. Also Hannah and I found out that we can be quite artistic after all.

Here are some photos during the process of drawing in the book. 

Wholemeal Flour

In one of the modern day scenes, Scarlett walks into an old cupboard and discovers lots of old exercise books, including Cassandra’s book. In order to make the books look old and dusty we will use wholemeal flour to act as dust.

Extra Books

Within the same scene we also need many other old-fashioned books to be on the shelves in order to make the scene look realistic. I have found a couple of old books that my mum has kept from past generations. 









I also we have found an old photograph of my great aunt which we shall have hanging on the inside of the store cupboard and this can be used as a photography of the old head teacher during the war period.

Also we asked around and we were allowed to use some of the actual school’s book from the past which are kept in BRGS’s archive cupboard. This was great as we found exercise books dating back to the 1940’s and also we found old versions of the schools magazine, ‘The Squirrel’.

Fake Blood

We are going to use fake blood in a number of scenes, one where we see blood dripping into the sink, making it evident to the audience that Cassandra has cut herself and another scene where Cassandra drops her blood onto the hand of Scarlett.

Bag

During one of the scenes Scarlett looks through her bag and takes out Cassandra’s sketch book and for this we will need a modern day school bag.