Lighting and Location

Due to the Neo Noir influence on my film, the lighting and location is very important to create that atmosphere as well as specific effects.

Lighting





The most important of these effects is the shutter blinds silhouette I used in my shots of who is implied as the murderer of the film.


Shutter blinds silhouettes or shadows are a well known and sometimes cliche convention of original film noir movies, usually in a scene with the detective of the that particular movie (detectives were always popular in original film noir).
Examples of their use in film noir:


Silhouettes


Shadows.

So I chose to keep this aspect as homage to what lead to Neo Noir, as it is such a classic shot in all the old movies.

I also chose to use as little natural light as I possibly could in my trailer since it makes the movie more unnerving since night time always suggests a lack of safety.
Instead of natural light, I used:

Shots of Victims and panning shots of their locations: Street lamps
Shots of murderer: Bare bulb through shutter blinds, acting like a streetlamp. (since even the 400 watt streetlamp outside wasn't bright enough!)
Both lighting step ups created sharp contrasts between dark and light areas in the setting, especially in the shot of the murderer, where in the over-the-shoulder shot all you can see is one side of his face and in the from-the-back shot, it creates a halo of light around him.

Locations

The most important locations where that of the two female victims, as I wanted there to be both the implication that the murderer dumps the bodies in the open, and also for there to be a contrast between the beauty of the girls and the ugliness of where their bodies are found.
For both victims I chose streets. For victim 1, I chose a suburban street lined with houses, to imply that she was killed on her way home (which symbolises safety to most in horror movies). For victim 2, I chose a more urban setting in Camden Loch, next to the canal, to show that the murderer doesn't stick to one area, and to create a contrast with victim 1.

The location for the shots of the murderer is less obvious. The shutter blinds infer that it is perhaps an office, but it isn't certain, adding mystery to his already partly shrouded character, so it keeps the audience guessing.