Filming Frenzies - The Art Of Producing A Crime Board

            Greetings y’all! To keep with the theme of crime scene B-roll I have started the crime board process. 

The end product

In the previous blog, I mentioned how the Dollar Store didn’t have any pins or red yarn for the crime board so once again I am left to adapt. The pins were extra anyway since I can’t push permanent holes into my walls for this project. Plus I have no idea how I would explain that to my parents without them being a tad bit mad! As far as the red yarn goes I wasn’t too sure what to do. But I recalled that I had a giant bag of pipe cleaners from a project I did in AICE Marine Science last year. So I substituted red pipe cleaners for red yarn. This also meant I didn't have to buy anything else which is always a bonus. 

I pulled out all of my materials which consisted of the case files from Amazon, the pipe cleaners, some double-sided tape, scissors, and I printed out a photo of the knife from the other day. 

Now, I wasn’t too sure how I wanted the files to go up on the wall and I had no real order. I started by just looking through each paper and picking papers that looked the most realistic and added to the plot I had already created. I sorted the papers into things to scan in for the collage segment of editing and another pile for papers to go up on the board. I ended up picking out 2 newspaper snippets, a map, an autopsy report, a phone call log, a suspect list, and the photo of the person murdered. As for suspects the murder mystery had 6 suspects but my crime board was going onto my wall and I didn't want to overcrowd it so I just picked 3 to include. For each suspect, I had a photo, a witness statement, a person of interest sheet, and a log of the conversation. 

In the center, I knew I wanted to put a photo of the crime scene so I started from the middle and worked outwards. I mapped out the way the papers would be layered on the floor before committing to attach them to my walls.

The mess of sorting out papers

For the same reason I didn't use pins, I wanted to make sure the double-sided tape wouldn’t be an issue. And, fortunately, I did because the tape was so hard to get off of the wall. It was super sticky so I had to get tweezers to help peel off the tape. It didn't leave any damage to the wall but the process of removing the tape was far too complex to do the whole crime board with double-sided tape. In an ideal world, I would use painter's tape and roll it so it would accommodate my needs but I didn't have any on hand so I resorted to the next best option, washi tape. 

After deciding how I was gonna attach the files on the wall I got ready to assemble the board up. As I was reading the papers and sorting them to put up I started to get freaked out. I am very easily scared and this was no exception despite me knowing it was all fake. To help ease my worries I started watching YouTube videos in the background. Today’s selection consisted of a palatable mix of uplifting cooking videos from one of my favorite channels Bon Appétit. The juxtaposition of what I was watching and sorting out helped me center myself back to the task at hand. 

            The board was pretty much all set up after an hour or so. I only had to adjust the papers a bit and then I put up the photo of the murdered person. Before I did this I thought I wanted to black out the eyes since I saw it in a crime photo in the opening of Curry & Cyanide: The Jolly Joseph Case (2023). I’m not sure why but it stood out to me and added another sense of mystery which is why I also wanted to include this ominous feature. I wanted to have a shot-reverse-shot of the original photo and blacked-out photo so I went ahead and scanned the photo using my phone. Then I blacked out the eyes using a black Sharpie. I scanned the photo again for editing later and pasted it up on my wall. While I was scanning these photos I went ahead and scanned some miscellaneous case files for the collage I was going to edit. 

Now the crime board was complete. This meant I just had to take videos. Since the A-roll shots are static it is so important that the B-roll has movement to visually engage the audience. I filmed a somewhat tracking shot of each part of the crime board. I’m sure I'll have to do some editing to these clips since I was not as steady as I had hoped for. It would be great to have some short self-stabilizing device like a tripod but the budget simply did not allow for that purchase so I am going to have to find a way to make the videos look less like an amateur filmmaker took them (even though that’s the truth). 

These clips I got today are going to need plenty of editing so you’ll have to keep up to see how I do it. Talk to you soon for the last day of filming!