Stabbing scene

[Fadi]

Hello

I'm directing a film in school. there's a scene where the wife kills her husband by stabbing his neck with a pen.

what I have in mind so far is a lot of fast cuts and insert. and focusing more on the facial reactions and hands and legs movements rather than the blood and the stabbing itself.

my concern is that you either make it look very real or it'll look stupid.

please share with me any thoughts, suggestions, advises about how to do that?

thanks in advance

 

[Brooksy]

Why show the stabbing at all? I think it is more powerful when you imply what is happening and make the audience use their imagination. You could do something like this:

Show the fight between husband and wife leading up to the stabbing. Then show the wife grabbing the pen and hiding it behind her back. Have the camera follow her for a little bit then pan off to the wall and have a blood splatter onto the wall. You could then cut there, insert some black, and show her getting arrested or dumping the body or cleaning up or something.

Just an idea I am not sure of the story, mood, or look of what you want but that is what pops into my head.

 

[Richard J. Johnson]

Take a look at the bar/pen-in-neck scene in casino.

 

[jwing]

There is also this incredible scene in Double Indemnity where the wife kills her husband, I think by strangling or stabbing (I forget), but rather than showing the husband they showed a close up of her face, and you heard the sounds of him struggling. It was actually quite powerful, because you really got a sense of her madness and it was even more haunting than seeing the murder itself.

And of course, there's always things like casting the murder as shadows against a wall (almost like shadow puppets), or just using sound combined with a well-timed cutaway, or an angle that hides the actual pen but gets the same point across, etc...

 

[Batutta]

Hello

I'm directing a film in school. there's a scene where the wife kills her husband by stabbing his neck with a pen.

what I have in mind so far is a lot of fast cuts and insert. and focusing more on the facial reactions and hands and legs movements rather than the blood and the stabbing itself.

my concern is that you either make it look very real or it'll look stupid.

please share with me any thoughts, suggestions, advises about how to do that?

thanks in advance

Watch the shower scene in Psycho. The knife never actually makes a cut, but it seems like it does because of the way Hitchcock edits the scene--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VP5jEAP3K4&feature=related

 

[polfilmblog]

Obviously there are many different styles you can shoot it. It should match with the style used in the rest of the film.

When someone dies because of a stabbing in the neck, it's because of blood loss. This can be potentially a very messy situation. Blood spurts out from the wound pretty far in pulses corresponding to each heartbeat.

 

[David G. Smith]

Obviously there are many different styles you can shoot it. It should match with the style used in the rest of the film.

When someone dies because of a stabbing in the neck, it's because of blood loss. This can be potentially a very messy situation. Blood spurts out from the wound pretty far in pulses corresponding to each heartbeat.

Or they die because of a compromised airway (sorry, I worked for a long time as a Paramedic in and around Detroit). Instead of hitting the carotid artery or jugular veins, with the massive amounts of blood, you may want to suggest an injury that causes bleeding into the trachea (wind pipe), with a little bit of non-toxic stage blood on a hand grasped around the front of the neck, and in the talent's mouth, with some nasty gurgling sounds on the sound track, you might be able to suggest a real gnarly pen in the neck death scene. A compromised airway affects the ability to talk so, maybe as more and blood builds up in the wind pipe, your character could have some dialogue that becomes more and more garbled and "Gurglely". Just a suggestion.
One thing make sure that you clearly establish the pen. So that there is no doubt what the wife stuck the husband with.

 

[Scott Lovejoy]

There is also this incredible scene in Double Indemnity where the wife kills her husband, I think by strangling or stabbing (I forget), but rather than showing the husband they showed a close up of her face, and you heard the sounds of him struggling. It was actually quite powerful, because you really got a sense of her madness and it was even more haunting than seeing the murder itself.

Or the strangling scene in No Country for Old Men.

To the OP: Sound has a lot to do with it as well (going back to Psycho), it can add a lot to the feeling of the scene and tie each shot together.

 

[Fadi]

thanx guys that was very helpful!

I shot it and I actually made it the Psycho-shower scene way; a lot of cuts. and I focused on the ambiance rather than the act itself.

 

[bwwd]

Dont forget to throw in very annoying sound ,in shower scene sound is doing 70% of work,just slide down and listen only to the sound without looking at the film.