PRODUCTION - Research

 RESEARCH 

For our film we decided to look at short films that have been created throughout the last few years and take inspiration from the genres. We came across many genres like comedy, horror and drama but there was one in particular that stood out for us. Throughout the year last year we had always came back to the idea of wanting to due a crime styled film based on documentaries we had already watched. However, we didn't follow this theme last year as we didn't have the experience with cameras, editing , mise-en scene etc. Now we have the experience that we gained from last year we are more confident in taking this theme forward into production.

 We decided we wanted to research Serial Killers and in particular, ones within the UK and Ireland. Many came to the surface throughout the research process that had happened while we were alive (since 2000s) so these all act as potential storylines.

 Below are articles, links and potential stories we are considering taking inspiration from.
  • Robert Black

For me, this is a story very close to home. Jennifer Cardy was one of the victims of Robert. She grew up with my daddy and his family and her family still live beside us now. This story, for me, was a particularly important as he wasn't ever even convicted of Jennifer's murder but of 3 others instead. It is believed that he is to be held accountable for many more murders than he has been convicted of however he died in 2016. 
  • Colin Ireland
Former soldier Ireland tortured and killed homosexual men he met in bars. He decided to become a serial killer as a New Year's resolution in 1993. His killing spree ended later that year when a CCTV camera caught him with his last victim. He confessed to all five murders. He is one of only 35 prisoners to have been given a whole life tariff by a Home Secretary.  

  • Peter Sutcliffe (still alive)
Dubbed the "Yorkshire Ripper"; Sutcliffe murdered 13 women and attacked 7 others between 1975-80. Although his defence pleaded diminished responsibility owing to a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, this was rejected by the jury, and although he has served much of his whole life tariff (twenty concurrent sentences with no chance of parole) in Broadmoor’s psychiatric prison, Sutcliffe was moved to HMP Frankland in Durham on 24th August 2016, having been deemed mentally fit to return to prison. 

  • Rose West (still alive)
Dubbed the "Yorkshire Ripper"; Sutcliffe murdered 13 women and attacked 7 others between 1975-80. Although his defence pleaded diminished responsibility owing to a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, this was rejected by the jury, and although he has served much of his whole life tariff (twenty concurrent sentences with no chance of parole) in Broadmoor’s psychiatric prison, Sutcliffe was moved to HMP Frankland in Durham on 24th August 2016, having been deemed mentally fit to return to prison. 

  • Levi Bellfield (still alive)
Dubbed the Bus Stop Stalker, but more infamously known for the 2002 murder of Amanda “Milly” Dowler, Levi Bellfield has since been charged with the fatal hammer attacks of Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, as well as being investigated for a string of abductions, rapes and murders across West London in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Bellfield is currently serving a life sentence with the recommendation that he is never released at HMP Frankland (Durham) and has since converted to Islam.

  • Peter Bryan (still alive)
In 1993 Peter Bryan fatally attacked a stranger with a hammer for which he was institutionalised, until February 2004 when he walked out of a psychiatric unit in Newham and paid a little visit to his friend Brian Cherry. Alerted to screams by the neighbours, when the Police broke down the door, he was cooking Cherry’s brain in a frying pan. Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, Peter Bryan was committed to Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital for treatment, where he battered and strangled a fellow inmate (Richard Loudwell) to death. Bryan – a self-confessed cannibal – has since said, had he not been interrupted, he would have devoured Loudwell’s flesh.

  • Steven Grievesen (still alive)
Dubbed “The Sunderland Strangler”, Steven Grievesen strangled four teenage boys in Sunderland (Tyne & Wear) between 1990 and 1994. He was sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 35 years at HMP Full Sutton (Yorkshire) before his release is considered by the Home Secretary.

  • Anthony Hardy (still alive)
On 30th December 2002, a hungry homeless man discovered the dismembered corpses of two women - Bridgette MacClennan and Elizabeth Valad – stuffed into bin-bags outside Anthony Hardy’s flat. When Police investigated, they found the battered body of Camden prostitute – Sally White – in his bed, which Hardy claimed he had no memory of, owing to his severe drink problem and tendency to blackout. Dubbed “The Camden Ripper”, Anthony Hardy is serving a whole life sentence at Broadmoor Psychiatric Prison.

  • Stephen Port (still alive)

Between 2014 and 2015, bus-garage chef Stephen Port lured four gay men to their deaths in Barking (East London) having met them online via dating app’s and lured them home with the promise of sex. Port drugged his victims with a lethal mix of GHB, amyl nitrate, Viagra, mephedrone (aka “meow meow”) and methamphetamine (“crystal meth”), raped and strangled the men whilst they were unconscious and dumped their bodies in a local cemetery, a faked suicide note nearby. Port was sentenced to a whole life order (with no chance of parole) on 25th November 2016.

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