Crime Board Research

Boards
In order for the crime board I produce to be authentic set for the piece, I want to look into existing crime boards used in film and in real life investigations to ensure that the Film4 set I produce doesn't look fake and to make sure it will be taken seriously by the audience.

It's important for the piece to have relevant things on the walls without getting too distracting for the audience as this could ruin the effect overall. The idea is that the camera zooms into the set and the red wool lines inside it, and will soon reveal the Film4 logo within the strings lined up. I think this allows the ident to have an air of mystery as well as being linked to the previous idents of Channel4.
Crimeboards were used historically in the Police internationally to solve crimes and connect locations and witnesses to suspects etc. The technique has been dramatised and adapted into crime series and films where it is very much a visual symbol of Detective genres, something that was appealing to me when thinking of what was the best thing to include.

Example film crime board.

The Crime Boards in addition to having the strings to interlock certain points and make connections, also has an array of photographs, notes, statements, documents, receipts, dates and other artefacts that link to the investigation. I think in my crime board I'd like to include similar medias in order to look authentic and perhaps should look into the crime file designs such as mug shots being used on the boards.

'Dexter' with his red Strings

I'd say that the crime boards have been a direct influence, and will successfully represent the Crime genre within Film4 however I like the cubic, 3D aspect that will be applied with it being a set. Another influence I'd say was inspired by the red string which I found was used in the Crime drama 'Dexter', where he uses the material to map out how and where blood splatters came from in order to help solve the mystery. The mapping he does is almost like a web of strings, leading up to finding the person in question. I really like the web-type design and think it works effectively together as a whole composition, I really find that there is potential with
in the idea and could help my theme of Film4's colour scheme of red that has always been important to me to keep within the design process.
I think that having a map of red lines of wool or string will look effective in the set, and with different camera angles, I'll hopefully be able to achieve a mysterious look. I think this would if it became an actual channel ident, be one of a series of idents that truly reflects the characteristics of Film4's channel, such as the different genres, be that romance (Which I think would be a rose suspended in the webs surrounded by alternate love themed backdrops), and other things such as action/adventure, horror etc.
I think it's important gathering research of alternate elements of the crime boards, in different countries like the contrast between the American and the British for example, and what would be recognised by the audience. I think I'd like a slightly British feel but still with some reference to the crime drama films that the audience may already be used to.

Fictional Research

Crimeboard from American Crime Drama 'CSI'

Crimeboard from 'Castle'

After being a fan of a lot of crime shows myself, and after having looked further into them, I've found that a lot of the fictional crime shows have a lot of the either stereotypical cork board style with strings, or alternatively they have a whiteboard with written information on the criminals and suspects involved.
I think that the layout is similar to the real crime boards, however the photographs are obviously more staged. In examples such as this one taken from CSI, there are little notes pinned up on a cork board sort of effect with pins, alike to what I think will be an effective tool myself. I think I will use pushpins as these allow the strings or wool to hang on them a little bit better so that they are secure straight lines rather than wobbly pieces of wool.
I also think that the material of cork board or some sort of board would be preferred over whiteboard, as the whiteboard would reflect the lighting and movement of the camera, which is an element I'd like to avoid.
I'd like to mimic elements of the design of these crime boards such as the mugshots, which I think I'll compose myself by taking photographs of people I know, and also newspaper clippings, receipts and documents which are things that I think I could produce and make look scrumpled up and old enough to be found pieces of paper.

Non-Fiction Research

Shot from 'Crimewatch'

Popular Netflix Documentary 'Making A Murderer'

To find out the real sorts of crime boards and mugshots I have looked into shows such as our British non-fiction show 'Crimewatch' which produces reconstructions of certain criminal events to try to appeal for witnesses to come forward. In the programme, there are some mugshots shown, which I generally have noticed have been a frontal straight faced shot, as well as a shot of the person on the side, so two alternate photographs next to each other. I think in order to mimic the ideas shown in such programmes, I need a blank background, alike to when you take a passport photograph, serious faced, and perhaps with blank clothing and not much make-up for a girl as I don't want it to look like it's too glamourous.
I've also looked into Netflix's 'Making a Murder' who use the idea of the red strings to connect things and the old photographs and newspaper clippings as a digital aspect for the title sequence, I really like the layout of the title sequence and despite the black and white element, think it's a successful way of making the red strings stand out, maybe this is something to consider, with making my images black and white perhaps?
There is also sometimes string used within the crime boards, and that was something that definitely appealed to me as the red line forms of Film4 were definitely something that I initially looked into and wanted to keep within the theme of the channel. The aspect of red string between the images was interesting and I thought that the idea of them coming out of the wall was also interesting, especially when I was influenced by crime programmes such as Dexter, where he uses red string to map blood splatters.
Interestingly though, the aspect of red string does still relate to the crime boards I looked at as it is used in another Crime Documentary 'Making A Murderer' in the title credits to begin with, it's an effective composition that I definitely wanted to look more into in the future creations.

Mug Shots
I've looked into an array of mugshots that are both timely and modern, in order to seek out the best style for what I'd like to achieve. I think it's probably best to have the style that is to have one frontal mugshot with a  straight face, as well as having a side on photograph as well. Some of the photographs include a board with different details on dependant on the police station or jail, I think I'm probably going to produce a mugshot without these details as I feel it won't really provide much detail, and they may be distracted by the amount of text on the various documents shown so it really isn't necessary to include such detail.