We arrived at the hotel at 10am, where Cheish and Vick were curating the scene - mirroring the real crime scene. Whilst they were dressing the set we walked around the hotel with a Zoom H6 recorder, picking up the ambience and background sounds of doors, floorboards and footsteps creaking to create an eerie soundscape to accompany the footage. This was to add tension preceding the reveal of the crime scene.

We used a Gimbal to navigate the scene without any shakiness. A Gimbal is a piece of handheld equipment that stabilises a camera, balancing it in such a way that any accidental movement doesn’t affect the smoothness of the footage. Furthermore, our model, a Movi M5 Free-Fly can anticipate when movement is intentional and will direct the camera accordingly. This meant we could fluidly capture every element of the meticulously-arranged set.

We used a torch to illuminate each set and place the audience in the shoes of the first officers to discover the crime scene in 1996. The camera floats disembodied through the scene, with the unsettling background sound and props adding to the ominous atmosphere.

We experimented with an LED light flashing Red and Blue to mimic a police siren. However, we eventually decided this detracted from the authenticity of the scene and instead used it in a separate scene of a household kitchen. The flashing lights reflected off the dining room set and created a contrast between the cosy domestic scene and the chaos of the crime scene discovery.

Equipment: Movi M5 Free-Fly Gimbal, Canon 5D Mark 4

Location: Royal Hotel, Gateshead

Key words: Crime Viral, true crime, Gimbal