Research Texts

Silent Witness - Season 9 - Choices

This two part episode takes place on an estate and combines a gang shooting with a dead junkie mystery.

It follows the three main pathologists  Nikki , Harry and Leo. Harry is investigating a shooting at the club owned by Ainsley Modest who lost his girlfriend ( Helen ) in a the fight. Nikki is investigating into the discovery of a mummified dead body filled up on heroin. Whilst Leo is suffering with the recent death of his estranged family.

In the opening scene Helen and Ainsley are driving down the road in a real big 4x4 she has a ring on her finger. Getting out of the car you see another 4x4 over the other side of the road it pulls around and the windows open to reveal a hand holding a sub-machine gun. It starts firing into the crowd you watch people drop as the nightclub owner looks around in the open completely lost.

The main characters involved in the scene where Ainsley, Helen, the Rastafarian and his Gangster buddies, Helen's friend.

The editing is indicative of single camera production.  During the shoot out scene at the beginning, it is very clear that they re-shot parts of it for theoretical flash backs that would have been to expensive for a multi camera set up. Instead they opted for integrating earlier shots of events with new footage like Ainsley firing back which is footage filmed separately to the car driving by.
The lighting in the junkies flashback has been designed in a way which casts a blue light over the side of her face this would be very difficult to maintain in a multicam shot.