From surveying 15 of my friends and family (7 males 8 females), I gained feedback to whether the gender of the friend/family would think to enjoy my initial idea 1. Here are the results in the from of a dual graph:
As you can see from the graph, the gender balance is equal to who would want to watch my initial idea if it was a short film. 6 males and 6 females would want to watch it while 2 females and 1 male wouldn't watch it. I asked them further why they wouldn't want to watch the initial idea to gain further feedback on how to improve, here is the results from this small unstructured interview:
Male: "I'm not a fan of short films as they are too short for my to watch, sit down and enjoy. The ideas good however just not my cup of tea!"
Female 1: "I'm not a fan of horror films, they scare me too much to watch, sorry!"
Female 2: " I don't enjoy watching horror films, they give me too many nightmares!"
Here is my mood board, which includes all the themes of a horror thriller. I tried to include the aspects of what people imply to be in horror genre. As our film is revolved around a stalker, the stalker must be able to scare the audience when they watch it.
Therefore, the idea of a scary stalker will be including in the film, to look like some of these images, however not as detailed as some of them. This represents the genre in horror and thriller as it shows jump scares of scary people. It stereotypes to be dark and creepy, and portray fear to the audience which they do.
Costume
Here is a more detailed representation of what the stalker will look like. The ability to not be able to see his face brings suspense, and a sense of unknown to the audience, which will make our film ultimately scarier. As well as this, the idea of wearing a black hoodie, represents the idea of darkness and the fear of the unknown, so the colours the stalker wears will play a big part in the short film and so we will have to pick them carefully.
This is why we have researched into black hoods on people, so we can get an idea of what they will look like, and how much fear it portrays across to the audience. The costume for the stalker fits with the genre well, as the idea of darkness to portray as fear is used because of the colour black he is dressed as. The stereotype of not being able to see his face is portrayed here to give a sense of unknowing and anonymous.
So our chosen idea is "The Neighbourhood Stalker". In this film there will be two boys having a sleepover, they will be doing things like playing video games and eating snacks, to try and put the audience at ease. Thomas will then suggest to Danny that they should do prank calls and they both agree. They start off light hearted, phoning pizza places. However, Thomas then suggests that they phone a stranger who has just moved into the area. Danny advices against this, as they don't know anything about him and parents have said not to speak to him. Thomas goes ahead and calls the number and Danny begins talking and instantly regrets it. The stalker somehow knows the identities of both the boys even though they've never met before. He says that they should never have made that call. The two of them think nothing of it but as the night gets later, they receive a knock at the door. The stalker then breaks into the house.
For my main task, I have decided that I am going to create a short film around the genre of horror/thriller. As well as my short film, I am going to create two ancillaries. The two ancillaries I will be creating and producing as well as my film is a poster for the film, and a film magazine review page featuring the film.
The two ancillaries will have the colours that are themed within the film, as this is so audience will associate the colours seen on the poster and the magazine review with the film itself, promoting it more.
I will be creating a movie poster also, which will match the film in a variety of ways. This may include colour scheme, the characters included in the film on the poster, and the location set in the film, as well as some important quotes in the film, and ratings of the film.
For my ancillary of my film, I will be also including a poster with it. Creating a poster for a film requires a lot of creating and photoshop skills to implement a poster to attract and gain audience into watching the movie. I believe that from past experience i've had with photoshop and print-promotion me and my partner Jimmy can create a successful poster for our film.
For the other ancillary that I have chosen to create for our film is a film review in a magazine of the short film that we are creating. As the past experience I have gained whilst creating posters and magazine articles during early part of ICT in school, and outside of school, creating these with grant a successful part of our film franchise.
Reflection/Evaluation Suggestions from the feedback by the audience:
The feedback we had gathered from the audience was how are we going to film in the dark, as most of the ideas require a lot of lighting, and you don't want to make the film look unrealistic because of the brightness of the lighting.
From this feedback, we can therefore construct our film with this feedback from the audience. We will try to use as much professional lighting as we can, so we can get a really good effect from it. As well as this, we can gain a clearer image, if the characters are portrayed stronger within the film.
Another piece of feedback we got from the audience, was whether each initial idea was set to end on a cliffhanger. From this, we already knew they weren't based on a cliff hanger, however as they were initial ideas, we were just set out to create with 3 small ideas, that we can develop easily in the near future, and we were getting feedback on which one we should start developing more.
From the feedback, James (17) said that we should go for the first one, as this one had the most amount of detail put in to it, as the idea we thought of for a long time before. As well as this, it also has a lot of potential to get a good effect through the film on portraying suspense and an aspect of fear the most. It also follows a linear storyline, which we will produce in the near future with our storyboards.
This is a timeline analysis of the short film "Night Night Nancy", I included in my analysis, the different shots that were there and the reasons behind why they were effective to the audience.
"Night, Night Nancy" is a short horror film about Nancy and someone in her house who is trying to kill her. It begins with her waking up to texts from a friend, she finds pictures taken of her sleeping on her phone and realises there is someone in her house. Directed by Lewis Farinella Music by Jacob Cadmus Starring Amber Collins, Leah Farinella & Mandrin Borrero Executive Produced by Joseph Mckeel
- "NIGHTY NIGHT NANCY" short film
Through this analysis of "NIGHTY NIGHT NANCY", I will be analysing different aspects of what all films should generally have, for example, camera shot, angle and movement will be a title for my analysis. This is so I can look at camera angles and therefore show how these certain shots, angles and movements are effective within the film, and therefore gain research into using it in my film.
Camera angles/shots
The opening shot is a medium shot showing her straight on facing the camera so the audience can see the character and understand she is just waking up and checking her phone. This opening is important as it introduces the character and gives the audience an idea of the characters involved. For a short film, only a couple of characters are normally involved in the film, so not much time is spent with introducing the characters. This shot of introducing the characters will be important in our film, so I will make sure I include this shot in.
A medium shot is used again as we can see her shoulders however the angle has moved slightly so we see more of a profile shot of her face. Space is made on the right hand side to place the text from the message. This type of editing I will try to include the text in, especially from the prank calls, as we are deciding to include the stalker to text them anonymously. The frame is tightly packed showing mainly just Nancy, this is to show her facial expressions for effectively to the audience.
A close up is used to show her looking down through her phone. This shot is used so the audience can see clearly what she is doing through her point of view. A point of view shot is a really effective way of distributing to the audience the thoughts and feelings of the how the women feels.
A long shot is used to show her walking through her hall, the camera moves slowly with her so as she walks towards the camera, the camera is slowly moving backwards. When she gets close to the camera the camera angle changes so it shows her walking from behind
A medium shot here shows the girl quite close up and also the killer looking for her. By doing this it creates suspense as the audience can see him getting closer to her. The shot is in deep focus because it is important we see the killer creating fear within Nancy. Deep focus allows the audience to see her reactions as he gets closer. Focus is a requirement in the film that'll we'll use in our film, as the suspense is what makes thriller/horrors successful.
A low angle is used to show the killer coming through the door after panning away from the door she just went in, all at the same low angle. This creates my suspension as we are able to see the distance from the two characters through the use of the angle. The direction of angle we will also include in our film, as angle plays a big role in importance, and mainly to create different emotions to the audience than eye line angle.
The camera here is shown to be close to the gap between the doors, this shows the killer looking for her in the other room. The camera does not move away from this position to show when the killer comes closer to her. This is also a POV shot, so the audience get a real sense of the suspense and fear in the girl.
A close up is used to show the killer about to kill her. This is to create a scare as we see what he looks like. The killer is placed in the centre of the frame with little in the background, this is important because the killer needs to be the shock. If there was a lot in the background it would take away the attention of what is necessary for the audience to see.
Mise En Scene
Throughout it looks as if the lighting within the house is the only lighting they use. This may of been because they could not have accessed other lighting. In some of the shots the house lights are shown to be on, however all shots are very dark, this implies that they have edited the lighting to be very dark (low key lighting). This shot shows the house lighting is on, however because the brightness has been edited low, the lighting looks dim. I think for our film, lighting will be an important aspect of our film. We need to make the lighting accurate, or it won't provide the effect we need to make a successful film.
One of the shots shows her turning on the light when she is in darkness. When she turns on the light we are able to see the killer in close up with high key lighting so we can see him clearly and create a scare. This change from light to dark is important for our film as we need jump scares to complete a genre aspect and expectation.
Nancy appears to have minimal makeup or makeup made purposely to look as if she is wearing none, this is to go along with the storyline that she has just woken up. Her costume of shorts and a top is her night wear. Her costume of shorts and a top is her night wear. Her costume in the film was necessary to go along with the storyline. More of the costume emphasis is on the killer as he needs to be scary.
Regarding the killer he is first shown in a grey hoodie and a silver mask with his long hair in a mess predominantly to the side. By wearing a mask he is hiding his face as he is a murderer. Blood is on his hands to conclude to the audience he has already murdered, who we find out is her boyfriend.
Editing
Quickening cutting rhythm is used in order to create tension and suspense during the ending when we are seeing the killer. If the cutting rhythm was slower it would not have created a scare. A jump cut is used at the end when we see the bloody killer saying "night night Nancy". This creates the scare from the audience as he is there when she turns around.
Shown in the two screenshots is an example of where they use match cuts, successful through editing. Other examples are used throughout. The match cut here is from the audience knowing she is reading her texts/replying to them to the actual phone displaying the texts. This matched cut is used to not show a obvious cut through editing.
Sound
The sound of this film has a mysterious attribute to the film. At the start of the film, there is no sound whatsoever apart from the diegetic sound that is from the characters movement and the phone itself she is texting on. As she sees the pictures on her phone, the music starts to slowly introduce itself through the non diegetic sound. As she sees the monster inside her house, the music starts to gain tempo, and it starts to begin to increase.
As the monster is trying to find her, it gains more and more in volume. The sound from her phone then goes off which gives the monster a clue on where she is. At this point as the monster is approaching her, the music reaches its peak as the suspense level rises again.
It then stops as the monster disappears after not finding her, which releases as part of a relief. After that, the main sound that jump scares everyone is the diegetic sound from the "boyfriend" of Nancy where he says "Night Night Nancy" and switches off the light.
Discussion
This short film has all the concepts of an horror film. For my film to gain this level of successfulness, I will adapt my film around some of the ways the film has gained tension, and the ways it creates a high level of suspense to the audience watching. This will be done through the use of sound, camera shot and angle, and how the scene is set through lighting. The lighting within my film has to be perfect and not to ruin it. Something to be done using test shots to get the perfect contrast on screen which I will do through Pre-Production.
A creepy picture plays with the fear of a woman. But maybe there is any connection between the girl on the picture and the woman who trys to find out the secret behind the glass.
Director:
David F. Sandberg
Writers:
David F. Sandberg,Lotta Losten
Stars:
Lotta Losten,Hanna Johansson
"Pictured" - short film
Through this analysis of "Pictured", I will be analysing different aspects of what all films should generally have, for example, camera shot, angle and movement will be a title for my analysis. This is so I can look at camera angles and therefore show how these certain shots, angles and movements are effective within the film, and therefore gain research into using it in my film. Camera Shots/Angles
A medium shot is used to show her walking through her hall, the
camera moves slowly with her so as she walks towards the camera. The camera is
slowly moving backwards. In this shot, it begins to introduce
the character and what she is wearing. It appears to be wearing normal
clothes, so we can tell by the time of day its afternoon/evening.
This shot is used to signify that something bad has happened. Used to formulate an idea in the audiences mind that she isn't the only one in the house. This type of idea we will use in our film, as when something such as an object in the house that has moved from the original position, creates a sense of fear to say that you aren't the only one present in the house. This shot can also be used as a POV shot, which creates an effect that you are actually there, adding tension slowly.
A reoccurring shot in this short film is at 2:27 onwards, where the women notice the plant pot mud leading up to the painting. This close up shot of the painting introduces where and who the problem is. As you can see, the close up is important as it provides the viewing screen to only allow you to focus on the women in the middle. As well as this, there is no wallpaper or bright colours, this could be used as a technique for the audience to only be distracted by the picture and the picture only. This technique we will use, as the less distractions from the main plot there is, the easier and more scarier the plot is to understand.
This close up shot of the women, realising that the 'thing' can only move when she isn't looking at it, covers her eyes with her hand. The same technique of the last screenshot is shown here, where the only close ups shown have plain backgrounds, so therefore create an effect that they are the only thing in the shot.
A close up is used to show the killer in the women. This is to create a scare as we see what he looks like. The killer is placed in the centre of the frame with little in the background, this is important because the killer needs to be the shock. If there was a lot in the background it would take away the attention of what is necessary for the audience to see.
These two shots at 2:48 and 2:39 are matching. This is a nice effect, as the storyline is a lot easier to follow because of this and creates a pleasant flow to the film. However, despite the lack of camera shots in this film, the variety of camera shots it has create a lot of tension through out the short film. A limiting side to this is that the audience only get a small amount of camera shots to see and view, limiting there views on the film, and also they may get very bored on the fact that its the same shots repeated, but just different.
Sound In this short film the sound is not as strong as it could of been, the only section it had good sound in was near the bit where she realised there was a problem with the picture. In general there is not a lot of sound used in the film but I don't believe that it is very effective at all, it is very quiet and slow paced which doesn't add much tension at all and therefore made the film less effective in its entirety. To prevent this happening in my film, I will make sure that the music in our film is copyright free, and therefore then having the music as a lot of tension added, to present a lot of tension to the audience.
Editing
The initial editing for this film is good. The continuity of the film is also very good, as there is no problems transitioning between different shots and cuts. However the special effects of the film, for example the women on the picture aren't the best, they add to the film as being very childish, and doesn't add much fright at all. The editing of the close up of the women face between the picture is quite poor, as it shows that something is going to happen as she keeps closing her eyes, making the film very predictable and therefore doesn't add much of a jump scare. From this film I know that the close ups of the actors within the film must be good as it then makes the editing worth while within that the shots chosen will create effect on the audience well.
Mise en scene To begin with the mise en scene was very good, the clothing and makeup the actor was wearing was good and the picture was very effective on how it moves and changes throughout the film. However the set does not really conform to the codes and conventions of a horror film, the set is very pristine with neither high or low key lighting where in a horror film you would expect to see slight odd or different things about the set and with a lower key lighting that was actually used. The clean set does connote innocence and the unexpectedness of the actor but not enough to make it a necessary thing, ti would of been more effective if David conformed to the conventions of the horror genre and made it a bit more mysterious and spooky, using low key lighting to convey the sinister parts of the film as well as to build tension. Im going to learn from this because i want my film to be innocent when it can be and very scary when it needs to be as well.
A woman soon finds out that she is being haunted by a mysterious figure every time she turns the lights off.
Director: David F.
Sandberg (as David Sandberg)
Writer:
David F. Sandberg
Star: Lotta Losten
- "Lights Out" Short Film
Through this analysis of "Lights Out", I will be analysing different aspects of what all films should generally have, for example, camera shot, angle and movement will be a title for my analysis. This is so i can look at camera angles and therefore show how these certain shots, angles and movements are effective within the film, and therefore gain research into using it in my film. Camera Shots/Angles
For the title screen of the short film, there was a long shot of the house that the women is staying in. This introduces the location to the audience and therefore gives a better understanding of whats going to happen and where its going the happen. In the title screen for our film, we are going to include the location of our house in the title screen, as this will give the audience a better location of where it is.
A long shot is used to show her walking through her hall, the camera moves slowly with her so as she walks towards the camera, the camera is slowly moving backwards. When she gets close to the camera the camera angle changes so it shows her walking from behind
This "over the shoulder shot" of the women turning off the light to go to bed bings the first encounter with the weird creature that only appears when the lights turned off. This shot sparks the idea for the audience that there is a problem and builds tension.
Within this close-up shot of the women who is hiding from the monster in her bed, creates fear as because of how close the shot is, the fear she is portraying has a bigger effect, than a medium shot would. This close up shot to emphasis emotion is something I will include in our film, as the closer the shot of the characters face, creates higher tension for the audience watching and therefore improves the conventions of the film better.
A close up is used to show the killer about to kill her. This is to create a scare as we see what he/she looks like. The killer is placed in the centre of the frame with little in the background, this is important because the killer needs to be the shock. The lamp on the side that he/she is about to turn off, shows only the monster in the shot, therefore being the main subject of the shot that everyone sees. If there was a lot in the background it would take away the attention of what is necessary for the audience to see, this is a technique we will use in our film to portray the predator. Mise En Scene
Throughout, it looks as if the lighting within the house is the only lighting they use. This may have been because they could not have accessed other lighting. In some of the shots, the house lights are shown to be on, however all shots are very dark, this implies that they have edited the lighting to be very dark (low key lighting). Within this shot at 0:39, the lighting that seems to be used is the house lighting, this creates a very realistic effect. As well as this, if the budget is low, then using house lighting is an easy option and a cheap option, as well as giving a creepy realistic effect.
As well as the atmosphere of the film being creepy due to the lighting, for her costume, she is just wearing pyjamas, this is her nightwear. Her costume in the film was necessary to go along with the storyline. More of the costume emphasis is on the killer as he/she needs to be scary.
Regarding the killer he is first shown in a face of no pupils and what appears to be in a black top. By having a scary face. This is therefore shown to create a scare to the audience, and ends the film on a cliff hanger to what would happen next. Editing Quickening cutting rhythm is used in order to create tension and suspense during the ending when we are seeing the killer. If the cutting rhythm was slower it would not have created a scare.
With editing there are match-cuts. This is where the two shots are matched together. In this case, the shots of the two doors show a difference. The first set where its POV shot of the women looking at the door to check there is nothing coming in and she's just seeing things. 10 seconds later the girl looks back at the door again, and the door is open. At this point, the women looks at again and the door is open, this match cut adds tension and suspense to the audience. This is a technique I will include in our film, to add suspense to the audience and keep the audience at the edge of their seats.
Sound
Sound plays the most important part to any film or trailer that wants to unsettle and scare the audience, for example the combination of creaking floors, foot steps and a loud creaking door opening all comes together to make a very effective scene. As well as that the way there is not a lot of background noise throughout the film, as they have portrayed the idea that the main sound that the audience are focused to mostly is the movement of the monster and the heavy breathing of the women under the bed covers, this providing added fear to the audience and also the jump scare at the end, as the suspense has risen to the peak of the film, to end with the jump scare.
For our initial idea powerpoint, we did a pitch of each idea to the class to gain feedback. The feedback that was said was the idea of improving the lighting as we would be mainly filming in the dark, as the conventions of horror are darkness, and they are at a sleep over so it should be dark as well.
For the name of the short film we will be creating for the initial idea one will be changed later on in the making of the film as the neighbourhood stalker is long and a mouthful to say, we want our title to be short, punchy and has a lot of effect. Our ideas revolved around "Caller" or "The Prank Caller". The initial one idea is slightly longer, as this is the idea we found the best and spent the most of the time designing and coming up with, therefore being our favourite initial idea out of the 3.
However with the feedback we had been given, we will construct the idea a lot better and into more detail. As you can see from the video, the main question concerning the initial idea 1 was the lighting. However, because of the genre being horror/thriller, dark is the main idea of creating a scary atmosphere, but in the home, we can have natural lighting such as room lights and house lights, but we will hold a professional lights incase and to get the best lighting. The audience in which we will be aiming this at are 15+, as this age group will gain the most from the film through the aspects of suspense and fear.
The initial idea 2, had a similar reaction being that it is better than the third initial idea. The idea fits well with the short film idea, that there are only a certain amount of characters in the film itself. This shows that the film is a good idea and holds the aspects of a short film well. The name of the film however will need to be changed, as the phone call is quite generic and will be to be more punchy and have a scarier tone if we were to pick this idea. Despite this idea being the least favourite for the audience, the idea of this has a strong background behind it. The type of audience to watch this would be 18+ as the idea of this film is quite scary and may be quite fearful as the actor that was playing this character was 15-17 years of age and so could be quite relatable.
Initial idea 3 was an idea which was very vague for us. For the theme of horror and thriller we kept with the aspect of the vulnerability and the aspects of the few characters. The idea of the film was said by the feedback that it will be hard to film with lighting and the different characters, and also we would need to find a place that had all the ideas we wanted to produce within the location and get permission also. The audience of this would be 18+ as the idea of the film is really fearful and can be quite disturbing to the audience watching, as the idea of it being relatable is quite strong.
