Initial Research: Genre Specific Analysis 1

"Lights Out" 2013 Short Film Analysis

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.