Preliminary Short Film Evaluation

Short film: 'The Lift' 

I worked in a group alongside Chloe to make our preliminary short film; the film was to be around one minute long, and was supposed to create fear or dread within the audience. This preliminary task was to give us an insight into the creation of short horror movies, thus giving us the opportunity to experiment and assess the way we create to then improve in our final short horror movie. At this stage there hadn't been much research into the conventions of horror films and so the planning and execution of the task was done based off our own knowledge surrounding horror films and what we found would work efficiently to fulfill the task's aims.

 Camerawork/Mise-en-scene/Editing/Sound evaluation: 

CW: firstly we used a tracking shot of the main characters feet; this was to show the casual and unexpected nature of the character entering the lift with no anticipation of what is to come; thus meaning when the horror element of the short film begins it intensifies the fear element.

MS: the character is wearing casual clothing, which adds the element of realism into the short film as the audience can relate themselves to the ordinary character within the film. We also used a lift  to increase the element of fear; many individuals suffer from a fear/phobia of lifts in everyday life, and this exact lift was dimly lit and confined which made it a good setting for our film. We also used dark, grey colours which emphasises the dreary tone.

E and S: As mentioned before we used dark, grey toned filters within the film that was put on during the editing. Within editing as well we added all the sound within the clip; all of the sound effects/music was non-diegetic. The soundtrack/sound effects included were all minor key to emphasis the idea of horror and suspense which we did to try and initiate dread within our preliminary short horror film.

CW: Within the lift we used both POV and over the shoulder shots. We did this to once again create a sense of realism and to create the feeling for the audience that they are within the scene, which overall we were hoping would create a sense of fear/dread as to what was anticipated to come.

MS: Mise-en-scene has not changed since the last two elements of the film; although, we used the setting of a school. We did this as for our preliminary task we wanted it to be a simplistic setting so that we could focus on a better setting for our final short film. The use of the school also gave the impression of something that we see or experience in our day to day life can retain elements of horror and therefore also gave a sense of the unexpected.

E and S: For the over the shoulder shot we changed our editing as we wanted to give the impression that this shot was taken from a security camera, as well as the finer detail of the time in the top right hand corner changing to show a bigger amount of time has passed within seconds. The sound included at this point was also unchanged although we did include the diegetic sounds of the lift.

CW: For this scene, this was still from a POV shot.
MS: The 'ghostly' character was wearing a black cover and had their hair covering the whole of their face, giving the impression that this is something to be questioned and even feared.
E and S: With this editing we put an effect and a different transition onto the scene; this distorted the scene and was unexpected so we did this in hope it would intensify the suspense.

CW and E: Within this scene to the left we used a low angle, that stayed in the same position as the scene unfolded. Then in-between this scene we cut to a close-up of the main character's eyes; this was a short cut and we did this to give the audience a sense of fear as the main character is also scared.

MS and S: This scene showed the 'ghostly' character's costume and makeup more; the long black overall emphasises the idea of the of a shadowy figure, that can be hidden, as well as having the hair over the face of the actor this emphasises that it may be unnatural or inhuman; we did this to give the effect of fear surrounding this unknown element approaching the main character.

CW: We introduced a POV shot again, with a handheld camera, this gave the scene a sense of urgency and would initiate fear as the main character was fleeing from the approaching 'ghostly' character. The other shot we incorporated was a mid shot showing how the main character believed she was safe but then the 'ghostly' character's hand grabs them on the shoulder thus hopefully initiating some fear into the audience.

MS: The mise-en-scene is unchanged; apart from the use of the key. The idea that a key was needed to get into the lift and the main character struggles evokes suspense and fear for the outcome.

E and S: At the end of the scene where the hand clenches the main characters shoulder the scene is cut to black and that is the end of our short film; we did this to have an ending where the audience would question what happened and there was no conclusion.

What I have learned/What I would like to take further when I make our 'real' film:
I've learnt that more research is needed to actively achieve in the production of a horror movie and that in my next film more horror conventions need to be included. The use of a script would also be more effective in producing a realistic horror. When I make the 'real' film, I would like to take the experimenting with the use of editing and camera-work as well as better content further to make an effective horror that really evokes fear and suspense in the audience. Part of our short film was also too long and made the use of suspense ineffective and so in the next film I believe it would be better to keep it faster moving.