For this project I worked within a group including myself,
Isabelle Laidlaw and Jamie Collins, creating a film sequence of a scene/clip
from a longer film. Members held their own role within the group so that the
creation process can progress smoothly and efficiently. These rolls included;
Filming and directing, which Isabelle was responsible of as she contributed
most to the storyboards; Production Assistant and camera, which Jamie took charge
of as she was acting within the scene, and I had the role of Editor as I wanted
to focus on the features additional to filming such as music and sound.
We planed for our extract to be a horror/thriller aimed at
older teens to young adults. This was because we found it simpler to re-create
the typical, generic horror genre that is becoming increasingly popular within
young people. This was also the genre that we found had clear conventions and
plots that we knew well. We originally planed a grittier, crime/thriller, but
found ourselves leaning more towards the horror genre, as it is easier to interpret.
A problem we encountered with this was making the scene appear realistic, we
were only equipped with basic tools and was not able to make impressive special
effects. We attempted to overcome this but using a series of camera angles and
cuts that would suggest something to the viewer, for example, when Jamie’s
character is murdered we could not add dramatic makeup or fake blood without it
looking amateur or tacky, so we only filmed her legs along with Phoebe’s
shocked reaction to suggest that she has been killed.
Our stylistic influences for our production were the 1996
horror ‘scream’ and ‘sinister’, released in 2012. We had studied the ‘call’
scene from scream, where the female character is talking to a mysterious man
whilst home alone. Her confident, cheerful manor instantly changes when the man
says ‘I want to know who I’m looking at’, she then becomes nervous and
venerable which is shown by her worried expression and cautious body language. There
is also a close-up of her as she freezes, along with tense music that fades in.
This is a key scene that we focused on in our extract, from this we developed a
sequence where the lead character is seen to be upbeat until she receives a
call from an unknown number. This then cuts on to a close-up of her as slow,
deep music fades in which hints danger and adds mystery, as the audience are
unaware of who’s calling. The overall
use of sound and editing in ‘Sinister’ inspired our group and especially myself
as editor, the music used in the ‘home videos’ is both disturbing and intense,
and the scenes are very dark. I added this to the end of the scene to show the
contrast between the innocent, happy teenagers to the gruesome murder.
Our focus for our extract was editing, as the member in charge
of editing I added and changed certain aspects of the scene to enhance it. I
first did this by taking the rough, shaky clips of the road and trees and
combining them to create a hand-held, chaotic sequence that introduces our
extract. This, along with the added sound of sirens and a crowd creates a
serious atmosphere and provokes the audience to question what is happening. There
are many clips like this that rely on editing, such as the mobile laying on the
bed, the use of dark music suggest something threatening about the phone call
and without this music would seem unusual and confusing. To expand, the montage
of the two girls talking in a bedroom reflects their normal, teenage characters
and a standard afternoon of two friends, which many teenagers can understand
and relate to.
To conclude, I believe that our film extract both conforms
to the horror/thriller genre and appeals to our target audience. The extract
shows two average teenage characters victimised by an escaped murderer which
before hand shows them participating in typical daytime activities such as
watching the television, going on the computer and using their mobile phones,
which all subconsciously connect a young audience to these characters. The extract
also gets the viewers thinking about the mysterious criminal shown at the beginning
and gets them to think about who he is, why he’s shown and if he is responsible
for the girls murder at the end of the scene.
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