Evaluation of Assessment Horror

The final exercise we were set to utilise the skills we had learnt throughout the previous weeks was to recreate an existing horror film (of our sub-genre) which had been created by students of our college. The short film, which follows a basic plot not uncommon to the one that we are looking at creating, was based on psychological elements.

Our task was not only to re-shoot the piece in our own way, but also to edit it so as to have a complete recreation.

The narrative of the original short film is fairly simple: after looking at an 'evil' book, a girl becomes haunted in her house, and searches through rooms to try and find her missing boyfriend. If we consult both that film and our recreation, it is clear to see that the plots are very comparable, with only main difference in that the protagonist's friends are females.

The main differences lie with the varying shots which we decided upon ourselves as we were not completely happy with those in the original. However, occasional shots (such as those down the hallway and in the mirror) are the same, as these create tension or shock the audience.

As the cinematographer of our group, I took the lead in filming our recreation, and so I spent time over the location of each and every shot taken. One of our main aims was to use all the shot types that we had been taught in previous lessons, and I believe we used these to good effect: from the close ups of the girl's eyes to the long shots in the hallway. As well as different length of shots, we used panning, some tracking and varying height of shots to create a sense of loneliness and isolation for the girl. This is best shown in the low angle shot as she walks up the stairs, where the continuity is also excellent.

Unfortunately there are times when shots lacked professionalism, such as in the use of zoom which looked ineffective. This is something which we will attempt to eradicate when we film our final piece, as the camera shots appeared shaky, such as in the bathroom. Also, some shots lacked the quality finish that we would have liked, and we will learn from these. Some of our best shots include the scene in which the girl walks up the stairs, as well as when the girl consults the book. The continuity in the entire film varies massively, although on the whole we allowed ourselves enough shots to keep the film flowing. An improvement that we will make in the future is to take more shots at different angles to allow ourselves more choice in the editing suite.

The composition of the film is something that we knew was very important. To ensure that the film was set out in an aesthetically pleasing way, we used the rule of thirds, which worked to effect in the scene where the girl leaves the bedroom. Composition also meant that props (such as the mirror) were used to good effect, which we believe they were.

The mise-en-scene was something we could have planned for longer, and yet it still worked well. The props, including the book, were relevant to the genre, as was the location, but the lighting was most impressive. The fact that each scene had a hint of darkness and shadow continued to sense of tension and fear throughout.

Overall, our recreation was not only relevant to the original, but showed good continuity, composition and originality which bodes well for our final piece. Despite this, there are things we which will improve on that we learnt when watching back the film, such as the occasional poor shot, but mainly to ensure that we do NOT use the zoom feature at all, as this looks amateurish. Finally though, it was a very good attempt at our first piece, as we know that we can improve in the future.

Josh Murray