Final Cut - The Speculum

Evaluation Question 7

From completing my preliminary tasks, I realised how I could use different shot types and camera angles to create different atmospheres for the audience effectively. Some of the shots I used in my preliminary task has been replicated in my final film as I wanted to create the same effect.

A mid-shot was used in my preliminary video and my final film to show the audience the reaction of a characters through their facial expressions. We chose key moments in both videos where we would we thought there was something big to react to. In the preliminary task it was jacks reaction to the teacher finding the drugs, and in the film opening it was the girl finding the distorted photos of herself in the photo book. These two moments show the audience the character’s reaction, which makes the audience react to the situation each character is in, this allows the audience to feel immersed within the action they are seeing.

Match on action was a big part in our film opening and without doing it in my preliminary task it certainly wouldn’t be as effective as it is in the film opening. I used match on action when Jack goes to open the door as the first shot is outside the room when Jack opens the door and the second shot is inside the room where Jack carries on opening the door. Smooth match on action is key because it means the audience are not thrown out of the action and it allows them to get engrossed in the film. Bad match on action reminds the audience that they are watching a film and the atmosphere is immediately lost. This is why it was key for our film opening to have great match on action. We used a lot of match on action in our film to build the atmosphere and to build the tension.an example of this Is when Elizabeth is flicking through the pages of the photo book and the camera switches to an extreme close up on the photo book when the distorted photos are visible, this highlights the disturbing photos and builds the tension. We had to match up the flicking of the pages in the photo book so the audience were not thrown out of the action so they could feel the full suspense of our film opening. 

Evaluation Question 6

Film Evaluation - Question 6

Evaluation Question 4 and 5

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Storyboard Developments

Having finished our first film draft, we decided to include a few more shots that would enhance our horror film opening, mostly adding close ups to vary the types of shots and also to draw attention to the key of our story line. We firstly would like to include a series of news articles flashing, much like they do in the opening of 'Red Dragon'. This would provide the audience with a back story of the location and why it is a threat to the new owners.

(Red Dragon)

Secondly, we would like to add another close up of the box which would be around shot 9 of our previous story board. 

Thirdly, to make the attic seem more threatening and supernatural we are going to include close ups of dolls that would be filling the space of the attic she is exploring. They would be spliced into the film so that the reveal of the creepy kid is emphasised more as a scary thing.

 Finally, we are going to build on the existing close up of the photos as we felt it was not disturbing enough. We will do this by taking the photos of the girl and gradually making the photos more disarranged e.g. scratching the eyes out of the photos.

The Speculum - Script

The Speculum - The Script

Shooting Days

Sound and Music

Wardrobe Choices

Wardrobe Choices


The Child:

The child in the film will be aged between 7-9, this means that because of the innocence of the age we can play on this in the film. The pink feminine colour plays up the child-like characteristics, as ours is a modern horror we felt best to use jeans and a top instead of a dress, also because to give our film a more gothic feeling it will be filmed in the winter. This means it will be easier to bring that ‘scare’ factor.

The white t-shirt connotes innocence and purity. The brown boots add to the effect of the outfit as they finish it in a darker way, a subtle hint to the plot twist to come.

The wig we used was brunette/red this is because we wanted to have a natural colour that matched with our autumn setting. The colours of brown red and orange are all autumn colours that all connote warmth.

The Father:

The father in our film is quite young, this means that’s for him to be wearing a suit it would not fit the image we are going for. He is quite wealthy and this is shown in the way he dresses. A checked shirt and colour matching trousers shows his co-ordination, blue is quite a cold colour and foreshadows the events to come. To show that it’s a modern film and fits our genre he wear trendy trainers, which are the same colour match as the rest of the clothes.

This subverts our expectation of a single father; he seems to have everything together.

The fact that the father is quite young and because we don’t have older actors available to us so we have to use friends and family and even our self means that we had use our own clothes for our scene, we chose white as a base colour for the jumper because we felt that this was a good colour to show up against the dark tones and backgrounds of the film.

 

The Estate Agent:

The estate agent in the film will be female, we felt for her to wear a pant suit it would make her more masculine and we don’t have a female lead in the film already. Therefore we chose a skirt and blazer combination. We chose a woman to show how far modern society has come and how women are capable of typically ‘masculine’ jobs. Brown/burgundy has been used to connote autumn and warmth.

This plays up the already known ‘motherly’ attachment that the child no longer has. Because of the scene with the estate agent being outside in the night time, the outfit wasn’t as important as the others, greens and blues were used to show the nature side of it as well as the browns for warmth, she is a kind hearted person and this outfit shows that to the viewer, especially as she is the only female figure of the film.