Final Film

This is our final film for our media A2 course.

Our title sequence is black and white which we thought emphasised the binary opposition in our film: good VS evil. We thought the transition of the title sequence should be slow to emphasise tension. Our establishing shot is a long shot of Livy walking along the car park to her car in a short white dress connoting her innocence and her femininity and attracting the male gaze. the wind creates an eery atmosphere and the darkness and shadows give an impression that something is amiss. Next we cut away to a voyeristic shot through the tree line to Livy walking along, this gives the feeling that Livy is being watched and we see this from our antagonists, Harriets, perspective. We then see a mid shot of Livy looking over her shoulder implying she is feeling uncomfortable like she knows someone is looking at her but she is trying to ignore that feeling (hence the caption on the poster).  We then have an extremem close up on Livy's phone of a text she is going to spend explaining that she needs to go home a different route. This shot is used to explain the narrative to our audiences and how the narrative unveils itself. Moving on to the mid shot of Livy shivering in her car, this could be that "hairs standing on end" universal feeling our audiences can empathise with when they feel scared or tense. This shot adds to the tension as by use of dramatic irony, we know she is being watched, and she is just starting to feel it herself. The next poignant shot is the shot of Livy's eyes in the rear view mirror where she is unaware Harriet is standing behind her. We blurred harriet out by use of depth of field showing Livy is unaware of her presence. Finally in this scene we see Livy pull away unaware of Harriets presence next to her car. We felt this shot was particularly creepy as dramatic irony has the audience feeling like screaming at Livy telling her to look behind her - Typical of a horror film. We chose not to have Harriets face shown as it creates more of an enigma as we know less abut her as we cannot see her facial expression and therefore we fear her more.

Our next scene is outside Escot House as we see another voyeristic shot through the window watching Livy's car suddenly stop in the road. This makes the audience assume Harriet is responsible.  Livy gets out of the car and checks the engine - not typical of a female protagonist. So there is an element of feminist attitudes in our film which will please the female audience. She tries to ring home but cannot because she hasn't any signal, we showed this through sound effects on iLife. We then zoom over to the house adding a sound effect to emphasis its forbidding nature. We used pathetic fallacy by the thunderclap and thunder roll sound effects to add to the forbidding element and the isolation of the house by the footsteps sound effect being so loud in amongst the silence. We also added the door squeaking with a defining thud which we felt connoted the "there is no escape" feel.

We next see Livy in the Library where we used the lighting to be quite dim which typical represents an old haunted house. The mise en scene of the library is all old pictures which has been used in horror films to connote its age and the deceased people who have lived within the house. Then we go to a shot of Livy looking at the books and then the piano is played eerily so Livy runs out of the room feeling quite creeped out.

Livy explores the basement after hearing some footsteps, the metal gate looks almost like jail bars which connotes the forbidding element and the age of the house. The basement is a typical setting for a horror film as it smothering and really connotes the "no escape" motif running throughout our film. She passes a mirror where she jumps at her own reflection and then notices an apple on the chair. The apple we thought could signify, through cultural experiences, evil. This is by references made to apples in films such as "Snow White" and in the bible the apple represents sin. Livy looks back up in the mirror and see's Harriet standing behind her and the sound effect makes it jumpy. She drops the apple and we shot a close up of it rolling on the floor. We then see Livy running back out of the basement and Harriet slowly walking behind her - almost mockingly teasing her like a cat and mouse. Harriet walks slowly through the gate and we added a sound effect where it emphasises her presence being evil. We cut away to Livy running into another room and slamming the door with a heart beat loudly pumping, which creates tension. We cut away to Livy and Harriet which adds to the chase scene being important and tense. Livy slowly opens the door with a close up on her hand, we then see a point of view looking out the door from left to right to left again where Harriet suddenly appears and then blackout. This leaves the ending as an enigma and the audience is left wondering why or how harriet got there unnoticeably.

Jono and I chose sound effects which we felt wither created tension or conveyed the forboding nature of our film. We used non-diegetic and diegetic sounds, contrasting them with total silence - which shown to work well in our audience feedback on facebook. We used cut aways and jump cuts throughout our film as we felt it made it more realistic, therefore gripping the audience more and built the tension up better. We edited our clip to have a reddish tinge throughout the scenes in the house which connotes the passion, danger and blood that horror films revolve around. We used dark lighting throughout as the shadows and darkness are instantaneously recognisable to the audience as frightening. We used short camera shots to build tension up effectively, many shots of Livy's expression so the audience empathise with her and sometimes shakey shots which are used lots in horror in films such as "The Blaire Witch Project".