Group Evaluation: Directors Commentary

Final Prelim. Clip

Horror Prelim. Construction

For our clip, we decided to subvert from the original film clip as we chose to portray the characters of a brother and sister, whereas in the film clip, the characters of a mother and daughter are used. We did this mainly because as we used actors that we were easily able to access. We decided to use Aamina's house as the location for all our shooting, as her house replicated the one we saw in the original clip. Also, this was a good location as we were all able to meet up easily, as well as the actors. 

Constructing our scene was more challenging than we thought as we came across a few problems. Initially, we had thought that if we follow our shooting schedule, we would be able to get the whole scene shot in that time. However, this didn't go to plan and we ended up spending a total time of 4-5 hours, completing the shooting. This was mainly due to the retakes we had to do for some of the shots, as we wanted them to look exactly like the film clip. Also, the part where the wardrobe door opens, we had initially thought of opening the doors with strings, however this did not go to plan as the strings were visible and would not open the doors as they were too heavy. Despite this problem holding us back, we overcame it due to improvising as Aamina went inside the wardrobe and would open the doors form the inside, when needed. One of the major problems we encountered was the lighting as when we started the shooting, only natural light was coming in the house, which resulted in the lighting looking similar as though in the original clip. However, as we had to retake the banister scene a few times, by the time we got to shooting the wardrobe scene, it had got dark outside and therefore we had to turn the lights on. This heavily affected the outcome of our final clip, as the transition from the banister scene and the wardrobe scene evidently shows the drastic change in lighting. 

Regardless of these issues, our construction went very well as everyone had an input of how we could make the shots look better.We also used a tripod in some of the scenes, however, the majority of our clip used handheld shots, as these were the shots we noticed in the original clip. While filming the whole clip, everyone in the group was able to have a go at shooting a part of the scene, so that we all knew how to use a camera for recording and also because we wanted everyone to have an equal role in the construction of the clip. In our clip, I shot the scene in which the character is walking towards the wardrobe, using a front view tracking shot. We thought that including this would be effective not only because it was used in the original clip, but also because it helps create suspense due to it looking like the character is trying to grab something. 

Finally, in order to edit our footage, we used Premiere to create our final clip. We did this by transferring all our footage onto the system and putting all the shots together. We included lots of transitions from one scene to another, as well as including a variety of special effects and the original soundtrack of the film in the background. We did this as it would make our clip match the original, as well as provoking an intense atmosphere for our viewers. Finally, we uploaded our completed work onto YouTube. 

Horror Prelim. Planning: Shooting Schedule

In order to for us to plan when we should start shooting for our clip, we decided to come up with a timetable which illustrated all the hours of the school day we had free. The yellow boxes indicated the free periods that some of our group members had, in which they could get the resources ready and start filming. The green boxes highlighted the free periods which all of us had free, and lastly, the purple boxes showed all the media lessons we had over the 2 week timetable, which we could use to construct our clip. This was very helpful for us as we could use it to clearly see the times that we were able to shoot, as well as keeping us organised. 

This is the shooting schedule we made which distinctly shows the amount we wanted to spend on each of the shots. As we had already timed out how long each scene was of the original clip, we wanted our clip to be the same length, in order to make it look as similar as possible. In this, the use of camera angles and mise-en-scene is stated in more detail than in the storyboard. This was also a useful resource, as we knew exactly what we had to do and what camera angles had to be used for each scene. 

Horror Prelim. Planning: Storyboard

To plan how and what we're going to do in our preliminary task, we firstly decided to create a storyboard, and jot down our ideas as to what we would want to include in the clip. To make our clip similar to the original, we timed each shot to keep the length of the scene, the same. We also included a brief description about how we would want the mise-en-scene, lighting and sound to be in order to make the overall video seem like the original. All the members of our group made inputs to what should be included in the scene and how it should be shot. This resulted in us having a range of ideas and helping us become prepared for what we had to do. 

Analysis of Horror Clip

For our preliminary task, we chose to recreate the clap scene from the film, ‘The Conjuring’ as we thought that it would be easy to recreate and film in a house. The camera work in this clip is mainly handheld, which makes the overall scene very effective, as it helps to create suspense and prompt that something is about to happen. The lighting of the scene, in general, is quite dark as we can only see the natural light from outside, in the house. This helps to create a ghostly atmosphere and intrigue the audience, into assuming that something is likely to jump out and scare us. In the first scene of the clip, the use of a long shot makes us focus on the character, which enables us to think that something may happen to her. The character is shown to be blindfolded, which adds creates more anticipation, as we are aware that she is unable to see anything, and therefore, something is likely to occur. The next shot consists of a tracking shot, which follows the character as she enters the next room. The sounds we hear in the background is diegetic sound of a gong of a clock. This is effective as before we hear this sound, there is absolute silence. In the next shot, we see the woman walk into the room and having her back towards the cupboard. The mise-en-scene of this shot is very minimal, as this helps keep the audiences view of the character and the cupboard. Also, the lighting in the room isn't fairly bright, as there is only natural light coming in the room. The camera work in this shot starts its focus on the character and then, focuses on the cupboard. This is effective, as it makes clear what the director wants us to look at. A lot of shadows have also been used in this part of the scene, in order to create an uneasy atmosphere. We see a lot of medium and close-up shots as the woman walks towards the cupboard, as this makes the audience keep their focus on the character and add suspense. As the woman is walking, we hear a soundtrack in background, slowly fading into the scene. By the time she reaches the wardrobe, the volume of the soundtrack increases, in order to stimulate fear. Towards the end of the shot, a close-up is used in order to focus on the change of expression of the character as she looks quite happy. However,as she gets closer to the wardrobe, her expression changes as she lifts up the blindfold as seems shocked. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrFT6L4jxdI

This is the link of the original clip of the film. 

Monstrous Feminine and Carrie

Scream (1996)

 ‘Scream’ is another slasher film directed by Wes Craven, who also directed ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’.  The story consists of a serial killer known as ‘Ghost face’, who calls girls and threatens them, before murdering them. The narrative starts off by showing the murder of two teenagers, a boy and girl, which causes their school to be closed, in order to investigate the cause of their death. However, this leads onto a chain of recurring murders.

Scream conforms very well to the typical rules of a slasher film, as to how the characters can survive from the killer. For example, the concept they shouldn’t have sex, drugs, alcohol or say “I’ll be back”. The film is combined with comedy, as well as with the violence of the slasher genre, as Craven wanted to satirize the cliché of the horror genre. This relates to Todorov’s argument that “a new genre is always the transformation of one or several old genres”. The film was considered unique at the time, as it featured characters who were aware of the real world horror films and openly discussed the cliché that scream tried to subvert. This refers to Steve Neale’s claim that “genres are instances of repetition and difference”. This film also follows the conventions of the concept of a slasher film, as it is mainly to do with Innocence vs. Sexuality.  Like other slasher films, there is also an iconic weapon used, which for this instance is a knife, which was also used in Halloween (1978).

This leads onto the Final Girl theory by Clover (1992), which specifically refers to the last woman or girl alive to confront the killer, and the one who is apparently left to tell the story. According to Clover, the final girl shares common characteristics as she is typically supposed to be sexually unavailable or a virgin, who avoids the vices of the victims, for example, sex, illegal drug use, alcohol consumption etc. However, in Scream we encounter subversion to this as towards the end of the film, Sidney has sex with her boyfriend and therefore, no longer stays a virgin. Despite this, she still manages to be the final girl and confront the killer and survive.  Also, according to Clover, the final girl tends to have a unisex name, which the film follows, as the main characters name is Sidney. Another claim made by Clover is that the final girl may likely have a shared history with the killer which, in Scream, is revealed in the end. This is because Sidney’s mum is killed by her boyfriend as his dad was having an extra marital affair with Sidney’s mum. We also come across a similar scenario in Scream 3, where the killer is revealed to be Roman Bridger who is half-brother of the sole survivor, Sidney Prescott.

Psycho (1960) - Analysis of Clip

Clover's Final Girl

The concept of the “Final Girl” was created by Carol Clover which implied the last character left alive in the slasher movie, to confront the killer. A certain set of characteristics is followed, which the first and most obvious one is being a female. Other characteristics are that she would most likely be a virgin and remain fully clothed in the film; she’d avoid sex and probably won’t drink alcohol, smoke or take drugs. Also, she would be the most intelligent one out of the victims and would therefore, survive the horror.

Typically, in films, women are portrayed as being weak and fearful characters and are viewed as a damsel in distress who always needs to be saved. They are stereotyped as a sex symbol and are portrayed to the audience from the male perspective. Furthermore, they are mostly shown to not make it to the end of the film without the help of a man, who are supposedly shown superior as compared to women. However, the Final Girl theory represents some women as strong and smart and has the characteristics of a male hero. These characters, who survive the whole film, while all the other victims, including the men are all killed, tend to be sexually unavailable and have unisex names. This is known as the Clover’s Final Girl theory.

Some examples of the Final Girl in some horror films are: 

Sidney Prescott - Scream 

Laurie Strode - Halloween

Nancy Thompson - Nightmare on Elm Street

Halloween (1981)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Mulvey's Male Gaze

Levi-Strauss' Binary Oppositions Theory

A binary opposition is a pair of related terms or concepts which are opposite in meaning.

Claude Levi-Strauss was a French anthropologist who lived in the early 1900s. He argued that the way we understand certain words doesn’t depend on any meaning they themselves directly have, but mostly by our understanding of the difference between the word and it’s ‘opposite’, or as Strauss referred to it as ‘binary opposite’. For example, our perceptive of the word ‘rich’ depends on the difference between that word and the contrasting word ‘poor’. Binary opposites are used frequently in media text and many action genre films utilise binary opposition in their films.

Some examples of binary opposites are:

• ·         Man/woman
• ·         Good/bad
• ·         Young/old
• ·         Hero/villain

Todorov's Narrative Theory

Propp's Character Theory

Camera Angles