Cinematography And Editing

Our production starts with the company logo fading onto screen and fading off onto our establishing shot.

In our establishing shot we used a dutch angle and a low shot to make the killer look powerful and domineering.

We used a dutch angle to signify that something isn't right as in our research we found this is a common device used in horror films such as Bride Of Chucky (Ronnie Yu 1998) (Above) The character pauses on the stairs to create tension, the killer walks down the stairs past the camera and the shot fades into a shot of the girl. It begins as a close up of her face and slowly zooms out, creating the effect the girl is being watched. It is a high angle shot to create vulnerability and we framed the shot to show the top of the alcove the girl had been placed in because from our other shots this wasn't obvious. This shot is slightly grainy and shaky (Below) however we didn't have time to rectify this.

We then sharply cut to a long shot of a house in black and white to signify this is a flashback, we then cut sharply back to a straight on shot of the girl and back to the house again and then back to the girl. We the cut to a black and white medium long shot in an alleyway of the girl walking towards the camera then the shot cuts back to the girl lying in the cellar. The shot of the girl walking is shown again to provide anchorage that she is having a flashback. Looking back, ideally we could have taken a close up shot of the girls face instead of her lying in the cellar again a show her eyes slightly flickering to connote she is having a flashback or dreaming. Cuts back to alley, shot of girl being kidnapped, cuts back to cellar again then back to alley, shot of girl being dragged round the corner. We originally had the a long shot of the girl lying in the cellar followed by the kidnap scene in the alleyway however after being criticized for having too long shots in our audience feedback and from our genre research we decided to cut the shots into each other to create shorter takes. We took this idea because from watching The Ring when the character goes to open the cupboard it is empty then she has a flashback of the girl dead in there and we thought this was effective.

 We used the black and white because you dream in black and white so this gives the audience anchorage that the girl is having a flashback. Cuts back to the shot of the girl lying in the cellar and fades out.

The next shot begins from around the corner and is a point of view from the killer. We filmed it free-hand however we would have ideally used a piece of equipment such as a steady cam used in Halloween when Michael is walking towards the house (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKLlcI0cWI0). We wanted to use this because it gives a smooth movement rather than a shaky one however due to our budget and being unable to find a suitable alternative we decided to film it free-hand, similar to the style of The Blair Witch Project. We chose an above shot to emphasize the victims vulnerability. Next is a short shot from behind the killer of the girl laying in the cellar and half of the killers leg in the frame and the blade pointing at the girls throat, indicating what is going to happen.

We cut to a close up of the girl beginning to regain consciousness. I feel this shot could have been improved by better framing as the camera is slightly too high so the girls head isn't directly in the middle of the screen(Above). Cuts back to the shot of the girl and killers leg, killer starts to move forward towards the victim we had to take this shot carefully as we wanted to keep the knife as a main focus of the framing. We used the shot reverse shot technique to give our filming continuity however I feel on the shot of the murderer we could have got a clearer framing of the murderer because on the final cut it isn't clear enough however this was difficult due to space restrictions (Below). We used a sharp cut to the title.

We took additional footage so we had choices for our final cut, as in our preliminary task this caused issues because one of the shots we had taken didn't look right in our final cut. In our audience feedback we had been criticized for having too longer takes and not enough shot variety. The extra footage we got proved helpful to adjusting our film to our target audience specifications because we were able to add extra shots to create shorter takes. We rejected our initial idea of having a point of view shot from the killer waking down the stairs however we found the camera too shaky and didn't create the right effect. We were able to overcome this problem with the coverage footage we had taken.