Homework BLK: Film Still and Evaluation

When taking shots, my group decided to focus on both the horror and thriller genres.

For this shot we wanted a location that looked remote and that also had naturally dark and shadowy lighting in order to effectively convey the horror genre to the audience. We thought these two technical codes were crucial in doing so as they both are used in horror films frequently when creating shots and scenes that evoke fear into an audience, along with some mystery and a sense of discomfort. Audiences associate these conventions with the genre and therefore will immediately know how to feel and react to this shot.

What We Did

To acheive this effect, we shot from a slight high angle which created a deep shadow on top of all the books and made it look as if it could almost stretch on forever into the unknown. This adds a horror-style feel to the shot. We also shot more to the left side of the object, (the hand) and not straight on so as to make it appear as if we were looking on from the characters perspective. However we still cannot see the face or body of this person and so we create even more mystery and enigma.

Was It Sucessful?

Personally I do feel this shot was succesful as just from looking at it, it's obvious which genre it belongs to. Also I think the shot is interesting in the sense it sparks many questions such as 'Who does the hand belong to?' and 'Why is this person in an old library?' 'What book do they need and why?'   

Possible Improvements

To improve this shot I think we could have done a number of things, for starters we could have shot on a duller day or blocked out the lighting to make the books themselves even more in shadow. This would emphasise their age and dust and perhaps could have also made the shot look as if it was at night time, which is when most scenes in horror films are shot. If we had more time we also could have thought about the positioning of the hand, altering it in various ways to make it look as if it was grabbing the book or be in a more awkward position to make the audince feel uncomfortable.