Final/Finished Edit of Film - 'Bad Things' - 2mins 11secs

Analysis of Film

Reflective Analysis of Cinematography and Editing of 2-minute Film ‘Bad Things’

After the title ‘A short Film by… Nathan Wilson’ I cut straight into the main scene, without any location shots; with a traditional ‘fade in’ which in Premiere Pro is called the ‘cross dissolve’ to me sitting on the sofa, watching the television. Here is a screen shot:

I made it so you could hear the sound of people talking on the television to confirm that. I did this because I didn’t want there to be any build up and get straight into the action of the scene. During this sequence I used a range of different shots to make the scene more interesting, for example, I used the close up side shot of my face and the extreme close up of my eye to introduce the character or give normality to the scene. See this below:

Seconds before this, I use a variety of separate shots from different angles of me sitting down and picking up the television remote and edited them so they fit together and therefore make fast cuts.

After the phone starts to ring, I show a close up of my feet, I use this because I wanted to expand the variety of different shots I used instead of just having one shot of me walking to the phone. When I answer it, it then cuts to after the phone conversation. I did this so the audience has to guess what the conversation was about. As well as this, I edited it so the music faded from the ‘Dexter’ sound clip to the ‘True Blood’ soundtrack. As the ‘Dexter’ sound clip is a soft and slow type of music and the ‘True Blood’ one is faster, I decided to change it there because the scene goes from calm to exciting and therefore I wanted there to be a connection between what you can see visually; and the non-diagetic sound. Also as I decided to call the film ‘Bad Things’, I wanted a song that related to it therefore I edited it so when it says “I wanna do bad things” in the soundtrack for ‘True Blood’, the film’s title comes up at the same time.

After the phone call near the start, when I am shown running up the stairs as the character of Shawn, I show it from a high angle to suggest he could be in danger if he does what he is going to do. The character doesn’t know he is in danger, but I made it so it is suggested to the audience that he is. As I played two characters Shawn and the Masked Man, I had to do a clone scene near the end; and used ‘Adobe After Effects’ to do this. I used it again later during the scene where the character Shawn was killed; with the blood splatter on the wall and bullet-hole in his  forehead. The reason for using the headshot with blood was because I wanted the audience's reactions to vary and change from feeling suspense to shock and maybe excitement as well. I also used these shots to change emotions of the audience so they feel sympathetically for the character of Shawn and have hate or  dislike towards the Masked Man. I also did this to the two-shot (below, left) to make it clear that there are two different characters in the film as this was the only shot that involved both characters. See below:

 

I also used the software for the title ‘Bad Things’. I used ‘Adobe Premiere Pro’ to edit the final film.

During the running scene in the woods, I used a tripod for all of the scenes, so when I went to edit it, I had to change all of the shots so that they alternated from zoomed in shots to zoom out shots. I also changed the colour to a darker scene; the result was quite good especially because it was filmed in broad daylight. I intended to do it like this because it wanted it to look like a dark and gloomy day rather than a normally dark night.

The point-of-view shots I used because it wanted to create a sort of ‘Blair Witch Project’ experience but I cut it down to short POV clips rather than filming it all in-hand. The low angle shot at the end which shows me as the Masked Man holding and shooting the gun in slow-motion is used to show that the Masked Man is in control is presented as a powerful image at this time. As well as this, I decided to use the 'Colour Emboss' and 'Posterize' effects for the Masked Man shot because I wanted to emphasise the colours around him, but I also wanted him to be have a dark but glowing effect; even though he wears a white mask. Also I wanted it to look like that was his actual face. This shot is also used to make the audience fear him and feel sorry for the character of Shawn. The non-diagetic sound here from the song 'Paradise Circus' by Bristol band 'Massive Attack' is used to emphasise the situation; the segment of it that we hear is the sort of music that is sometimes 'stereotypically used in other films of this genre, thriller. See this here:

The film does have a beginning, middle and end as it is a whole film in its entirety. I consider the beginning to be the scene in my house before the main title of the film, the middle being the scenes that take place in the woods and the end being the section when the character Shawn gets killed. I did have a lot of footage which included a conversation between me and Azeem, which was meant to appear after the part where I answer the phone and say, “hello”, but I decided to later cut it out because the wanted the audience to want to know what the conversation was about – which could effectively create tension.

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Aims and Context for Film

The film is a short film in its entirety. I will be concentrating on the cinematography and editing of the film.

This film will be in the thriller genre and the target audience is people aged 15 and above and for people who like films of this genre

There are two characters, both played by me 1.) the character of Shawn Smith who is a journalist and 2.) the masked killer who will only be in a few shots

The short is about a journalist who is investigating the woods area for suspicious behaviour. He gets in some trouble and runs, where the film ends with devestating concequences.

The film I am making has to creating an atmosphere of suspence, fear and to build tension.