Throughout the short film, continuity editing is seen as to allow a cause and effect pattern to take place. The beginning consists of the title credits, featuring the production company and director name and title of the film. The font used looks prestigious and well-written, as opposed to Comic Sans, for example. This makes it look professional. The non-diegetic dubbed sound of music, which is called ‘Une année sans lumière’, a song by Arcade Fire. The song is calm and quite, which creates a gloomy mood, but not a scary one, which again lulls the audience in to a false sense of security. The atmosphere soon changes however, as Holly believes she sees something in the forest she is about to enter. I thought about mise en scene a lot, in the production of my short film. I wanted to create Holly as a stereotypical geek; therefore the costume she wore was intended to reflect this. The checked shirt, buttoned to the top and sleeves rolled down, is iconic of ‘geeky’ attire. This was to reflect her personality as being reserved and shy as opposed to outgoing. This is contrasted by the antagonist’s costume, with him wearing a tracksuit with sport attire such as ‘Nike’, which is iconic of the ‘chav’ subculture, who are stereotypically violent and unfriendly. The first scene in the short film consists of Holly walking along a narrow piece of grassy land. At a straight angle and medium close-up, the camera backward tracks her as she walks toward the audience, who aren’t aware of the place she’s going, as her destination is behind the camera. The camera, still in the same shot (so no edit), pans left as Holly seems to see something in the distance, behind the camera, already creating some mystery. The camera pans to an extreme long-shot of the forest, which is the setting in which the diegesis is set. The setting itself, a forest, is iconic of psychological thriller/horror films as it is the perfect setting to hide antagonist’s in, including monsters, ghosts amongst others; it is also a place which a fear is built in to us, due to the mystery behind them, and how travellers in the past would report strange sounds (such as an owl, for example). It connotes mystery, something which scares us. Furthermore, forests can also be disorientating which not only means that it’s easy for the protagonist to get lost there, it is also a place which would be hard to escape from.
From the previous backwards tracking shot, and then pan to reveal what the protagonist was looking at, the camera then cuts to an extreme-long, low angled POV shot. This reveals that Holly had seen something in the trees, and sparks concern in the audience as well as fear and mystery. The angle was low to denote the posture of the antagonist, whose eyes the audience are looking through, as being crouched down, trying to stay hidden, highlighting the fact that he’s stalking her, basically. To enhance the POV, the diegetic sound of heavy breathing has been dubbed on, as well as the non-diegetic background music, which is intentionally disturbing and abnormal, in order to create an uncomfortable atmosphere. Holly walks right past the antagonist, with this scene utilising continuity editing from the last, and she is thereafter represented in a low angled long shot as she becomes closer to the antagonist, whose head movements are denoted through a pan to the right, to show that he is staring at Holly. Furthermore, as you can see in figure 1, the narrative style is depicted on-screen, as well as the revelation of the antagonist’s plans, through the mise en scene. As the antagonist moves his head to follow Holly’s movements, we can see that there are lots of leaves and foliage in the way, which Holly is about to “walk in to”. The foliage is intentionally web-like, connoting that she is walking in to the antagonist’s trap, so already, deconstructing the short film, the audience know that the antagonist wants to harm the protagonist.
The camera then dissolves, depicting a lapse in time since the last shot. Holly can be seen, in a LA LS, to have her phone out, as she is talking to her mother about her taking a short cut and that she will “be alright”, an example of ironic playfulness with the audience realising the antagonist’s plans understanding it. It also puts the audience in to a false sense of security as Holly has contact with someone who could help her, and that she genuinely believes that she will be safe. Throughout these scenes, to make the diegesis believable and realistic, ambient sound has been left in, such as the sound of birds and the wind swaying the trees, thereafter shaking leaves. Other ambient sound has been added, such as bird songs to sections where in one scene there may be birds making lots of diegetic ambient sound, where the next scene may not, which, if placed together, the two scenes would detach the audience from the short film because there is a sudden drop of a certain sound, unexpectedly. As the camera pans to follow Holly’s actions, the camera fades to white, again to depict a time lapse. She is now putting her phone away. In the next shot, following a cut edit, there is a straight-angled ELS of Holly, who walks towards the camera until she is at a long-shot range. Noticing something to her left (right of the screen, for the audience), the camera then pans right, revealing a set of keys hanging from a branch at a LA close-up. The pan creates the keys the focus of attention, because they are key to the narrative, as they help to progress the narrative further. The camera then pans, whilst slightly tilting, to show Holly’s face as she has picked up the pair of keys. This is because the look of confusion on her face is also key to character development as it creates the sense of her not knowing what is going on.
Thereafter, the conventional use of a fade to white, with the dubbed non-diegetic “woosh”-ing sound reveals a flashback sequence; connoting that she is thinking back to the past. To emphasise the fact that it’s in the past, there is a sepia effect added to the flashback sequence to highlight it’s movement away from reality. The shot thereafter is a straight-angled long-shot, showing the antagonist and protagonist on the bed, with the protagonist handing John some keys. This is significant as it reveals that they are close and that she trusts him, with their closeness seen in the frame, as they are close to one another, it is hinting that they are in a relationship. The mise en scene suggests that they are in the bedroom, due to the bed, which is significant because it is a personal place which suggests that the two are close. Afterwards, there is a fade to white once again, allowing the audience to recognise that the flashback is now ending. There is now a mid-shot at a high angle (the angle shows Holly’s weakness in the situation) of Holly looking distressed and looking around in fear. This is shown through a series of cuts – match-cut-on action’s to be precise. The hectic use of cutting, whilst also following continuity editing, creates a hectic atmosphere to highlight Holly’s confusion, terror and anxiety, as she feels like she’s being watched and therefore swinging around to look in all different directions. Thereafter, she walks hastily away, her body language suggesting that she’s still self-conscious about being watched. This is shown through a pan, at a LA/MS to show that she is leaving the setting. There is a fade to black in to the next scene where Holly is represented at a straight angled extreme long shot, with the time slowed down by half. This connotes the protagonist’s disorientation, and is emphasised when a twig snaps (diegetic sound) where she quickly looks in the direction of where the sound came from, when the camera also suddenly cuts to that general area. This is now a POV shot and startles her out of her trance-like state as well as the audience’s, who have been given a calm slowed down atmosphere where it doesn’t seem likely that anything will happen – lulling them in to a false sense of security. The quick cut edit, basically, startles the audience as it would the protagonist. Ensuing this shot, Holly then runs out of shot, where a cut edit follows. This shows that no considerable amount of time has passed since the last shot, and a hand-held tracking shot, of Holly running away, follows. This is up to interpretation as to whether it is a POV shot, as it doesn’t really look like one. However, it was intended to be a POV shot as the diegetic sound of heavy breathing can be heard over the shot.
Another fade to black follows this shot, as Holly, represented at LS/SA comes to a halt, slowly, as she sees something off-screen. The camera is situated so that it can see behind the protagonist, also, to reveal that she is no longer being chased, and is therefore safe for the moment. The camera slowly pans to track Holly’s movement to the right of the camera frame, which creates suspense as the audience is delayed in seeing what she seems so worried and confused about seeing. The camera continues to pan, revealing a shirt hanging from a tree branch, similar to the one she is wearing. As Holly goes to pick it up, the camera cuts to a low angled mid-shot to allow a closer look at the shirt, as it is important to the cause and effect narrative development, and Holly’s face. The camera begins to pan-in to her face, and a flashback follows. Again, the fade to white is used, and the bleached sepia effect is seen to allow the audience to recognise that it is a flashback. There is a low angled mid-shot of John, who speaks diegetically. He hands over a bag, and a cut follows, now showing Holly at a HA MS, who takes out the shirt, which is the same as the one she found hanging from the tree in the present. This is an example of conventional stylistic usage of conversations, when the two characters are detached emotionally from one another. Although they go out, I wished to make it so that they weren’t really all that close, as it is later revealed that Holly was often beaten by John.
After yet another fade to white, Holly is in the present day. Time, however, has progressed during the flashback, as she’s moved to a different setting in the diegesis whilst remembering the past. She is represented in a high angle, again to connote that she is weak and powerless against the antagonist and her fate. Another diegetic sound of a twig snapping can be heard, which is followed by Holly getting up and instead of running away, she runs towards the sound. This is a sudden change in her personality as she is now willing to confront the problem, and not run away from it. She runs in to the thick forestry, where match-cut-on actions can be seen to continue the continuity editing. There is an extreme long shot at a Dutch angle, as Holly runs towards the camera, to a LA MS, and runs off screen. The camera cuts to another Dutch angle at a mid-shot, as she looks around looking for a way out. The Dutch angle connotes that, once again, she is disorientated, but this time it’s due to the thick forestry limiting her movement and vision, not fear. Another cut follows at a normal angle, HA MS. The camera pans right to follow her movement, as she manages to find her way out of the bush to a path, where the shot ends with a long shot, straight angled and over-the-shoulder. The antagonist can be seen in the background. However, for all the audience know he could be someone to save her. However, the fact that he has a baseball bat and the diegetic dubbed sound of an eagle flying overhead connotes that he is a predator and that he is eventually going to kill her. She is the prey. The camera cuts to a medium close-up, at a straight angle, of Holly’s face, to reveal emotion, which is fear, on her face. The camera then cuts to a medium shot of John, the antagonist, at a low angle. The baseball bat, a prop within the mise en scene, can be seen clearly, backing up his violent tendencies, as well as him spitting, which is a vulgar act that is frowned upon in modern society. This act of spitting on the floor was intended to show that he, basically, isn’t a very nice person. Because of problems faced with re-shoots, I initially filmed it wrong and couldn’t re-shoot it. Basically the scene looked odd, because when the camera cut from Holly to John, they where both in the centre, when really they needed to be on opposing sides. In the end, I ended up reversing the footage of John, so that I could place him on the left hand side, opposing Holly who was on the right. This was because, during filming, I failed to take in account the 180 degree rule, and I had to salvage it in post-production. You can see, by the top the antagonist is wearing, that the shot has been reversed. As you can see, the ‘AIR’ (for ‘Nike AIR’ brand) logo is backwards, which is odd if it is noticed. However, it is not easily noticed, and even I sometimes forget that I reversed it, and I bet even you didn’t notice that it had been reversed, until I mentioned it. This is why I decided to leave it in the final film, because it worked, and was too subtle to notice.
Following the previous shot, the camera cuts to a close up of Holly’s face, still staring at John from a distance. There is then the usual fade to white, where the past is represented through the use of a Sepia effect. The conventional non-diegetic “whooshing” can be heard again, as the audience will be familiar with this sound when being confronted by a flashback sequence. There is a long-shot of Holly, who is in the background but also the centre of focus, with John occupying the foreground at the outer limit of the frame to the left, at a low angled medium close up. They exchange diegetic dialogue where Holly breaks up with John, and it is shown that John is upset and angry, also, at this. To show that time has progressed in the flashback since she tried to break up with him, I decided to add another fade to white edit, but still continued with the flashback sequence. In this shot, it is revealed that Holly suffers domestic violence from John as, when she tries to leave, he grabs her and throws her to the couch. A cut follows (for continuity purposes a cut has been used to show no significant amount of time has passed) this to represent John, with Holly off-screen, at a low angled mid-shot, as he punches Holly. This violence, however, is implied violence as the camera also fades to white as the act is happening, and Holly is actually off-screen (she was actually behind the camera, behind the scenes, and John punched a pillow). However, the diegetic sound of Holly screaming and pleading with John connotes that she has been hit by him.
After the fade to white to the present time, Holly is seen to have sat down at a tree. She has submitted to him, as she knows she can’t win. She is represented at a high angled long shot and the camera then pans left to reveal John walking on-screen. He is shown at a medium close-up at a low angle to reveal his power in the current situation. After all, he had planned this eventuality and has the weapon, so is in control of the situation and the power is in his hands. Following this, he begins to talk (diegetic sound) whilst swinging his bat, which is significant as it connotes that he’s impatient and truly wants to harm the protagonist. He begins talking about killing her, in a cliché sort of way, but it is cut short as he states “and now I’m going to kill you”. The camera then cuts away from this as he begins to approach Holly, to give a wider view of the diegesis. Holly can be heard to be pleading with him to “not do this”, which he doesn’t listen to. He can be heard to say “I love you” before he kills her, which highlights his madness, that he’d kill someone he loves. Thereafter, as he swings the baseball bat to attack Holly, the camera pans to the right, again to leave the violence to the audience’s imaginations. It is, once again, implied violence. The diegetic sound of Holly’s scream again connotes that he’s hit her, as well as with the sound of the baseball bat hitting something hard, which emphasises this. The camera slowly fades to black, where a quick cut to a baseball bat, with a bit of camera shake, is shown at a straight angled close-up. It is covered in blood, and the camera is supposed to represent a POV shot of Holly, as she has just hit the floor (hence the camera shake) and the bat has been dropped by John, who has fled the scene. Following this is the end credits, which at this stage feature no music, but the final version will most likely feature happy, up-beat music. This will be inspired by the Reservoir Dogs’ ‘ear scene’ in which happy music is played during a harsh, violent scene. This will leave the audience with many emotions. The music will make them feel happiness, but the events that happened prior to the ending credits, such as the killing of the protagonist, will also leave them feeling shocked, horrified, scared and in despair. This will confuse them, and the music, hopefully, will make them feel like the antagonist – happy at the death of the protagonist. I aim to play with the audience’s emotions.
Word Count: 3,081
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