Blackbox TV shortfilm - ZOMBIE

 

At 3:18 the camera cuts rapidly between around 4 or 5 different shots, once the boy is hit it cuts to a black screen, this builds up a huge amount of tension for the audience and also leaves them wondering what has happened to the victim

At 4:20 I liked the use of the quick cuts between the camera shots as it helped build suspense, this use of parallel editing will be ideal within our film to help quickly create tension for the audience in a short space of time.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Documentary Scenes Research

Here I have done some research into the documentary scenes of the film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, our original idea was to create a horror film that incorporated scenes that would appear to be from a real documentary but we decided to change this upon further thought into what we wanted our film to be about, in case we decide to change our minds we decided it would be a good idea to research into a film that has used this style in order for us to gain a basic understanding of how it could be done if we changed our idea.

Brief

10. A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options:

• a poster for the film;
• a radio trailer for the film;
• a film magazine review page featuring the film.

Plot Plan

The initial idea for our film was that of a found footage film; the entire film is based upon a serial killer recording their killing of a young woman, the protagonist. The idea originated from the idea that a serial killer may want to keep a record of his or her killings as many other serial killers do based upon our research. This idea would create an eerie feel to the overall short film and would create a sense of stalking. The problem that we found through a large amount of discussion came about the fact that having a film composed entirely of found footage can be almost boring as the audience only see the story from one perspective, the idea for our film also does not lend its self to found footage particularly well as creating a found footage film is normally from the perspective of the protagonist rather than the antagonist that we wanted our characters to be. Another issue with using a found footage film for our initial idea is that found footage films often take a long time to build up suspense and attachment to characters in the film and a short film of about five minutes does not really work for the most part with found footage films as it is a very short period of screen time.

After deciding to not have a solely found footage film we decided that a hybrid of a usual horror film and a found footage film from the perspective of the serial killer. This mixture of both genres of films would work well together as we can get to know the protagonist who has just moved into a new house while knowing that they are being watched by what the audience assume is some kind of stalker. This sense of dramatic irony helps show without actually saying so that the protagonist is being watched by the antagonist. Having both genres of film also helps to be able to use camera angles and effects to our advantage, by creating a sense of unease and trepidation from the protagonist that we would not be able to convey with just using the found footage from the antagonist.