Q1 - Reflective Evaluation - Isabel Wong

Logo from an existing film

This is the logo of GHOST HOUSE PICTURES, I really appreciate this logo as it effectively scares the audience before the actual film starts. It first slams the door loudly and violently and the camera soon zoom into the keyhole of the door then we see the skull behind the keyhole which gives the audience a sort of creepy feeling. Corrosion on the keyhole even creates the sense of eeriness.

Our opening logo

This is the logo we use for our horror film. As shown in the opening of our film, red balloon is one of the little girl's toys and here we have linked the story with our productions title which might be able to give a sense of interlinked. This is even effective in foreshadowing the story our film is going to present to the audience as the red balloon could be said to have hinted the characteristic of our main character. We even use a gloomy cloudy sky as the backdrop, this is because we would like to create an effect which is called pathetic fallacy (a commonly used literary term). We sew the seed of a horrible and disturbing story by showing audience a gloomy sky in order to lead them into a right mood before the film begins. One shouldn't be missed is the red balloon is not only being used for hinting our main character (the little girl)'s characteristic but also to create a horrifying atmoshpere. When a red balloon goes along with a gloomy sky, this creates an eerie sense as balloon is supposed to appear in fun fairs or somewhere joyful. But here the balloon is placed in such unhappy background and the colour of red even enhances the mood we would like to carry out which is letting our audience to interpret it as blood.

Titles from an existing film

This is an image from the Grudge's title, although it's of a very special design, it does create the mysterious feeling effectively, since the colour of the film title looks like blood. The font used here makes the title so clear to be read and seen, thus people will take it seriously and can foresee something bad is going to happen. Since the title is presented in Japanese which means 'curse', different audience will then receive different sense of anxiety. To Westerners, since they don't really get the meaning of the words, the sense of anxiety is then strengthened, furthermore, they are able to get ready to receive the Asian horror. For Asian, the effect of this logo is less complicated, as we can get the information of this film is originated from a 'curse' by reading the title. To me, the contrast of the two colours here makes me thrilled. Beige is always seen as a peaceful colour which is usually used on the ceiling of Japanese houses, but when the blood red title sort of crashes with beige, it looks like the bloody red is going to destroy peace which makes me feel uneasy.

Our titles

This is a shot I picked from our own title. Throughout our title, we've put quite a lot of the murdered girl's childhood clips so as to make our plot clear to the audience. Since the girl is murdered and dragged to a local park, we've chosen clips showing the girl playing in a park to link the upcoming story we are presenting. In this shot, the girl is playing a swing which is going to appear in our film again, so we can see our title is completely interlinked with the story we are presenting as we use similar locations for our title and film. In terms of props, we've also made use of resembling costumes to make our film more interrelated. The girl in the title wears a white dress which is also worn by our actress in the film. The shot is sort of unsteady as well, and basically we have done this on purpose as shaky shots make the clips more like real life footages, also to create a mysterious mood to our film. When we are doing editing for the title, we even make it jumpy and fast so as to arouse the audience's interest in knowing what has happened on the girl and why is it related to our film. We tend to make our plot clear by showing the fragmental clips of the girl's childhood but also to enhance a mysterious and incomplete feeling to our audience. As our film is called 'The Lullaby', our background music for the title is a simple melody with only the sound of piano and nearly in the end of the title we've added another piano track to create a sense of gradual threat. Although there is no actual horrifying shot in the title, when the shots of the murdered girl playing and smiling come together with our music, a creepy feeling is then created. Soliloquy of the murdered girl is also put in the end of the title to allow the audience to understand the story completely.

Image from an existing sub-genre
This is an image from the film Ghost (1990), although its sub-genre is ghost, it's actually a love story between human and ghost which can be called as ghost romance. What we see in the picture is very different from images we usually see in ghost films, it shows the girl is kissing the ghost, while the most common reaction of characters in ghost films is scared or screaming. This image has made the relationship we think between human and ghost a breakthrough, as we would never imagine human can fall in love with ghost before the release of the film. Furthermore, it's rare to see human and ghost share the same eye level in ghost films, but here, the intimacy of them allows them to share the same eye level and look at each other face to face rather than human (victim) is being watched. Also, the ghost Sam looks just the same as we look, he as a ghost carries no scary element, this makes him one of the unique and likable ghosts who doesn't pose any threat to people.

Image that establishes sub-genre

This is a shot which establishes the sub-genre of our film. In this shot, we've made use of mist which is one of the conventions commonly used in ghost films. The use of mist here is to enhance the audience's uncertain feeling about what is going to happen next as the murdered girl hasn't showed up in the film yet. To create a better effect, we have only done a close up of the boy's feet here but not showing audience the environment or any further detail to arouse their interest in knowing the development of the film. Our actor's gesture of making his feet tremble even helps demonstrating a subtle thrill to our audience.

Image from an existing film
This is an image from The Grudge, Karen here is being watched by the ghost while she doesn't notice she is in danger. The appearance of the ghost is so thrilling that she has a long black hair covering her pale face, this tells the audience that she is a ghost who might threat us or kill us. The dim light on the ghost even makes her more mysterious and creates the feel that she's watching Karen in a darker corner and waiting to kill her. This is a common angle used by most of the ghost films, as they enhance the vulnerability of the characters with them not noticing someone is behind them.

Image that establishes character

This over the shoulder shot is a key shot which establishes our characters of the film. As a victim, the wears a casual pyjama with a white T-shirt. The use of costume and colour here is to present the innocence of our victim since he is taken to a strange park right while he is asleep. The use of high angle over the shoulder shot is to show audience a clearer picture of who the victim is, since it is clearly shown that the boy is at a lower postition than the murdered girl, and apparently he doesn't notice that he is being watched at the moment.

Image of mise-en-scene from an existing film
It’s the haunted house in the Grudge, the house is packed with loads of old furniture and the colour tone of the house is filled with grey and blue. Apparently, there is only very few daylight reaches the house and no extra lighting is used. Thus quite a lot of shadows and unseen areas are created and this can effectively create the sense of uncertain and mystery to the film which increases the feeling of the victim and the audience are in threat. We can also see the untidy garden outside the veranda, it sort of gives clue that the house is nearly abandoned or isolated, such ‘information’ could create the helplessness when the victim is being trapped in the house nearly in the end of the film. Furthermore, as the haunted house looks no different from the houses and flats we are living in our daily life, the resemblance develops the mutual threat between the victim and the audience.

Image that establishes mise-en-scene

This long shot allows audience to take a clearer look at the place where our victim is taken to. We can see the facilities that children playgounds commonly offer so we have a clue that the boy is taken to a park. This might even hint the park could be the one where the murdered girl is dragged into. What's more, with the gloomy sky and emptiness of the surrounding area, it conceivably creates a sense of abandonment and thus increases the vulnerability of our victim. 

4 Key images from existing films

This is a scene from the Grudge where Yoko get killed in the attic. The scene makes use of high angle shot without showing much detail of the location in order to create threat and mysterious effectively. Since Yoko doesn't know what is in the attic and she wants to find out, such camera shot allows audience to put themselves into Yoko's character, and find out what is in the attic together. But the main effect is to let audience share the same feeling with Yoko, same as Yoko, no one knows what will happen next and what we will see, the sense of threat and tension is then created. Also, the use of lighting is very critical here, dim light with shadows dominate the scene demonstrates the gloominess, this gives the information to audience that no one is going to help if there is anything happens to Yoko, as the sense of abandonment is thus created with the gloomy light. Such effect arouses the interests of audience in knowing what will happen next.

This is the scene picked from the Sixth Sense, with Cole opening the door as he knows the girl ghost in the room needs his help. However, Cole hasn't really got used to the idea of communicating with dead people, it is very clear that he is still very scared even though we can only see his face and palm on the door rail. This is also a common strategy used by horror film directors, they make use of the POV shot to foster the audience to share the feeling of the victim or the main characters. In this case, we are all in the same situation as Cole, we don't know what will appear behind the door, we might try to guess if there will be anything scary pop up to make us jump, this is also why we are getting nervous when watching this scene, Furthermore, there is an absence of daylight in the scene, this is why we assume it is another key scene to scare audience when watching the film. Also, mirror is a common property used in horror film, since it might refelct something spooky or just an effect to make the audience nervous. In this scene, the door rail reflects Cole's face, this is obvious that the director wants the audience to get nervous by seeing the reflection. As well as the door rail, the use of colour here is another strategy to create the atmosphere, as the door is in pale cream colour, we are able to feel the ill atmosphere behind the door since the girl is murdered by her mother.

This is a scene picked from a Hong Kong horror film Haunted School. In this scene, the boy in uniform at the bottom is one of the new students of the school, since some of the new students find something strange about the school, they wonder if the school is haunted or not. But the boy here is telling his friends there is nothing spooky in the school and he doesn't even scared of ghosts if they really appear. Meanwhile, there is a hanging ghost above him but no one can see him in the scene. This is very common at the begining of horror films, the boy here is a provoking character, there is always a provoking character to foreshadow indirectly the unfortunate things which are going to happen on the characters later. The scene makes use of canted angle mid long shot to show the surrounding environment and create the spooky feeling to the audience. By observing the environment of the scene, we can see the location looks like a forest where the sense of abandonment is created. We might relate it to somewhere distant which tells us the school might be located far away from city. Thus when the ghosts start haunting the students later, there is no way for the students to ask for help or to escape.
This scene is picked from 4Bia, a Thai horror anthology consisting of four stories by different directors. This is picked from the first story in the film which is called Loneliness, is about a girl, Pin, isolated in her apeartment with a broken leg after a traffic accident. One night she starts receiving text messages on her phone from an unknown number. It turns out that he is a guy and Pin gets curious and excited. The messages turn more and more time by time until she receives one that says the guy is standing outside her building. The scariest part is the scene I've picked here, Pin asks the guy to send her his picture while she will send him hers as well. Pin takes the photo in where she is sitting in the scene, when she recieves the a picture from the guy, she is shocked as the picture's background is also her apartment, and she finds her back is captured in the picture as well. So she checks her own picture which is just taken minutes ago, and she finds a male ghost standing behind her in the picture, thus she realizes that the 'guy' who keeps texting her in these few days isn't really a human but something undefined. In this scene, although there is nothing on the right side, the director deliberately leaves some space for the 'male ghost', thus the audience start realizing the guy who keeps texting Pin is a ghost and this paves the way for the climax of the part where the male ghost is actually behind Pin. Also the sound here is excellent, as the director makes use of silence throughout the whole story without any background music or sound effect, what we can hear are just the sound of texting and the actual noise from the street outside, Pin also speaks no word throughout the whole part. This allows us to focus on the text messages and the silence somehow makes the audience thrilled when we realize the truth at the end of the story.

4 Key images from our film

This is a shot picked from our film opening, as mentioned, we tend to make use of the opeing to make our plot clear to our audience. So this shot is one of the criticle shots to explain the backstory of our film which is the little girl being murdered and dragged to a local park. Here we give a close up of the newspaper clip is to simply emphasize the headings and we even put an effect to make the shot looks old in order to give information that the murder happens long time ago.

This is one of the shots which establishes convention of the sub-genre of our film. This is a POV shot of the victim when he sees the swings move on their own. Also, we've put a voiceover of a little girl's evil laughter into this shot to establish the first presence of the murdered girl. But we didn't put the girl into the scene yet because we would like to enhance the mystery of our film since neither the victim nor the audience know where the girl is. This is also why we made use of POV shot to limit our audience's vision and allow them to share the fear of our the victim. Furthermore, audience might notice this is not the first time of swings appear in our film, there is actually presence of swings in our opening already. So our audience could instantly get the idea that the strange things happen on the boy are all related to the girl as soon as they see the swings.

Since the murdered girl doesn't appear until nearly the end of the film, audience might be confused about who this boy is. So we make use of this close up shot to give more information to our audience that he is the victim of the film. In this image, there is a nervous gesture on his face and thus audience know that he is scared by the moving swings and conceivably they are likely to get that he is a victim. With all these hints and information, people might start guessing if it is the murdered girl haunting the boy.

This is the end scene of our film. People might notice that throughout the whole film, we tend to create the situation that the boy (victim) being watched by the murdered girl and he doesn't even know when and where the girl will pop up. So is the end scene, we didn't make the murdered girl to be seen by the victim but the victim being killed without noticing. Such situation is more effective in creating tension, when audience are watching it, there are only the audience know what is happening at the moment, but they can't shout or help the victim in front of the monitor, so tension is created between audience due to the sympathy with the victim's helplessness.