Edison and Conor's Film Studies

Edison and Conor’s Film Studies-Lock Up

I am going to analyse our film and cover the two out of the four elements such as the cinematography and mise-en-scene and what tell you what makes this short film affective and provoke the audience.

Firstly our film starts off with a basic fade in medium shot of me sitting down with my dog watching a horror movie, as I’m still watching the movie the camera moves position but still in the current shot. After a while I get a phone call from my friend Gerald whilst the movie is still going on, at this point we decide to put the camera in a different position and switch it to a long shot to show that it’s just me a the dog in the room. As I’m still on the phone all I can hear is heavy breathing so I was quite curious of what was happening, after the breathing there was a two second pause and you could hear Gerald say is “Knock Knock”. Right after there’s a Knock on my door and the dog starts running out barking, at this point I was quite shocked and stood up and went to answer the door. When I stood up we placed the camera right at the back of the room to show my dog running out the door, this should the audience curious of who might be the door. As I walk out of the room the camera is in a different position at a medium shot to show me walking towards the door, but when I get near the door we decide to do a point of view because it makes the audience feel like they’re in the film and allows them see what I see from my perspective.

When I’m about to open the door a hand slides against the door window whilst I’m still on a point of view, this is effective because you don’t expect it and it makes the audience feel shocked. As I open the door the camera is outside looking towards the door to show that no one is there, this makes the audience feel curious of what might happen, whether it’s a trap or not. Then it goes back to a point of view as I look out on my left no one is there, then as soon as I look on my right Gerald jumps out of nowhere and scares me. That’s when I realise that Gerald was just pranking me, but I was quite angry because it wasn’t that funny and this was shown by my facial expression whilst me and Gerald was talking and to show this we had a 180 degree shot as the camera over Gerald shoulder. But we thought that we was alone until Gerald gets stabbed from the behind as shown when the camera is positioned behind the killer but you can’t identify him/her. This should effect the audience in an emotional way because I just witnessed my friend just die in front of me, so I panicked and quickly ran inside and shut the door.

When I was in the house I in the corner terrified this shown as we had a close up shot of my facial expression but it also shows the knife scratching the door window. As I looked away from the door the killer was walking towards me with a knife, we chose to do a high angle at this point to show that the killer is more powerful and this makes the audience worried of what might happen to me. I panicked so much, I tried to fight by picking up a weight and using it as a weapon but I was defenceless. Then there was a close up of the killer dropping the knife and medium shot of me lying down died. Finally for the last shot we used a close up shot to reveal the killer but he had a hockey mask on.

Moving on to Mise-en-scene, we start off with the light off whilst I’m watching the horror movie and when I get the phone call I turn on the lamp to that I safe at this point and it makes the audience feel comfortable. The second prop we used a knife that the killer used to kill me, this is effective towards the audience because it makes them feel scared and unconfutable. For the third prop we used fake blood when I was lying on the floor to make it look realistic and believable. Finally for the last prop we used a hockey mask for the killer so then it doesn’t reveal his/her identity, so to the audience the killer remains a secret.