Evaluation of Short Film

Creative Artefact Evaluation: Persuasion

For my f632 creative artefact my aim was to create a short film sequence, looking at representations of mystery and unknown threats. Our film, titled ‘Persuasion’ is in the genre of horror-thriller, the plot of our film follow the character Adam as he wakes up from being unconscious in a dark loft and a spotlight above him. He is confused and quickly realizes he is a hostage, who is then threatened to give information to a mysterious man named Scythe about his former partner Rachael or he would be killed.  This leads to Adam getting violently abused by the man then killed, as he is too loyal to give up any information. While Rachael is represented through a phone suggesting she is also trapped and being held by Scythe somewhere. This also creates a sense of helplessness as Rachael do not doing anything but listen. With this we wanted to make a believable story of an interrogation of sorts, while keeping to the time limits given.

 We wanted the shots to feel quite close up to the character and use POV shots so the viewers could really experience what Adam is. In the opening we tried different ways of reflecting Adams tiredness and confusion, in the end we settled a blurred and hazy effect on the camera, which we and believed came out very well. When we showed this opening to our peers it had the intended effect of confusion and mystery, as they wanted to know who was in the chair and what was going to happen. This opening was taken from inspiration from the film Moon (Duncan Jones), using static shots to show the setting of film without movement. The lighting in the scene is fairly dark, with a spotlight on Adam; this makes him look very alone and singled out, and we intend to never fully show Scythe as a character and to keep him hidden to the audience to add the mystery and fear of who the man is and why is would choose to do what he does. The effect on the camera also helps with this, as also blurs vision in the POV shots, which shows how Adam is not able to see the Scythe either.

From the start we intended to have a variant between still and handheld shot, using handheld for the POV shots meant that the camera had shakiness to it, this gave the representation of fear as Adam was nervously shaking, or still dizzy from being knocked unconscious. However when we had shots of Adam himself we did not want the same shakiness of the camera. Instead the camera was put on a tripod or flat surface to keep it still.

With the editing of the piece we wanted quite a few jumps to try and scare/shock the views. The sudden change in pace, from slow blurred shots to more sudden, we hope would create a jump scare moment for the viewer, while Scythe still not being seen, due to the speed of the shot.

With the sound we wanted to use an airy background track, this quiet sound is there to add to the confusion and build on the tension with its quite creepy sounds. The track we used was one we found on YouTube that was available for free use by the create, it mixes in long high pitched tones and other creaking and other quiet ambient quite clinical sounds which expands on the setting, as it creates mystery of where Adam is being kept. The general feedback of this track was good, as the people we played it to have the intended opinion of airiness and creepiness of it.

In terms of mise-en-scene, Adam’s costume was intended to be quite business casual, but this then changed to just casual. These made the character seem more ordinary, reflecting how this could happen to anyone rather than it being the character. This creates a sense of realism, in the character of Adam making him more believable. With the loft as a setting it gave us the very dark and dinghy feeling we originally wanted. Though the original plan was to use a cellar or boiler room, there were none we could find that looks old and worn enough.

Problems with the production mainly came when we were looking for actors, we tried to be too specific with what we wanted actor to be like, which most us valuable time. In the end I think the piece was quite rushed. Though we did follow the majority of the planning very well, such as the script and camerawork, we did have to change quite a lot of other aspects. Though not all these changes were negative, some may have lessened the quality of certain aspects. The removal of the character Rachael so that we could film the piece easily, needing one less actor. However it created problems with the script; because it created the question of how did Rachael know what Scythe was doing to Adam. However some may see this as a good thing as it creates a mystery.

I believe the artefact has covered its aims of being mysterious and quite creepy; however the horror was not as much of a success, as the piece was not very scary, but more confusing as to what happened before and after the scene.