A2 | Reflection

I inspired by David Lynch in many ways. One thing can be noticed is that I got a sense of what a horror film should look like. From Darkened Room (2002), I realized how important the lighting is in horror film.

(Figure 1 Darkened Room 2002)

(Figure 2 Darkened Room 2002)

From the above photos (Figure 1 & 2), it can be found that the subjects’ faces were divided into two half by light, the darker one side is, the more horrified audiences can feel. The dialogue in Darkened Room (2002) reminded me of a line “Can I tell you a secret?” from another horror movie, The Six Sense (1999), which became one of the projects I was about to imitate in Assignment 2 for Words. This scene is perfect for this dialogue project for trying different techniques and experimenting with conversation shooting. It was not too hard for us to start working as a group, everyone has their own jobs and shooting to make. But also it was not too easy, it was still challengeable, such as learning how to use lights, setting and directing performers.

(Figure 3 The Sixth Sense 1999)

Similar to Darkened Room (2002), the light was shone on half of the kid’s face in The Six Sense (1999) (Fig 3), to create a realistic feeling in the horror film. So I want to keep that principle, not changing the light too much (Fig 4).

(Figure 4 Hurt)

(Figure 5 Hurt)

We used a warm light shone below from the left side half of the subject’s face and put her in one-third of the frame on the left side, so that another subject would be on the right side (Fig 5). The light used to shoot two participants are different depends on the narrative. Bordwell, Tompson and Smith (2017) argued that “High-contrast images can seem stark and dramatic, whereas low-contrast owns suggest more muted emotional states. ” In The Sixth Sense (1999), the kid has a more dramatic characteristic while his father has a more muted emotion. So we kept the same light strength and angle like in the movie, compared with the kid (Fig 4), the light on his/her father was more smooth and low-contrast.

After we imitated The Sixth Sense (1999) with lighting, we tried to shoot our own style of Portrait with experimenting the light setting again and trying to create a sense of composition. I used a warm light again to create a smooth and cosy atmosphere with cross-editing with two shots of my exercises in Light, which I literally experimenting to shoot different light with different cinematography such as panning, low angle, close up etc, and put them together in editing to create a sense of narrative.

Comparing two of my projects Joy and Hurt, Joy is more visual while Hurt stands out with its editing style. I used two different cameras to film them, I used my DSLR with a lens that creates a deeper depth of field to shoot Joy, as I want the subject, which is my cat, to be focused. As a matter of fact, visible of the subject is all that matter for many purposes (Bordwell, Thompson & Smith 2017). So I put the cat on the foreground and a blurry city view in the background to create a wide composition, with the cut editing of a point of view shot (Fig 6) of my cat. The order in Joy is continuous, start from the cat looked outside and wanted to see the world, then she went into the elevator, followed by many shots that she was watching the city, including wide, medium and close up shot, low and high angle, POV shot.

(Figure 6 Joy)

While in Hurt, the editing style is different. Hurt begins by telling audiences about the characters and their situations before any major actions occur. I got inspired by David Lynch, probably from Lost Highway (1997), as the stories are similar. Bordwell, Thompson and Smiths (2017) argued that “David Lynch uses the conventions of suspense and surprise to summon up a dread-filled atmosphere that may receive rational explanation”. In the production, I was not thinking too much about explaining, so I did not put any dialogue in it. For example, in the last scene of the video, some people were questioned about if the girl was going to suicide or not, I  leave all the explanation to audiences. Editing creates a flashback (Bordwell, Thompson & Smiths 2017), I used the sequences of the subject smoking as the main timeline and make her look like she was recalling those memories. The story-plot relations were affected by controlling chronology, putting the scene where she walked on the street at the beginning becomes a bedding of latter plot, but this scene is supposed to after she knew about the cheating in the story. The way of playing around story and plot provides a tension and suspense. Setting plays a more active role in cinema (Bordwell, Thompson & Smiths 2017), there was a shot when the girl in video watched her boyfriend leave the house, I put both of them in the same frame on purpose so that audiences can see their interaction and the emotion of her face which provided a more vibrant composition. Music has certainly helped with arousing emotion, same as in Joy.

In future work, I want to enhance my skills in using cameras, so that it would be smoother and steadier when shooting movements such as zooming in, tracking and other cinematographic. Also, I want to deepen my understanding of visual shooting, something more abstract and continue shooting more about the combination with dream, imagination, reality and memory.

 

References

Bordwell, D Thompson, K Smiths, J 2017, Introduction to Cinema Studies, Vital-Souce Ebook, viewed 10 Aug 2018, <https://www.mheducation.com.au/catalog/product/view/id/228619/s/introduction-to-cinema-studies/>

Darkened Room 2002, DVD, David Lynch.com, USA, directed by David Lynch

Lost Highway 1997, DVD, Asymmetrical Productions & Lost Highway Productions LLC, Los Angeles, California, USA, directed by David Lynch

The Sixth Sense 1999, DVD, Hollywood Pictures & Spyglass Entertainment, Pennslyvania, USA, directed by M.Night Shyamalan