Research and Planning - Video

Case Study – Disturbance by Jason Hill

Disturbance is a short film which has a generic of horror. The director has opted to use a linear narrative and shoot in live action. The target audience of this film are men and women 18 years and over as it is a horror film.  It is a film about a girl who is alone in her house at night time and she keeps hearing noises and is disturbed by these noises, hence the name ‘Disturbance.’ She then is woken up at night by the disturbances yet again but this time she decides to discover what the noises are. She looks around the house and finds nothing. So she decides to check the living room, she opens the living room door and sees something terrifying and screams out in horror. The film ends here and leaves the audience wondering. As the generic of this film is horror; this is why the film is set at night. There are also very fast cut rates in the film which builds up the suspense and horror. The fast cut rates and the suspenseful ending of this film has influenced me to utilise these effects in my short film.

The film mostly consists of mid-long shots and close up shots of the house and the protagonist. And a few point of view shots are used to show the emotions of the protagonist. This is a very good shot to portray emotions and I believe I can use this in my short film when my protagonist reads the letter and has mixed feelings. This shot can make the audience almost feel what the protagonist is feeling and this is a very good way to engage my audience and create pathos towards my character. I believe the lighting was a bit of an issue in the film as it was shot at night so therefore to tackle this problem in my film we will be shooting our scenes during the day and evening so we have natural lighting. The protagonist in this film is left to feel isolated as she is all alone in the big house and the directors use of camera shots has made her feel even more isolated. Long shots are used to make the protagonist look small and this is a great way to isolate her.

Throughout the film the sound is mostly non-diegetic. There are edited in sounds of someone breathing and also eerie noises which create more suspense; which adds to the horror genre. These non-diegetic sounds create much suspense in the film. This is another effect which I can take and enhance into my own film. This effect will work really well in the crash scene as non-diegetic sound can create suspense. There is one scene where the director has opted to utilise diegetic sound. This has been done to give the audience information on what is happening. There are also edited sounds of footsteps and doors creaking and this has given me a notion of adding in a sound of a fast thumping heart into my own film as this will really bring out the emotion of my character when he reads the letter. The ending of this short film has been a big influence in my film. The film ends with a mid-shot illustrating the character screaming out in horror and straight after this a blank screen appears and by this we know film has come to an end. This leaves the audience itching their heads as to what she saw and leaves them on the edge of their seats. This is an enthralling way to end the film and I will use this aspect in my film to create the same effect.