BLK Film Clip Analysis

This is the baseball scene from the film 'War of the Worlds'

Film Making Conventions

• At 0:16 of the film clip it shows the stepfather's happy expression, which shows the attempt of trying to bond with the son.
• The son's facial expression is shown to be quite emotionless, which resembles the difficulties for the stepfather to earn his respect.
• At 1:17 the stepfather throws the ball too hard and the son gets hurt when he catches it, this could be because the father is angry as the son is hard for him to bond with.
• The clip includes a shot which is a frame within a frame (1:36) of the smashed window caused by the teenage boy leaving and not catching the baseball. This could resemble the weak relationship between him and his stepfather.

Cultural Codes

• The scene shows a son and stepfather playing baseball while talking, this is seen by the audience as a typical situation in where a stepfather attempts to become closer with the son and bond with him.
• The backyard is a small area which also looks quite run down and as a poor view. This makes the audience assume the owners are not very wealthy, and are a typical coping family with some problems.
• Both the stepfather and son are wearing baseball hats which rivaling teams, one is wearing red socks and one is NY Yankees. This is easy for the audience to relate to, and helps express the poor relationship between the stepfather and son.

Sherlock Holmes Film Still

This still is from the film Sherlock Holmes, which was a very successful film and one of my favourite films.

• It is a Two-Shot Mid-Shot, displaying the two main characters in the film: Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick John Watson. The way they're both observing the pocket watch in the still, shows how they work together and creates a sense of friendship between them.
• The lighting on the two characters is quite bright. This creates the idea that the two characters are good guys in the film and suggests they are being helpful and not devious.
• All the people in the film still are wearing old fashioned clothes, allowing the you to understand in what time period the film is set in.

Horror Shot

Shot description and representation

Our group decided to use the genre of horror for our photo shooting session, so we had to make sure we included the typical horror conventions when taking the shots. Some typical conventions are shadows, darkly lit areas, vulnerability, and a general sense of the unknown. The shot above is a long shot of a character lying down in a darkly lit area creating a sense of the unknown. We also created a shadow of a creepy hand using extra lighting to add to the horror effect, as it shows how the character is vulnerable.

How we achieved the shot

The choice of location was very important in achieving the shot, as we needed to find somewhere which was naturally quite dark to correspond with the horror genre conventions. We chose to film it indoors and under the stairs. For us then to create a shadow of a creepy hand we used extra lighting before taking the shot, this created an interesting horror effect. 

What was successful about the shot

I believe the shot resembles the horror genre superbly as it includes a lot of the horror conventions. The character is sleeping and unaware of the creepy shadow behind her, connoting enigma and her vulnerability. Our choice of dark natural lighting further increased a sense of unknown and created a obscure scene.

 What we could have done differently 

If we were to go back and retake the shot there would be a few things we would change to improve it. Firstly the framing could have been a bit better, we should have tightened the frame so that we were focusing more on the character and creepy shadow of a hand. And secondly we could have used the lighting to better effect, such as dimming it so the shot had an even spookier setting. We could also have created a clearer shadow of a hand using the lighting.

Hey, first post..