LO4: Justify creation process against original production plan concepts

Here is a list of 3 crucial shots to the short film and how they change/stay the same from my original production plan to final draft.

Shot 1

This shot of my antagonist finally taking the centre screen for the climactic part of the movie is very effective at meeting conventions. As this is the shot where my antagonist has finally revealed themself, I want them to have an imposing presence on screen and to the audience. I carefully planned this shot in my preproduction storyboard to use techniques that give it a stronger meaning and have more of an effect on the audience, however a few changes were made. One of the techniques I planned in the storyboard was a low angle which connotes the power and dominance of the antagonist as it towers over us and our protagonist. I changed the visual of the scene slightly to have a backlight behind my shadowy outline, compared to the storyboard which was just a barley visible outline in the darkness. I did this to create a more

 effective visual that further emphasises the terror of the scene by using the light behind my actor to emphasise their imposing presence. This helps to further create the enigma of the short film for the audience as they are finally able to see the entity, but aren't given answers to their questions. It also allows me to create a ghost-like antagonist and an effective visual on a low budget. Another change I made to the shot was to have a 'static-like' distortion flicker on the screen. This was to call back to an earlier scene where the same effect appeared when the antagonist partially revealed themself. This creates a more streamlined story and helps to make the antagonist feel more omnipotent. 

Shot 2

In the kitchen scene my extended tracking shot conforms to genre conventions of horror by creating tension. It does this by putting the audience in the protagonists shoes, having us slowly move around the kitchen with her, making us empathise for the character much more. The bright cold light emanating from the fridge and camera mounted light connote the spine chilling fear our character is feeling in the scene. I improved the scene by reducing the temperature slightly, enough to make it more blue, but not too much that it's overwhelming. This helps to make it feel like all the light in the scene is coming from the traditional blue light fridge. When the light is shut off at the end of the scene as the fridge closes, the room is left shroud in dark, creating a new further sense of tension as the antagonist could be hiding amongst the shadows and leaving the tension still in the air as the shot carries on for agonisingly long. This scene is also an example of how I effectively used camerawork and visual editing to conform to my genre; this is done by controlling exactly what my audience can/can't see in the scene. For example blocking the background out when my character gets to the fridge that opened by itself, tricking the audience into thinking something will be waiting behind like in a typical horror movie. I then created my scare scene by hiding the scare in an area the audience already thought they saw earlier in the tracking shot: directly behind us.

Shot 3

This shot is important as I needed to convey to the audience the death of the mother in a single shot with a low budget and limited skills of practical effects. In my original production plan the scene had a lot more practical blood and gore, however I was unable to do this in filming as I didn't have much fake blood and it stained easily, restricting me to only using a small amount on the wrist. As a result I had to use my limited knowledge of PremierePro to create fake blood splatters that look as if they were on the camera itself. Although this is different to the storyboard it still creates a smilier effect and conveys the meaning of the shot to the audience effectively.