Evaluation of Preliminary Task

The basis of our bussing sequence was an innocent, teenage girl targeted by a male killer in an eerie, bright white, mirror filled public toilet. We chose this location because of the advantages of using mirrors in horror films, and because of the representation of a surgical, hospital type surrounding, due to the brightness of the light. Throughout our filming, we encountered the inevitable problem of people wanting to use the toilet, in which case our choice of location may have not been very suitable for the limited amount of time we had for filming, but we just waited until the toilet was free for us to start filming again.

A shot that worked very well in our sequence was the moment of disequilibrium shot. The teenager walks over to the mirror, hears a very loud bang, just as the non diegetic background music abruptly stops, and the camera quickly pans the room to spot a toilet door swinging open, to show the victim isn’t as alone as she thought she was. During editing, we increased the sound of the door banging, to overpower the music and with the intention of really frightening the audience. The close up shots of the victim as she washes her hands are also very good shots, and fit well to create an atmosphere and a moment of distortion.

Whilst our choice of location wasn’t totally unjustifiable, the lighting was; the bright light made the location hard to film in and limited our use of mirror shots, as the camera wouldn’t focus quickly enough on the mirror, because of the lighting. I also think that more close up shots could have been used to show more of the victims emotions, so that as a masochistic audience, we sympathise with the victim more. For example, we could have added a close up shot of the victim’s face as she comes face to face with her killer, before she runs out the door and tries to escape.

Looking back at our bussing sequence, I feel that with the time and equipment we had, we did well, but little things such as our choice of location and camera shots could be easily improved with more planning, preparation and thought.