For our short film, Hugh Stokes and I contemplated many different concepts and ideas but the one thing that stood out to us was the genre of Thriller/Horror, and after more in-depth planning we decided to do a Psychological Thriller/Horror piece. For the first couple stages of planning, we were toying with the conventions of Psychological Thrillers, for example looking into "figments of imagination" that feature in so many films of this type, such as Frank the bunny from Donnie Darko, and then we started to look at how they are portrayed. Other films that played a role towards influencing our final plot decisions were: Halloween and American Psycho. Both of these films embody the two key aspects that we wanted to push across to our audiences. We wanted the stalking aspect that was so expertly executed in John Carpenter's horror masterpiece as well as the ambiguity and fantasy aspects that were prominent in the themes of American Psycho. The final frame of American Psycho went on to influence our poster which was an ECU (Extreme Close-Up) of the main characters eyes (Pictured on the right). Another aspect we decided to incorporate into our short film was a title that had already negative connotations as well as one that would fit the plot of the film, and by the end of the course, also played a role in the production of our poster. The title "Insomnia" - already belonging to a Psychological Thriller directed by Christopher Nolan in 2002, appealed to both Hugh and I as it carried the necessary qualities to be branded as the title of our project, partially due to the theme of Insomnia that is run through our piece and because of the effects Insomnia has on an individual - Makes them sluggish, affects memory and in more serious cases, can cause mild hallucinations.
This theme of Insomnia leading to a reflection of oneself that we used was heavily influenced by the 1999 David Fincher film, Fight Club.
Although sticking to most conventions of the Horror genre, for example using fast editing when a character is in shock or panning to reveal a threat, Hugh and I decided that we would add our own kind of spin on the genre by incorporating several long takes that subvert the audiences expectations of a film of the Horror/Thriller genre, as it is considered a "Convention" to incorporate long takes to build up tension, but we decided to put the long takes in as a sort of red herring so to speak, to trick the audience into a state of calm before the more dramatic scenes. (Example of the pan shot convention above)
Halfway through filming, Hugh and I decided to change certain aspects of the film in order to stabilise the plot and character development as we felt we went astray with our original filmed ending. The main struggle we ran into was successfully and emphatically portraying the finale, which involved the main characters own demise whilst he struggles with his own conscience. We filmed various different
ways in which we could show the character dying but none of them seemed to possess any real power behind them, and instead they looked rather inappropriate and amateur, so Hugh and I re-wrote and filmed certain scenes which overall helped the piece retain its ambiguous, dark roots whilst also helping the viewer understand the piece.
One thing that Hugh and I decided on, regarding the films theme and shots, was that we were not going to present every last detail to the viewer, which is common in more classic horror films, where knowing less adds more to the overall power of the film. We decided that we would start the film more in the middle so to speak, after an event that could have been a disequilibrium in any other film, and instead chose to start the film on this disruption. This would immediately communicate to the viewer and in turn, evoke a reaction from them that would stimulate their imagination. The event is hinted at in bits and pieces, and the whole film acts as a sort of unravelling act of both the event that occurred, and the psychological state of the main character. The ending especially was shot and edited to unsettle the viewer and question the mental and emotional state of the character. The deliberate choice of ambiguity acted as a sort of pay off for Hugh and I as the viewers seemed to enjoy creating their own story without it being set in stone.
Editing was done using MovieProX5, and this project was to be my first using this software. I felt that, although at first it appeared to have a steep learning curve, I grasped the functions of the program fairly quickly and was able to edit to a more professional level then I would have using a basic program like Windows Movie Maker. The footage was gathered from two different cameras, one a Sony Recording Camera and the other an Olympus digital camera. For the phone call scene, Hugh would be in one room filming Ellis and I would be in the other filming Olivia. We did an improvised long take of the conversation and edited together the various shots. I found this method to be useful and more time effective, and when it came to the editing process they both went up fairly smoothly, bar an occasional frame size problem with the Olympus camera.
In terms of soundtrack, we ran through a vast array of songs before we landed on Spanish Sahara by Foals. The reason we chose this song is because of its fairly minor composition, with chords being played strictly on the lower strings of the guitar to create a more pessimistic tone, as well as the lyrics which refer to someone "walking into a haze" which we felt reflected the characters personality, along with "Now I see you lying there, like a lilo losing air", which again oozed the kind of angst filled pessimism that would both set the tone for the story, and in a somewhat unintentional way, it would reflect the main characters personality. Along with this piece, we also
chose a piece of music composed by Cliff Martinez for the motion picture Drive, entitled "He had a good time". This ambient music was placed into our extract to continue the eery nature of the scene it takes place in, and also to give the film itself more volume. We initially experimented with having silence for the scene in which this music is played but then decided that it would add much more to the tone of the scene if there was a piece of music playing as a sort of underscore, akin to most horror/thriller films from any generation.
For the film review, we decided as a pair to study what kind of audience our short film would appeal to and, in turn, what magazine style we should aim our review at. After in-depth studies with both Empire magazine and MovieScope, which can be found at www.hughstokes.blogspot.com - we decided to tailor our film review to the more specialist film review magazine, MovieScope. In order to do this we split the job between the two of us, Hugh would design the page in which the film review would go on, along with any images to anchor the review, and I would design my written review around the kind of advanced, specialist vocabulary and formal, serious tone that is found inside any MovieScope magazine. I would get feedback from both my teacher and members of the class in order to gain an outsiders opinion on my composed review. The constructive criticisms helped to craft my piece into a worthy entry into a review worthy of the more niche MovieScope audience.
Overall, I felt that the short film was successful in both relying on conventions for the most part, but also allowing Hugh and I as film makers to experiment with a genre we felt comfortable dealing with. We clearly demonstrated our knowledge of the conventions of the Thriller genre as well as the ability to break away from them in order to add our own sort of style to it. We used the internet to gather both reviews to inspire the writing style, we also watched and reviewed thriller films ourselves to gain insight and also relied on the internet to give us feedback on the different styles often used in Psychological Thrillers. We were confident behind the camera and editing , and I feel that it showed through our final piece, which Hugh and I were both happy with. Around about halfway through the project, we decided we needed to change a few things, so I think organisation was a key factor in our planning, and if I was to do this course again, the first thing I would do is get organised. Once Hugh and I were comfortable with our task, we got on with it with enthusiasm and had a fun experience making a film, which I also think is key to any project, if you enjoy it, it becomes less of a task and more of a personal project, which I think was reflected in the final piece.
