The Women in the mask- Preliminary Task

This is the Preliminary task that my group and I produced. It tells the story of a girl being tormented by mysterious masked women. Will she survive the day...

What went well?:
I believe that the editing such as the rewind effect, video camera frame and slow-motion editing effects were very successful in this task. This is because many horror films use these editing techniques to create their films and I feel that in the preliminary task we were able to create images and frames that are typical to the genre. Without these effects, the task would not have the same effect on the audience as we wanted to create a feeling of distortion and confusion, this way the audience would relate to the fears of the protagonist. Although some of the cuts didn't seem very good such as in the bathroom scene, they fitted with the idea of confusion and the thoughts the character might be feeling such as 'did I just see that?!!!'

As well as the editing, I think that the camera work was very good too. We were able to use pans to create a sense that someone was watching the protagonist which would make the audience already sense danger, within the opening shot. Again, in the bathroom we managed to film the reflection, whilst using an over the shoulder shot. This gave the same effect as the pan i.e. that someone was watching her.

The mise-en-scene such as the setting were quite successful, especially the scene in the dark room where the protagonist is captured. I think that it was a good location as it created a scene of a small space and would be scary to quite a few viewers who suffer from claustrophobia where they would be fearful of compact, tight places.

What could be improved?:
In my opinion, he sound aspect o the film really did not work very well with images. As a group, we did find it difficult to find a soundtrack that created the atmosphere we wanted. In the end, we had to choose a soundtrack that we thought was the creepiest, event though we knew it didn't work. Therefore for my final task, I will try to find an appropriate soundtrack or even create it myself. In my film I would also like to use speech, as through some film research I believe that certain scenes with dialogue in can create a horrifying atmosphere.

The props were also quite poor, of course we must take into account that we were in a school and that some props would breach health and safety. For example, the chase scene was not exactly effective because we had to use child scissors which do not look threatening at all. Next time I will be sure to use effective props.

The setting was okay because I liked the idea that danger could be in familiar places but for my film I would like to film it in more unique places so that the audience don't feel like they're watching a student film. Also, as we were in a school there was a lot of people walking in the hall or looking at the camera and this made it feel less effective.

We did not story board or really do much depth of planning when filming this, so for my final piece I think it would be best if I went through the whole process of creating a horror film.

In conclusion, I think that there was a successful story line which was effectively told but certain aspects such as sound and mise-en-scene should be improved as in some points of the film  they did not 'fit in' and spoiled the atmosphere of the horror film. I would also like to develop more costumes and props which fit in with the film.