Shot Type Ideas and Influences

JP 15/11/2015

Having read the latest version of the script there is one scene for me that give us great potential to demonstrate the movie’s horror elements. This particular sequence is not only important to our film but to most titles of this genre. This is the idea of the reveal. The sequence I am referring to involves our protagonist who has just entered this new world and stumbles across an alleyway. He slowly paces down the lane and stumbles across what he assumes to be a homeless man, but instead it’s the first reveal of the film’s monsters.  In preparation for filming I have been watching many thrillers and horror movies for some inspiration, and for this particular sequence I will be referring to a film I feel has one of the best reveals in cinema. This is the first appearance of Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. As shown below, the scene sets up perfectly with a slow pan revealing the house the audiences knows is dangerous due to its framing with the camera metaphorically keeping its distance. The tension is built up with its slow pace and occasional eerie sounds. The build up to the reveal last a long time, keeping the view on the edge of their seat with tension, which is the cinematic feel I wish to convey in our film.

Another film that demonstrates a scene similar to our alleyway sequence is shown in A Nightmare on Elm Street.  The cinematography in the scene I feel is excellent. The viewer is first displayed an over the shoulder shot, allowing the viewer to get a view similar to the characters perspective. It also allows space in this particular shot, setting up the mood of the film. The area is dark with blue lighting, with a small amount of sound giving an unnerving atmosphere.

In Beyond the Stars: Plot Conventions in American Film Paul Loukides speaks of two specific shot types associated to Horror films. ‘The subjective camera is a central technique is designed to experimentally incorporate the audience member into the projected action […]. The two major types of shots conventionally employed in horror films are the monster-point-of-view (MPOV) and the victim-point-of-view (VPOV). The former is the most common; it allows a shot of the terrorized victim while delaying the revelation of the monster. This increases the anticipatory tension of the viewing experience. The MPOV shot also allows the viewer to experience the distorted perception of the creature.’ This reference applies to the alleyway scene greatly as it will be shot, from both Michael, the protagonist, and the monsters perspective.

A Dish Best Served Cold – The Film

Story Treatment

The original idea for A Dish Best Served Cold was to take generic conventions that are familiar to the audience and subvert them in the context of the horror/thriller genre.

On of the ways that the idea could have initially been presented would have involved the use of black and white filmmaking. In order to reflect the material’s primary inspiration, the 1992 Man Bites Dog, the first idea was to put the film all in black and white. So we discussed the ways in which this could be achieved – we figured since working in a digital film format this wouldn’t be difficult due to colour correction possibilities in the editing phase but since then we decided that the black and white aesthetic would be distracting and would possibly take away from the main generic messages of the film, as outlined in the proposal document.

Aside from this the sound phase didn’t contain any particular needs that couldn’t be covered by standard filing techniques; to do anything else would again negatively impact the films genre specific message.

The way that the cinematography and misè-en-scene work in the film are to accentuate this sense that everything is standard and therefore “normal”. Again, this is so as to better further the message of the film which is that the story that occurs in our film is perfectly feasible in the context of real life.

Essentially, the narrative elements of A Dish Best Served Cold are made in to appear “normal” in order to appease the main dramatic elements put forward by the premise of the story, which is to lull the audience in to a sense sense of security as influenced by the generic tone of the film.

Story Proposal

The story and tone of Dish plays with, amongst other things, generic conventions and the preconceived notions that audiences have about them; the assumption that the protagonist is a good person, the idea that an absurd plan that couldn’t possibly work might actually work etc.

The initial idea is pretty basic; a young woman finds herself in a nightmare scenario where her dinner date has revealed himself to be a paid cannibal hitman. The story is set all in one location, that of an unassuming restaurant bathroom, where the cannibal hitman basically explains his entire plan of kidnapping this woman and then subsequently eating her. Our main lead is shown to not be a particularly nice person as it happens and there are hints that the reason for the cannibal’s employment is due to the nasty things she’s done in the past to different people.  The entire time our protagonist is basically rolling her eyes and laughing at his scheme, citing how absurd his plot is. We’re left feeling like she just HAS to be right – his ludicrous plot couldn’t actually work, right? Wrong.

He totally gets away with it.

And that’s the main point of A Dish Best Served Cold – it just straight up ends with a sudden and jarring realisation that everything was pulled off without a hitch.

Shot List

Here is the shot list that I created for our shooting days. Having the information for the shoot all written down was important for my role as director as well as for the entire crew.  Knowing what we were shooting and the order in which we were shooting was a huge role as director which would have been increasingly stressful without the aid of the shot lists created.

The shot list aided for two smooth shooting days as well as insuring that no shots were missed and helped for a happy crew. Having the shooting script meant that we didn’t have to go back after our scheduled shooting window and re-shoot any missed shots.

It was important that each member of the crew and the actors had assess to the shooting scripts. And as a result, this caused for fluid shooting days. As well as this, the crew were happy and confident in the running order of each shoot which caused for stress free days.

Shooting Script

Here is a copy of our shooting script from our filming days at Rosemarino’s and the house. Both our screenwriters was on set and along with the directors, producer and camera operator, made some changes which can be seen in the pictures. For example, while filming, we noticed that the dialogue didn’t quite flow as well as we would have liked and therefore made some appropriate changes on set.

Having the writers on set really aided with directing as we worked closely to insure that we filmed exactly what we envisioned and as a result we are really happy with the end result.

STORYBOARDS

These are the Storyboards for our film, A Dish Best Served Cold. Drawing these gave us the chance to benefit from seeing proposed shots before it actually came to framing them on the shoot. However there were times where the shots shown below could not be achieved due to shooting location troubles or we felt as a group that they should be changed for the benefits of the film. Examples of us doing this were through lessening the duration of shots to covey better pacing, cutting out unnecessary zooms or even a shot altogether.  This then meant in some instances we had to improvise or change a shot slightly for the end product.

Sound Editing.

When it came to sound editing, we needed to find some interesting music to use. Because this is a student project, we searched, for a while, to find royalty-free music that we could include into the project. Luckily we did, and we have an eerie piano to set the tone from the start to the creepy suspenseful music at the end. The sound of the busy/bustling restaurant was added in post-production. On location, we decided it would be cost-effective if we did not include any extras for the scene. Keeping the shots tight on the actors. We found the sound of a busy restaurant that was royalty-free to create the appropriate feel of the setting. Atmosphere sound was recording on location and added into the sound mix.

Great detail went into tweaking certain sounds to create a jarring affect on the audience. We amped sounds like; the knife sound, chewing, door slamming, the steak frying, and the knife slicing into the slab of meat. These horrible sounds create an unsettling feel to the short film, reinforcing the tone of the film. We want the audience the feel disgusted, and reel, because the story being told is quite frankly disturbing at the face of it.

CAMERA WORK

My role within our film crew was the lead camera operator. Due to also being responsible for creating a storyboard for our film, I was able to reflect on my work to set up shots relative to the storyboards I created. I set up up the shots making sure equipment was used correctly following the training I had prior to shooting. This included using the tripod and camera in the correct manor to get the shots we required, to make a aesthetically pleasing picture.  As i was the camera operator I also had to listen and co-operate with my director and other crew members in order to set up the scenes we wanted.

This also applied to cinematography, especially when it came to lighting. As the type of film we were shooting had to have an eerie atmosphere we would set up shots with the correct framing and would co operate with the lighting department in order to get the shot we wanted. Sometimes though; due to restrictions  to the shooting location, such as minimal space, we had to either use the small LED light or sometimes use light we had available on location.

Distribution Ideas.

Having completed post-production, we have our final film ready to submit towards our University marks. But that raises the question of what to do with it afterwards? I think it’s fair to say that we’re all unanimously proud of what we have created, and it would be a shame if we didn’t at least share it will people see what people make of it.

The video is already uploaded to Youtube which gives it a platform to view, and the audience are free to leave there thoughts in the comments section. This gives us a chance to gauge audience’s reactions before we think about any short film festivals. In addition, uploading it to social network allows us to share it with our friends and see what they think.

There are a few film festivals we could potentially submit it to, such as, Film4 Frightfest provides a ground to showcase short and feature length film in the horror genre. Which suits our film best. It is hosted in Central London on August bank holiday.

However, because this is a film created by students it would seem more appropriate to approach film festivals that handle student films. Festivals like, Screentest; The National Student Film Festival, Ffresh – Student Moving Image Festival of Wales, British Student Film Festival, and Let’s All Be Free Film Festival. There are many more across the UK that dedicate the time to showcase student films, which gives a wide range of choice.