Lullaby- Student Short Film (Post 2)

Lullaby

Mise en scene:

Costume- the girl is seen wearing white socks with a white dress, which looks as if she’s been in a rush and just thrown it on or she’s just gotten out of bed. This exaggerates on the fear and panic that she’s in.

Setting- The location of the film is in the woods, this plays on the fact that it is a horror as forests are known to be notorious for gloomy and isolated areas, building suspense throughout the film

Expression- The girls face is very apprehensive and is shown to be alarmed, making the audience aware of the girls fear.

Props- A prop that is used is her phone. She receives a text, and which is a photo of herself running through the woods. This pushes on the fact that she is being watched and no matter where she runs someone will always be catching up. Another prop is a doll, this appears towards the end when, hanging from a tree with a rope around its neck. The doll is used to imply that the girl is going to die or something bad is going to happen.

Editing:

An editing technique they used was fading and placing a film onto a film to get an illusion effect. This highlights that the girl running is tired and is starting to lose her vision, almost losing energy. This tells the audience that she has been running for a while and is starting to go delusional. This emphasises the fact that she is desperate to keep running, therefore, she is scared and terrified someone is going to catch up to her. We know this by the way she keeps turning around as if there’s someone there.

As the tension builds up the cut dramatically changes to a different scene. She has woken up in her bed. This allows the audience to know that she was asleep and they question whether it was all a dream.

Sound:

The opening starts off with ecstatic and the video seemed to glitch. This already has allowed the audience to know that this short film is going to be a thriller or horror.

A way to highlight the genre was by providing a non-diegetic sound over the top. The music they played was of a lullaby, which built up the tension and have the film an essence of terror. You are able to hear a child’s laughter, which will creep the audience and begin to raise their pulse.

There is no dialogue but they have incorporated heavy breathing  to build up tension and to show her short of breath as she struggles to find safety.

Cinematography:

In the first few seconds the camera is a close up, which is focused on someone’s feet running through a forest. When doing this you can see the bottom of her feet, which are shown to be completely brown from the dirt. This emphasises that she was in such a rush she didn’t have time to put shoes on and allows the audience to know that she’s been running for a long time, due to the fact that they are so dirty.

There are a few close ups on the girls face, which introduces the character properly. You are also able to tell what the character is thinking as the audience are able to see her expressions, she is seen to be lost and erratic as she desperately tries to find somewhere to hide.