Good Afternoon!
I have to do something I Have not had to in a while, which is to analyse the scene or shot I will be taking for the Lollipop guilds Hansel and Gretel house that we are building. And I must do this using semiotics, which, for those of you who do not know, is that study of signs and symbols. Which can literally be anything, so its good fun J
The shot I will be doing is a long shot, just as the witches house is first seen. The feel I am trying to get out of this shot is one of at first, fear, loneliness, being lost for ever, having no end to the walking in sight. But then the joy of seeing a inviting place in the distance, that hope that maybe this panic and fear will be at an end.
Whilst this project is not technically a horror, I have drawn on some horror movies I have seen to get my ideas from for how to make this work better. I have also taken inspiration and ideas from some other films, and will do my best to deconstruct them and explain how or why they were useful to me in the follow post.
Also, whilst the finally image I will use for the darker aspect of my shot is not from a film, it beautifully captures what I am trying to achieve.
The first Shot that has given me inspiration is one out of “The Forest” as seen above.
There are a few things we need to ignore such as the hanging ropes and the reflections in the water as well as the water itself. My main inspiration here was the feeling that the character is very alone in a large and scary forest. Firstly, the way the trees all bunch up around the outside and background of the picture convey a feeling of being trapped, there is no way out because there is a wall of trees all around. But there is also a large open space, showing the character is not only confined to a small area, but is also completely alone, with no other human help around. It conveys a feeling that there is no hope passed this small and seemingly dead area around where the character stands. It all comes together to create a feeling of isolation and being lost.
This is something I would like to draw on to convey in my scene, that the viewer is walking through a large open area, with only the way forwards, trees all around encroaching on the sides to feel like they are being forced one way.
Shot the second that I have taken inspiration from is from a smaller horror movie called “Entity”.
I like this scene for a few reasons, one being that it has no one in it, another is the colours they use. With it being darker closer to the camera, and going back to a grey-blue colour that seems so cold and dead.
Whilst it does not have the path through it, this shot shows the lighter area in the center, drawing the eyes to it and making the person wonder what is there.
This final image is not from a movie as far as I know. I found it on a website with stock images, but it does capture what I am going for so well, the feeling of being lonely, the emptiness of having no hope and nothing around. There is nothing in sight that seems good or worth going for, and this image has captured it so well.
In this image, there are fewer trees, but the fog makes it seem denser. Again the use of the grey-blue colour makes it seem empty, dead and cold. The character in this image is walking down a path that seems to have no end, and will continue to do so as there is nothing else to do. Whilst this image does not convey the fear the first image does, it captures the loneliness I would like to achieve beautifully.the way it frames the path with trees, and has over hanging shadows branches making it seem like it is all closing in is something I hope I can achieve.
REFERENCES:
The Forest. (2016). [Produced by Lawrence Bender] [DVD]. United States
Entity. (2012) [Produced by Jim Roberts]. [DVD]. United Kingdoms
Man walking in fairytale forest [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved June 24th 2016, from https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-man-walking-fairytalke-dark-forest-fog-image26840966
Ancel's Designs 