Poster Draft

Magazine Cover Draft

 

Final Order of Shots

• Age certificate information
• LEV Productions logo
• Tracking behind friends
• Mid shot of Holly and Amy sitting and talking
• Mid shot of Holly and a friend
• Close up of phone
• Long shot of Holly, Amy and Natalie
• Long shot of Amy and Natalie on swings
• Tracking behind Holly
• Fade to black screen
• Long shot of power cut on stairs
• Tracking shot of Michael's feet
• Close up of a phone call coming in from Michael
• Close up of someone ringing a doorbell
• Close up of car window
• Mid shot of Amy getting attacked
• Long shot of empty moving swing
• High angle Holly waking up in bed
• Mid shot Holly waking up in bed
• Close up of turning keys in ignition and starting a car
• Canted angle of Holly running upstairs
• Low angle of rain coming down at night
• High angle of dropping phone
• Close up of hands banging on door
• Mid shot of Holly sleeping
• Long shot of Holly walking through trees
• Long shot of Natalie walking down alley
• Close up of Natalie's face
• Close up of candle going out
• 'In the Shadows' intertitle
• 'Coming Soon' intertitle
• Institutional information
• Close up of Holly saying "Help Me"

Levi-Strauss' Theory

Claude Levi-Strauss' came up with a narrative theory of binary opposites, and this theory can be applied to In The Shadows. There are many binary opposites in our film, mainly emphasised by the characters Holly and Michael - some examples are:

Good and Evil: Although cliché, we found that towards the end of our film there is a very clear divide between good and evil, despite that line being blurred throughout most of the film. This is represented at the end when, at the end of the film, Holly realises that one of her best friends has been kidnapped - by Michael. She goes and helps her while Michael has clearly hurt her. However the lines are blurred once more when Holly realises that Michael has turned himself into the police.

Introvert and Extrovert: The main character, Holly, is represented as being quite extroverted in the first part of the film. She is confident and enjoys going out and spending time with her friends. However as she begins to believe that she is 'haunted' or 'cursed', this starts to change. She spends less time with her friends, thinking that she is protecting them, but makes herself and her mental health worse by completely isolating herself. The idea of being introverted is also seen with Michael as he spends most of his time alone, when he isn't out committing crimes.

Male and Female: This is another obvious 'opposite' and wasn't seen much until the end, due to Michael's role being so downplayed until the last section.

Private and Public: Another opposite we tried to emphasise in the film was how people behave in public compared to how they behave in private when no one can see them. Holly is confident, happy, friendly and popular when in public, but when she's alone she is often seen as being low, upset and scared, and sometimes angry. However the contrast is clearer with Michael as he behaves fairly normally when lots of people can see him, but when left alone he is completely erratic, fuelled with jealousy and obviously incredibly violent.

Mulvey's Theory

Laura Mulvey came up with the theory of the 'male gaze',  referring to the way that visual arts are created and structured with the male viewer in mind, usually by sexualising female characters. Despite the fact that males between 15 and 25 are a key part of our demographic, there are many reasons why this theory cannot be applied to our film.

Males are only half of our demographic as we hope that females will enjoy the film just as much. Therefore, even if we assumed that all males would be interested in females, and all females would be interested in males, we wouldn't want to tailor something that could be seen as a main element of our film to just half our demographic. Therefore we have made an effort to not unnecessarily sexualise any characters in our film. This decision was emphasised by our group's mutual hatred of oversexualisation of women in the media, believing that how a woman is represented should be her own choice, not the choice of those that will be looking at her.

Feedback from First Draft

The first draft of our trailer (above) was reviewed by our peers and teachers. The feedback we got was both positive and negative.

• Add intertitles to help explain the narrative: we recognised that the narrative wasn't necessarily completely clear to the audience. However after discussion, we decided that despite being a convention of a movie trailer, it wouldn't fit with our trailer as there was nowhere appropriate to put them. In addition, it is important that due to a twist at the end, we don't reveal too much of the true nature of the plot.
•  Make the transition between the slow and fast section smoother: originally, there was a second of silence between the first track and the voiceover, and then the voiceover and the second track. However this made the transition sound very jolty. We got rid of the silences, added fades to the sound and added a quieter section of our second track 'Pretty Parties' before the full drum version kicked in. Although still not completely smooth, we have found that the transition isn't as jolted as it was in our first draft. 
• Open with a different shot: due to the first shot being of one of the characters talking, it looked like that character was saying the voiceover, out of sync. We decided to change the order of the shots so that the shot playing at the time of the first voiceover was not of anyone talking.

• Change one of the tracks: the general consensus was that the two tracks that we had chosen did not fit together. As we had struggled to find a suitable second track, we agreed that we should try and change the first one. We trialed a softer version of 'Pretty Parties' but this did not work at all, leading us to revert back to our original song. After consideration, we decided that the tracks worked better together now that the transition wasn't as awkward.

• We also received positive feedback. Our peers and teachers said that the second half of our trailer effectively built tension and our final shot, of Holly saying "help me" after the institutional was also powerful as it left the audience feeling tense.