SSC Film Studies

                                                               Reflective analysis

The title we chose for our short sequence project was 'Paranoia'. As a group we came to this decision as our ultimate goal was to convey the distressing feeling of paranoia experienced by those who have lost someone so suddenly. We were inspired by thought provoking short stories on the internet. These stories left the audience with questions and ambiguity as there was not just one clear message. It was the shock factor of the film that provoked an emotional response and not knowing whether the plot twists were real or the protagonists imagination. We decided to repeatedly intercut scenes with the time and the sound of ticking when the time came up. This added a sense of urgency and it portrays the central character's purposelessness when her boyfriend is killed and this is further addressed by her not leaving the house in this time period.

My role was assistant director and I focused a lot on mine en scene. As there was very little dialogue the mise en scene had to be specific in order to portray the protagonists inner conflict. The opening scene was filmed when it was dark outside to suggest that it is very early morning and even though it is the most cheerful scene in the film it adds a sinister tone to prefigure that something is inevitably go wrong. To divide the film into two separate parts we filmed in colour in the opening and after the death of the protagonists boyfriend we used a black and white filter. Thus I had the protagonist, Molly, wear pink during the opening scene to connote her love and compassion for her boyfriend.  When her boyfriend leaves to go to work we got an extreme close up of his hand picking up the keys to prefigure the upcoming accident. Molly then begins to get ready but she now wears a dark coloured top to signify there is about to be a shift in the mood. Plus, the fact that Molly is taking care of her appearance highlights to the audience that she is emotionally stable at this point. This is however, shot from the entrance of the bathroom from an unusual angle and the focus is on the mirror and Molly's reflection. We believed that this camera shot conformed to the thriller genre which our film fitted into the most. 

Next we filmed Molly carrying out normal tasks such as reading a magazine and although she still has not left the house we filmed freely to convey her stability. We then got an extreme close up of her phone ringing and we specifically made it come as an unknown number to extend the mystery for the audience. When the audience are aware of Craig's death we visually signify the new day by having a wide shot out of Molly's bedroom window in daylight. However, the black and white filter signifies the negative impact it has had on her life and the extreme shift in Molly's perception of how she views her surroundings. Additionally, I placed an '18' glass on the window ledge to reinforce her young vulnerability. The following shots were long shots which made the rooms appear larger and expressed Molly's sense of loneliness. We shot wide shots of Molly's house at night, form one end of the room to the other, under the cast of low lighting to emphasise Molly's entrapment and to provoke the audience to speculate whether or not she is alone. To further suggest to the audience that someone else could be there and it may not just be her psychological state, when there is a knock on the door and no-one is there, Molly walks back to the kitchen and we had all the cupboard doors opened. I also found a dramatic music piece to put over this scene to provoke fear in the audience. I was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's film 'Psycho' to use non-diegetic sound as many of the scenes in his film produced fear through his use of sound.

In conclusion, as a team we worked extremely well together as we all had many creative ideas and worked together to express them through the use of camera shots. However next time I think it would benefit us more if we filmed consistently over a few days instead of weeks at a time as it made it more difficult as the more we progressed into winter the earlier it was getting dark.