After Twilight - Finished Film

Reflective analysis of After Twilight

Genre: Paranormal, Horror

Starring – Mathew Clarke & Kieran Coutinho
Written by – Kieran Coutinho
Directed by – William Taylor
Cinematographer – William Taylor
Edited by – William Taylor

Synopsis:

Matt and Kieran, two sixth form students studying A-Level Art, are kept behind by their teacher to catch up on their coursework. After recently hearing stories of an ex teacher who used to teach Art in their school, who killed a classroom of students and then him self after a mental breakdown, the students begin to wonder if the stories are even true. When the students try to leave to go home, they find that the exit won’t open and there are no other ways of escape and no mobile phone signal to call for help. The students split up in hope they’ll find an exit quicker that way, but to no avail. Matt cannot find Kieran after splitting up; he goes to the exit to wait for Kieran to come back, only to find that Kieran is lying out in the snow outside unconscious. The film ends with Matt rattling the door trying to aid Kieran, but a mysterious force smashes his head into the door.

One of our first problems in the production of our film is that we filmed the entire film in one day on one camera, when we came back the next lesson to get what we had filmed off of it, some of the shots had been deleted, this meant that we had to reshoot our entire film, although this set us back, I think it was a good thing because I think the second time round of shooting our film, we didn’t rush it as much, got better angles on the shots and clearer dialogue.

Although even though we did get better shots we had a few unwanted interruptions. One of the interruptions was that students from the school getting into the shot when they were walking through, so we ended up having to re-shoot the shot.

We also had a problem with some of the art teachers in the art block, they weren’t too keen on us being in the block with a camera, which was a major problem we had with the first time we shot the film. We had to get permission from the head of the are department before we could shoot the film, which set us behind by an hour, just trying to find the teacher.

For my part of creating the actual film, I wanted to get all the shots (angles, distances) just right, so that the audience would get more from the film with out the audience realising. Such as, when Matt and Kieran leave the class room, I used a low, canted angle, this is a strange angle which is supposed to signal to the audience that something isn’t right.

During part of the film Matt walks up and down a hall way, and I followed him with the camera. I would liked to have had some kind of track that the camera could use whilst following him so I could get a really steady shot, but unfortunately we didn’t have the budget or time to get one and set it up. Fortunately I think I got a steady shot even though I had to use it as a hand held camera.

When we were shooting the opening dialogue, Matt and Kieran mumbled a lot and it was hard to get them to speak clearly. Whilst I was in the editing process, even though I told them to speak clearly, it still didn’t come out as clear as I wanted to. Trying to fix this problem, I tried turning up the volume on the clip. Even though that should have worked, there was a high pitched humming noise in the clip as well, from one of the radiators in the art room. So the sound sounded quite dirty and unclear. I decided to leave the volume levels as they were and hoped that their dialogue would be understandable.

Another problem I had when editing was finding suitable, copyright free music to go with the sequence, the music I did find at first didn’t fit into the genre of our film. After searching around for a while I found a site with the sounds I needed.

kieran coutinho reflective analysis

Reflective analysis

Genre- paranormal horror
Title- After twilight
Synopsis- Two new sixth form students are in an art twilight (detention) one day after school, while doing their work one of the students asks the other if he had heard the rumour about the old art teacher who ended up killing all of his students and then himself and apparently the ghost now haunts the art block, the students think that the rumour is made up but as they go to leave a series of spooky things start happening, to begin with when they go to leave they can’t get out as the door is locked, they then try to phone someone for help but the phone has no signal, the two students take it as an unfortunate coincidence and split up to find an exit but when one of the students goes missing the other realises something is wrong, the missing student is later found passed out in the snow the other student tries frantically to try to go and help his friend but ends up getting his head slammed into the door by some mysterious force.
Characters- Kieran Coutinho, Matt Clarke
Storyboard designer- Kieran Coutinho
Script writer- Kieran Coutinho
Director- William Taylor
Editor- William Taylor
Cinematographer- William Taylor
One of the problems we faced when making this film is the location because as we were doing the filming in the art block we could not do some of the scenes that we wanted to do in the beginning this is because they were too noisy and interrupted the teachers, we did manage to film some of the noisier scenes to begin with but when we went to go and find our work from the camcorder we realised it was gone, we was unable to re film the noisy scenes as in our first filming we was kicked out of the block after shooting the final scenes.
I believe that the final film was better as the day that we filmed for the final piece there was snow outside this worked well in our final piece as it made the film more like a horror film from the start, i also think that we made good compromises for the loud scenes that came out as good or if not better, for example our original ending was meant to be that one of the characters is found unconscious in a cupboard and when the character finds him ends up getting pushed in by the ghost of the teacher that was hunting the block.
When filming we shot each part of the film from different angles to follow the characters around the art block aswell as showing their reactions, we also used canted angels at some stages of the film to show that something isn’t how it should be.
When the characters go to leave they find that the door is locked, they then try to call someone but the phone had no signal, the characters then split up to try an exit but when one of the characters goes missing, the other character realises that it’s not a coincidence, he then finds his friend lying down on the snow outside of the lock door the character frantically tries to get out but fails, there is then a camera shot as his head is forced into a door.
I feel that this film came out well and I believe that camera work is reminiscent or other horror films, I also think that although it’s only a short film we managed to get allot of information into the time slot.
I enjoyed making the film as i believe that it helped me understand the features that have to be done to make a film even if it is only a short film.
I think that our group worked well together and that we all did our jobs well.
In the film we used canted angels to show that something was wrong, we used this angel at various points for example when the characters came out of the door to try and get out of the art block and also when the door slammed shut. We also used high angel shots to get a good view onto the characters and their actions at that time in the film, we used the zoom at different points in the film to follow to characters movements when they was walking in a straight line like when they was walking down the corridors.
Overall I think that the film was a success and i fully enjoyed being a part of it.

Thursday 13 October 2011
In this lesson we organized ourselves into our group, we then debated different genres and plot ideas that we wanted to pursue, until we all settled on a paranormal horror. We have chosen our film to be about two students trapped in school, after hearing story about a psychopathic teacher who used to teach at the school, who also died there after going on a killing spree. We also organized each other into what roles we will have:
.Will Taylor-camera man
.Mathew Clarke-one of the students who gets locked in the school.
.Kieran Coutinho-The other student who is locked into the school with Mathew.

The Pitch

Title: After Twilight.

Characters: Two sixth former students, recently moved to the school
                      Kieran & Matt

Location: Art Block of The Howard School

Genre: Paranormal Horror

Conflict:

·         Debate over whether the Ghost could be real

·         Between the Ghost and the students.

·         Lost friend and Matt cannot find him anywhere.

·         Trying to escape from the Art black

·         No Phone Signal

Structure of extract: Starts with Matt and Kieran not being able to open the doors to leave the art block. Then they start to debate whether or not the stories about the psychopathic teacher that they have heard are true or not. Loses friend, tries to find a phone signal because he begins to panic, finds friend, and gets pushed into a cupboard as well.

Story line:

Two sixth formers, who have just joined a new school to study their A-levels, are kept behind for ‘Twilight’ to study Art.  The new Sixth formers hear stories from other students/teachers about a psycho teacher who killed a classroom of students and then him self, a few years ago. When it gets dark, it feels as if you were there on that day. The new sixth formers start discussing it, but do not believe that there is anything paranormal happening, until when they try leaving the Art block, and they’ve been locked in. They come to the conclusion that it is just a freaky coincidence.  But after one of the students goes missing, the other starts to panic and tries to find phone signal in the block but cannot find any… The confused student comes across his fellow student, unconscious and tied up in a art supply cupboard. Matt tries untying Kieran, but get pushed in the door slams closed, hear shuffling and thuds from inside the cupboard whilst the camera slowly moves away and zooms out.

Will Taylor & Kieran Coutinho