Evaluation

During the making of this storyboard I was required to use all the knowledge I had gained in film studies so far. This allowed me to de-construct my idea then reconstruct it with greater depth and artistic flare by using my knowledge of the conventions and playing around with them.

The film can be described as a neo-ghost movie. This is because it combines traditional elements of ghost literature and film with a modern day aesthetic and philosophical approach that is lacking from ghost stories which have origins in superstitious societies. To this end I endeavoured to create a piece that had suspense and fear but without menace. To this end I left out any threatening imagery such as weapons and blood and focused on just presenting the events as they happened, trying to capture the two character's emotions.

The most notable use of this was in the peeking shots, where the ghost is peeking around corners to see Roisin. The reason for this is because the character does not feel they are meant to be there so it stares at Roisin from places where it cannot be seen. The reason for the onset of darkness is because Max does not want to be seen, but the flash light appears because there is a deep part in the character which wants to be recognised by his love again. Eventually Roisin pursues the search for long enough for Max to feel he is able to appear which is shown by the hand on the shoulder in the final still.

The first aspect I work on was framing, using the picture as a box and placing all the required parts within it to create a sense of space and meaning. This was most notably used to create a sense of space around Roisin which was used to hint at the idea that there was once someone else there. The other use of space was to create an emptiness which was a personification of the emptiness of the character's life and soul because Max was gone.

My mise en scene was used to create a sense of space and blandness. Most of the environments used were deliberately open and wide which showed there was space around Roisin and was indicative of her internal mental space. When she enters the house this is achieved by having a lack of anything really present in the house. This use of a lack of environmental decoration was especially important in the vacant room with the torch as it was constructed to be completely bare but not packed away which proved it was not a spare room but a room that was once occupied but that is now empty.

In terms of colours the beige was used for the walls because it is bland and lacks any emotional input, this demonstrates there is no outward emotion here. The feeling of blandness is the reason for Roisin's grey jacket, grey is bland and feelingness which is indicative of her outward mental state. However, her red hair shows her true emotional state. Red is often used to show intense feelings of anger and lust, which is parallel to Roisin's feelings of anger and sadness of the loss of Max. It also shows that despite her outward emotionless, shown by her cloths, she has a great deal of internal feelings, this is because hair is part of you, it is not something you put on it is intrinsically connected to you.

The next decision I made was my use of lighting. The outside shots has a florescent and green hue which is quite modern in some ways, but more over it made it seem a bit distant and disturbed because of the sickly overtones in the lighting. The shooting indoors was a warmer colour, aided by the bage walls, but it still maintained a green hue to the images to continue that sense of unease. However, the lighting changes when the darkness sets in to more reddy and orange which signifies the warmth because the two are closer now than they have been for some time before. The darkness was also used in a traditional ghost story way to obscure the scenery and add tension.

Although sound is not present in the storyboard as such it is noted when it arrives. For most of the piece the Digetic sounds should be clear and crisp, even slightly amplified to give it a sense of simple mundane reality. This should be used to hammer in the sense that the character is just living her life, without flare or fun. However, the non-diagetic sounds are used in a traditional horror way, such as the use of a string screech to single moments of intense horror and dark ambience to build tension.

Throughout the process I was able to play around with carious settings on the digital camera to accentuate the tone of the pictures. I also used a piece of photo editing software to alter several shots to contain a spacial distortion which indicates the presence of an otherworldly being. Aside from these new tolls I used and expanded my knowledge of film conventions and techniques in order to construct a solid piece which both played on and contrasted against the typical ghost story conventions.