Our Film Still

1. Describe your shot and identify in what way it could be described as representing your chosen genre.
Our shot represents the genre horror/thriller/slasher. It is a MCU of a teenage girl sitting in a toilet cubicle, and all we can see is her feet and her hand dangling down, under the toilet cubicle door. (And the bottom of the cubicle door creates a frame within in a frame.)
There is very minimal lighting, with shadows all around, creating a very dark image, so this helps to represent the genre of horror/thriller. The actress's second finger is also cut and bloody, so this helps to portray the genre too. And as she is a teenager (although we cannot actually see her face, we assume she is a teenager by what she is wearing - skinny jeans, pink converse and black nail varnish) it shows the subgenre to be teenage horror.



4. What would you do differently in hindsight?
If we were to reshoot or edit the photo, I would probably make sure the camera angle is right, to make sure that the shot is straight. (At the moment, the bottom of the toilet cubicle is not perfectly horizontal). I would probably also move the bits of tissue on the right hand side out of the picture, so that the background is totally dark and black, so that our eyes are definately drawn to the brightness of the shoes and hand, and not the white part on the side.
So we could either reshoot with the camera angle correct and move the bit of tissue, or just edit the photo now, by rotating it slightly and cropping it. If editting I would also slightly adjust the contrast to make the difference between the character and mise-en-scene even more prominant, and the end result would look something like this:

3. Identify what is successful about your shot.
Our shot is successful because I think that it identifies the genre well. I am really proud of our team's lighting; the desired effect was created very successfully with the pad light. The fact that our actress was perfect for our shot definately helped: her finger was bleeding and her nail varnish that day was black!2. What did you actually do to achieve the effect?
To achieve the dark shadowy effect of the shot, we turned out all the lights in the toilets, and just used a small pad light, with the barn doors half closed. This produced a small thin light, directed and concentrated onto her feet, and created darkness and shadows all around. The shot is a mid close up, so that the audience can concentrate on her feet and her hand in the shot, but also see the background and mise-en-scene, so that they know where the character is placed. We also got the actress to slightly undo one of her alces and dangle her arm, which makes her look vulnerable and alone, and make the audience ask themselves, 'Is she dead?' She is also wearing black nail varnish, and this also helps to connote the genre of horror.