Annotation of the Open Door

           

The open door - Short film thriller. Created by Dan Allen on the 11th of February 2011 (Date posted on youtube)
                       - Directed/Written by/Edited: Dan Allen
                       - Original Music By: Christopher Hanson
                       - Starring: Lily Staff & Mike Allen

The reason why I chose to annotate this film is because of the location that it is filmed in - on a quiet deserted street and within a secluded house, and to compare it to my own idea of where I will locate my own short film (within forest, just out of sight of a public place).  

As this film is completely different to what i want to do but at the time it focuses on the same theme i have set myself which is thriller. Where i want to use mainly handheld camera techniques as it gives a chase effect as with handheld you can act quickly to fast action scenes. This film shows how you can still create thriller films while using a tripod, because not everything would be in a fast action scene.

Summary: 

This short film is about a young women coming home.  It is daytime, and she is the only person seen in the scene while she is walking home.  She appears to be happy and carefree.  When she enters the house she is the only one there and she has forgotten to shut the front door.  She is seen in the kitchen cutting up food, and then lying on a double bed wearing different cloths with a face mask and sliced cucumber over her eyes.  It is still daylight, and someone in dark clothing enters the house and then her bedroom.  She calls out a male person’s name – looking relaxed and not changing her position on the bed, he quickly appears right beside her bed and speaks.  She now realises that there is a stranger in her house.  In the next scene it is night-time, and the same women is in bed dressed in her pyjamas and suddenly awakes.  She appears to be confused – did she have a bad dream or was it real?  Scared, she slowly made her way downstairs to the front door and realises it is slightly open.  Just as she goes to close it the same dark figure is seen behind her rushing towards her.

Narrative Structure:

The film is non-linear, if you believe that all events happened in real-time and she had woken up after the intrusion. On the other hand, it could be linear, if you believe that she had a bad dream and then woke up.

How are the characters represented?

The stranger is a white male – based on the tone of his voice as you never get to see the face.  This all adds to the impression that the man is an attacker/ robber/ killer as it is unclear how the story will unfold – but you do feel that he is there to do her harm.  The dark clothes and the tone of the voice makes the character appear menacing.  The music playing in the background adds tension to the scenes whenever he appears in the film.  He is either seen creeping slowly, during daylight, in the house or quickly approaching her in the dark.  The camera is always out of focus while filming him in the background which also gives the impression that he doesn’t want to be identified. 

The women is white and young – she is represented by being seen to do everyday activities while walking home and being alone in a house and waking up from a bad dream – swinging her bag as she is walking home, using keys to open the front door, being careless about not shutting the door properly, cutting up food in the kitchen, lying on the bed pampering herself with a facial mask, being in the house alone and waking up from a nightmare, being cautious and checking that if she had shut the door. 

Use Of Camera

                

Mise-En-Scene

Location
The director used two locations.  The first location is of a quiet street near a canal/river.  This is a good location for the short film, as it makes you think that it is a quiet neighbourhood with very few people living in it.  It is the type of area that makes you think that you are safe and there is very little crime.  As the short film is a thriller the location is ideal, as there would be few witnesses around, if any, and a river nearby to dump any evidence such as equipment used to kill or harm a person, or even to dump a body.  The second location is a house.  This is a good place to set a film as the weather does not affect filming.  To improve the tension in the filming it would have been better if weather did play a part in the film e.g. heavy rain or lightning.

Costume

He is wearing a hoody that covers most of his head, and is dressed all in dark clothes.  It is used as it is often the costume that is used in films to portray a negative image. 

Her clothing changes throughout the film – dressed casually while walking home and wearing the same clothes while chopping up food in the kitchen; wearing baggy clothes while lying on the bed; wearing pyjamas during the night scene.  The change of clothing is very important as it gives the impression that time has gone by – she changed her clothes for the face mask during daylight, and then changed it again to go to bed and it was dark. 

Props

The props which was used in the short film was a grocery bag which contained the cucumber, the keys she uses to open and lock her door, knife which was used to cut the cucumber, normal household items such a bed and kitchen equipment such as kettles.

Editing 

Black and white scenes where used throughout the first half of the film, it could been used to set many different moods. One mood being to cause tension as black and white can be related to different old fashioned thriller films such Dracula and Frankenstein. Another way could be to set a calm atmosphere as some people may see black and white as relaxing as they can relate it to comedies such as Charlie Chaplin.

Jump cut is used from when she was cutting cucumber to when she was lying in bed, this could of been used to cut out time, but for an audience perspective it could have been seen as a matched shot as the scene in the bed involves the cucumbers over her eyes.

Sound

Sound bridge is used to add effect from the very beginning as the sound bridge was from the title scene straight into the first scene.

The majority film is used of film score which they mainly use a string instrument or a piano, these instruments are main items to use in a horror film as background to cause tension, which makes people want to hide, but wanting look at the film at the same time.

There is many digetic sounds within this short film, this brings a realistic feel from the film as you can hear the keys rustling; cucumber being cut; bags rustling as she carries it to the kitchen.

Dialogue is used which in my film i will keep to a minimal as in this film it works as it helps cause effects and realization to the woman, whereas in my films, dialogue can stray from when i am trying to portrays as some voices may not fit into these types of films.

Target Audience

The short film is a thriller, and due to what is implied that has or may happen it will be aimed at teenagers and older, who enjoys watching mysteries.

What Ideas Can I Use In My Film?