Analysis of past student thrillers

After Eight

After eight is a thriller film by Laura Bankole staring Michael Rhodes and Stacey Talbot. The thriller is very mysterious as we haven't actually got any evidence of anyone doing anything wrong however we know something bad is happening. 

Camera 

The camera shot begins with a long shot of the garden giving us a clear view of the emptiness. we then see a man walk into the camera. The scene changes into a close up of a woman washing the dishes. then back to the man walking forward. during the whole scene of the long shot of the man walking up to the shed the camera alters to the close up of the woman, which creates effect as it is almost an distraction to what the man can be doing. then there is a close up of the man, the camera angle is low showing us his power. the camera is then put on the ground and we see him walk across and then goes back to how it was in the beginning except this time it is a long shot of him waling towards us yet still the woman washing the dishes.

After this the scene moves into the house were we have a close up of the woman cooking creating a calm atmosphere as she is doing something normal. there is then a shot, reverse shot of the two characters while they were talking. there is then a close up of the chopping board, the ax and knife and the blood. this creates effect as it is the first warning we get to something bad that is going to happen. which creates suspense as it is a abrupt change from the calmness of her cooking as we thought there couldn't have been anything that could have gone wrong in the moment. then there is a close up and we only see the woman back as she pours the milk as if it is hiding her identity from us. the camera then zooms in into the weapon, once again giving us another warning, enhancing our thought to something that is going to go terribly wrong.

Editing

The film begins with many transitions of the two scene in the film of him walking up to the shed to the woman washing the dishes. there are many jump cuts between the scenes until the both meet. there is also a lot of overlapping editing as the camera keeps showing her washing the dishes as he goes into the shed and comes back to the house. when both of the characters are talking there is a shot, reverse shot. the opening begins with a slower pace, it slowly builds up as the music and scene gets more tense. this creates effect as we expect something bad to happen making the audience feel scared.

Sound 

In the title we her rain and thunder which tells us the kind of mood the film is. throughout the beginning of the trailer there is this high pitched sinister music which is very high pitched. above the non diegetic music there was the diegetic music of her washing the plates. we hear the kettle and there was also the sound of the nature in the background when the man is outside. we can hear barking which gives a realistic feel to the film. there is also the sound of her chopping the vegetables which calms us down from whatever is happening outside as what she is doing is a normal thing.  the sound jumps from the nature to the sounds indoor which enhance the different scenarios e.g form the good to the bad.

There is dialogue in the film towards the ending. when the man enters the room we hear them talking with the chopping at the back ground. "are you ready for this" when the male character says this we wonder what they're ready for and this creates fear and tension and makes us wonder if they're both villains. there is a non diegetic sound of piano keys playing as the high pitched sound gets louder and deeper building up the tension making us expect something bad to happen. All together the sounds are very chaotic which is resembling how we feel as we are confused to what is happening.

Mis-en-scene

The scene begins with a man who is dressed in a smart wear, he looks like he just came from work. he is carrying a bag which is quite big. this looks mysterious as we would expect him to be carrying a briefcase instead. we wonder why he would need such a huge bag and what is inside it. we think that maybe he is a serial killer and he may be carrying a dead body in there as he looked so suspicious and kept looking back for assurance that no one was there watching him. the scene then cuts to the woman who is washing the dishes, the plait she is washing is heart shaped and red, indicating love and calmness inside the house whereas in comparison outside there could be bad things happening. the love heart plait could mean that she is with him or someone else. the scenery is located in a garden inside a shed. whereas the woman is located inside a house in the kitchen.

The woman is making him dinner, this creates effect as it is trying to make the scene look as normal and calm as it can, as if it is trying to fool us into thinking that there is nothing bad happening. however during the whole scene we don't see the woman's face a lot as if the film is trying to hide her identity, probably warning us that she has something to hide that the film doesn't want us to know.. we wait for some sort of warning however it is fine until the very end when we see the chopping board covered in blood which on top of it was an ax and a knife. this creates effect as during the whole opening we thought that the man was probably a serial killer who was going to kill his wife, however things changed when we saw the blood and the ax making us rethink the whole situation believing that she may be the bad person after all.