This is the horrifying still taken by my group. This image was actually not planned, but improvised while we were in a dark, suitably spooky, corridor.
This shot depicts a long shot of a male in almost complete darkness. The only light is a bright shaft of light illuminating one side of his face and torso. It could be seen as horror due to most of the body being in utter darkness, with what can be seen being ghostly, shadowed and ghoulishly distorted in the extremely low- key lighting. His head is on one side, suggesting that he is staring at the camera from the darkness. His clothes look as if they are draped in a cobwebby substance, suggesting something long- dormant. The face is shadowed and sunken, and has a red glow, suggesting danger of some kind. The prevalent theme is of something unknown, looking as if it is about to come towards the audience, provoking a reaction of fear.
To achieve the effect, our performer stood in an underground corridor, a short distance away from the camera, so that a long shot was achieved, and held a light at waist height, pointing up at his face, illuminating himself only partially.
Our shot is successful because the figure looks mysterious and threatening towards the audience. The low- key unnatural lighting caused his face to look blank and mask-like, and more scary. The poor lighting causes the body to look overall malformed and inhuman, and something to be wary of, making our still very horrifying.
With hindsight, and maybe even with some actual planning, we could have disguised the light better. Looking at it, it appears to be what it is: a professional light held in someones hand, pointing upwards. With only minor disguising, it can look like a mysterious unexplained light emanating from the figure's hand. It does actually look as if the figure is covered in cobwebs. If this were actually the case, the image could possibly work even better. But overall, our still is almost perfect in its horrifying imagery.
Monday, September 22, 2008
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