DRAG ME TO HELL, JUST DON'T FORGET THE POPCORN!

That's exactly what this is, a "Popcorn" flick, not to be taken too seriously, (obviously) I did find it good in parts, but it didn't scare me in the way Japanese horrors do, there was no tension or build up of any kind, but then again that was not the point, the film was marketed as a return to "old skool scares" and on that, It delivered, in a way.

The editing was good, the effects were OK in parts but very cheap CGI looking in other parts, (for example in the shed when the old women comes at her, yet again, we see some horrendous CGI- but I won't say what for so as not to spoil) I really wanted to enjoy this film, and I was until I couldn't bare the noise from a group of teens sat to my left anymore, from the moment I walked in and noticed them I knew they were not going to shut up, (they were running around, shouting at each other at the top of their voices, throwing things etc etc) 20 mins into the film they had still not settled down and were driving me f****** mad! (every little thing that happened they had to make a big noise over it, for example, a fly goes into the girls mouth, and the group of teens must have shouted and made stupid jokes about it for at least 5 minutes) this became unbearable and completely ruined the enjoyment of the film for the whole cinema, as unfortunately no one had the guts to tell them to shut up, and the teens knew this and reveled from the fact! even bragging about it and making fun of the situation. Anyway back to the film! It had some really good scare scenes, I don't think I jumped, no I didn't, there was not enough suspense for that, except one scene in which the "devil thing" is coming up the stairs for her but all you see is it's shadow, that scene was quite good, and if the film had concentrated more on the "lamia-the demon/devil thing" rather than the old gypsy women the film would have been alot better, I feel the old women was rather over-used and I was getting a bit tired of her running at the girl like a zombie, (as in running with her arms aimed at her throat) only to vomit in her mouth or suck her chin, really very nasty rather than scary, but of course when the yukky event had finished the girl would be all clean and vomit free!

There is a fly in it a few times but it's significance is never explained, nor does it really do anything? Justin Long as the boyfriend and professor/tutor is wasted, I feel anyone could have played this part and Justin is still very young looking and didn't really fit the role that well, although he didn't do anything wrong mind, I just feel an older not as well known for being "funny" actor would have been better.

The twist at the end is predictable, it would have been good to have shocked me but I knew what was going to happen half-way through the film.

I will still buy this for my DVD collection when it comes out as I found it very entertaining and would be great to watch with a group of friends! It's just not what I expected, so maybe that's what set e up for disappointment? watch it as an entertainment popcorn flick and you'll enjoy it a whole lot more, just don't go in expecting greatness or you will  feel like you've been dragged to hell and back! (haha)

p.s. watch out for the stupid "goat" scene, which is the point which ruined it for me completely, and there is also a "Freddy krueger" rip-off.

Evaluation for video part 2

Video Part Two, “In a minute” Evaluation by Kelly Bruce.

 

I was excited about doing the 2^nd part of the video module as I wanted to get a better understanding of filming and using the camera, as for the first part of video early on in the year I felt my video could have been a lot stronger.

This time I would get to work in a group as last time I had been limited to working alone, as I had started the course later than the rest of the class.

I chose to work with Hoi Kam and Katharine as I was working with them on the second life brief and we all felt we worked well together and it would be worthwhile to continue as such, we had even given ourselves a group identity of 3K, and were going to have this in the credits of our film, but for some reason I think that part was forgotten! But nevermind!

At first I secretly wanted to work on my own as I had an idea and wanted it all to myself, for the fact that I just didn’t want anyone else to try and change it so maybe I was being a little selfish but as it happens I told Katharine and Hoi Kam and they both really liked it and along the way we did change things but as a team, my initial worries of having my idea completely altered were all for nothing! And I am very pleased with the result of the video and felt that we all again worked very well as a team.

To keep things organised I wrote a script, which we all read, but to be honest we had talked about the story so much that we all had a clear understanding of how it was going to work out in our heads! And because of this communication everything went to plan on the day of filming and we got everything done pretty quickly!

We did change things along the way slightly, for example the first scene was meant to be filmed twice so that we could use special effects and have the ghost on screen with the student at the same time and for her to replace her reflection in the mirror, however due to time and technical limitations we decided to not use special effects, but to just opt out of showing certain aspects of the film in the camera to give the effect we wanted in a different way.

In the 2^nd scene we were going to use special effects to have the ghost’s reflection follow the student through the reflective surfaces of pictures, glass etc. but instead we found a small square indoor window and decided that the student would stop here so that the ghost could make an appearance behind her though the window instead!

I had intended on playing a part in the movie having felt that if I wasn’t in it then it wouldn’t feel like my work, as my past videos have always had me in them, but playing the director was a good decision as I got to direct the actors who were very professional and much easier to work with than my mum! (Last video) and I also got to oversee what was going on and decide how I wanted the camera’s to operate etc.

But I made sure to take on board any ideas that Hoi Kam and Katharine had changing things here and there so that we were all happy.

I think the key to our project being successful was the cooperation and communication between us, which proved to be very effective, and helped us with time management.

We edited the video together, and Katherine did a great job on the title and credits, (she also helped me with the camera as I was unsure how to set up the tri-pod and silly things like that!)

I am a little disappointed that we were not shown any advanced video techniques in order to improve on the first attempt, besides a ten minute introduction or demonstration on how to set up the correct lighting for ‘green-screen’ use we didn’t get any further tutorage, something that I feel would have been useful, however I am sure if I had spoken to my tutors I would have gotten some extra help but as I was in a team did not need to worry so much as we all pulled together and helped each other so It’s not like there was no support, and we were assisted as much as possible with getting the footage off the tape although this was a tad frustrating as the AV suite was always too busy for us to get into, it’s a shame we didn’t have any dedicated time allocated to us as a year, but we managed without it ok once we got a tape player into the studio.

With regards to the sound, we used a soundtrack from an "Anime" however this was a mistake as we cannot enter the video into the one minute film festival because we would need copyright permission so I changed the sound by getting some "royalty free" sound effects from "sound-dogs.com".

The effects we used were “add noise” and “blink” to get the flickering, which I am not 100% happy with, it’s not the look we were after, we wanted a more static-like TV interference effect but were limited with time and unfortunately had no training in after effects which I have heard that we could have done all that and more in such as making the ghost scenes play backwards to give a creepy effect, I only wish we had had a full 2 weeks training induction for that but I’m sure we will next year so that is something to look forward to!

Overall I am very happy with the outcome and look forward to advancing my video skills in the next year working both alone and in a team.