"What Looms In The Night" - ID# 411

New Trier

Division: AA

Dramatic Narrative

Entry Description

Creaky footsteps and howling wind may not be all that looms in the night...

Recent Teacher Comments

• 4/2 11:31 am - What Looms in the Night Interesting color scheme Good sound effects and sound design Good/interesting lighting Clever graphics Nice choice of music Nice surreal vibe Some graphics on screen for too brief a time Around 3 minutes, storyline got lost on us
• 3/10 2:43 pm - Story: I don’t think your story was the most successful element here. In fact, I don’t really get it at all. A girl is home alone playing video games. She broke up with another girl maybe? Long story short: there’s a creepy thing with red eyes that presumably is going to kill her or something. Camera: This is frustrating because you have some really cool shots that work well, and you have a bunch of stuff that is too dark to say anything meaningful about. Lighting: Same note here. Your lighting is both the best and worst aspect of this film. You have some very effective lighting that wonderfully creates the creepy vibe you’re going for. But you also have a lot of muddy junk where we really can’t see anything. More fill light would help a lot. Sound: This I thought was consistently well done. Good music tracks and sound FX. Levels are good. Very effective. I do think some sort of more jarring FX with the reveal of the red eye guy would make that more impactful. Since nothing really happens, I think what you’re going for is basically a jump scare. But there’s not music cue or sound FX to make us jump. So it just ends up being creepy for a second and then ending. Editing: Lot’s of good work. I don’t really understand the scrolling pictures or who exactly she’s texting with. And it doesn’t seem like that person is connected to the red eye guy. (Unless I’m missing something obvious.) But from a technical point of view, the texting bubbles are well done and effective. Final Thoughts: Lots of good work here. I don’t think everything works, but you demonstrate some very good skills here. Keep at it.

Judge 1

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Judge 2

Positives: The creature/monster at the end was well-realized, and the story had me guessing about the true motives of the girl on the other end of the phone.

Improvements: The ending could be better realized - did the girl summon death by some form of voodoo/witchcraft? Also, it’s unclear where the bear/rose came from. I can get behind summoning a dark force, but the logistics of placing things around the house (did the talking bear have any significance?) are a little lost on me. I like the general idea of the narrative and character motivations, but the story execution can be tightened up.

Judge 3

Positives: Thumbs up for creativity. You try a lot here- video game screen capture, fairly effective text/photos superimposed, glowing red eyes, etc. It's not all flawless, but a lot of it works.

Improvements: The story's a little enigmatic to me. It seems like the spurned girl gets vengeful, but I don't understand how the table was suddenly set with the necklace inside the rose. I thought the other girl was going to bed, and suddenly she's in a dining room. As much as I love some of your lighting, too much of it was just dark and thus confusing.

Judge 4

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