Evaluating How a Director's Choices Develop Genre and Style/Synthesizing the Stylistic Choices of Multiple Directors

Evaluating How a Director's Choices Develop Genre and Style and Synthesizing the Stylistic Choices of Multiple Directors

     The class was asked the following question: What makes a good horror movie? A bad one? Collectively, the class made this table:

Good	Bad
Jump scare (it works)	Predictability
World building	Overuse of jump scares
Good actors	Annoying characters
Building suspense	Abandoning the story (killing with no plot)

     Next, the class was asked: What choices evoke the mood of horror? Two scenes were observed: the "shoot her" scene from Jurassic Park and the opening scene to Get Out. The table below is an analysis of the scene from Jurassic Park.

Cause	Effect
Low lighting/fog	Suspense/uneasiness
Workers’ faces are scared	Fearful mood
Monster’s point of view	Intimidation
Man is lifted by monster	Foreshadowing of power
High notes in the music	Chills
Ominous music	Ominous

     The second scene, the opening from Get Out is analyzed in the table below.

Cause	Effect
Music during the strangling: Juxtaposition	Creepy/out of place
The character is lost	Scarier/connects with the audience
The quote, “Not me today.”	Foreshadowing
Camera hides and reveals information	The chosen angles create suspense
The whole scene is one shot	Reality

     From these tables we can see what cinematic choices do to the tone of the piece. This is obviously very applicable in the field of film making. Film makers need to know what they are conveying when they make cinematic choices.