Reflections on shots

We chose the genre of mystery for our TV drama still. This genre lends itself fairly easily to stills as, being about mystery, the point is not to signify too much. The use of light mainly gives the idea of the genre. Oliver’s face is only half in direct light, half in shadow. He stands in the dark part of the shot which contrasts with the lighter, white pillar next to him. He is looking out of shot at something the audience can’t see, which leads us to ask questions. The positioning of his hands and the way he’s standing behind the pillar and looking round shows he’s hiding and looking at something/someone without wanting to be seen.

To achieve the affect we placed our camera low down on the tripod and tilted it upwards. We used the paglight to illuminate from the bottom right hand corner to create a shadow around his hand and to enable the left half of his face to be shielded from view. This also illuminated the white pillar more. We positioned him in the 3^rd fraction of the shot in order to further show he is hiding and trying to remain unseen, as oppose to placing him in plain view in the centre. We made his facial expression serious to show it was a solemn drama rather than smiling if it had been comedic or happy.

With the shot, we were attempting to communicate the idea of watching/ someone being watched. The subject of our mystery TV show could be detective based as he seems to be snooping around or even about a stalker/murderer. We wanted to make our shot daunting without becoming a horror-type genre.

I think our shot is successful as it clearly communicates the genre were we attempting using only subtle hints like shadow, positioning and facial expression to do so. Other myster y tv dramas like Twin Peaks and Midsomer murders feature similar stills like characters looking into the distant from the edges of the frame, so an audience would be able to relate our still to these.

In hindsight, we could have included another character in the foreground who is the person being watched as I think this would have been clearer in communicating the mystery genre. I would also like to have included some more costume as I think it is a clear indicator of the kind of TV drama you are making.