Short-film reviewLights Out

TYLER MILLER

Hyperlink:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fDzdDfviLI

Background

When a woman turns out the lights, a figure appears, but when she turns them back on, it is gone. It’s not until she goes to measures to try and prevent herself from seeing this figure, presumably because she doesn’t want to believe what she’s saying – as soon as she feels safe she realises that she isn’t so safe after all.

Why do you believe this to be good?

The reason that this film appealed to me was due to it winning the award of 'Best Director' in the 'Who's There Film Challenge‘; this was the basis of my decision considering I wanted to see what it was about. The main reason as to why I liked this short-film after watching it is due to the length that the director went to to create a sense of fear of the unknown, this was done by purposefully editing certain areas of the footage as to being very dark to show that element of unknowing of what could be in the dark.

Another reason it appealed to me was because at the end of the short-film, once the woman believes she is safe we can finally see what she is really scared of due to the lights going off after we have visualised what this figure is, which is of course a demon. It’s also interesting because the demon is clearly a manipulated construction of what is a normal actor – the director has posted a video of the breakdown of the construction of creating this demon.

http://vimeo.com/83231790

Why do you believe this to be good?

Lastly I think this would be an ideal short-film that would be an influence to my future A2 Media short-film because it has that linking element, it constantly refers back to it’s title of “Lights Out” and we have a clear understanding of why it’s titled this purely because the whole of the short-film involves some form of light, whether it be a ceiling light or a night-light the short-film still has that concept of an unknown figure; although the figure appears to not be that intimidating, the point is that with a short-film there is room for adjustment because nothing is expected and you can be totally directionless whereas in a full-length film the director would be expected to have a full storyline plot which made sense.

Why do you believe this to be good?