Research for horror film passangers

1. Genre Research
The Midnight Man

2. Passengers
• The overall mise-en-scene of the video is dark and gloomy
due to the fact that it's set at night; this is an effective setting
to have in a horror film as the darkness creates a gloomy
feeling since night time is typically when unfortunate events
happen, such as crime, car crashes, etc. and the use of
shadows emphasises the eerie atmosphere. Since the main
character is driving at night in this film, it puts the audience
on edge as they get a sense that something could go wrong.

3. Passengers
• The video uses a lot of camera shots and angles to effectively create a
chilling atmosphere. At the beginning of the film, a point of view shot is
used in the car to show the main character driving in a pitch black road,
only illuminated by the car's headlights - the surroundings are nothing but
trees which is an eerie setting as anything could be hiding behind the trees
and darkness. By using a point of view shot, the audience acts as the
character, meaning they experience a sense of escapism due to the fact
that they see exactly what the character is seeing. In addition, long shots
and extreme long shots are used when the car breaks down to establish
that the main character is stranded in the middle of nowhere. Reaction
shots are used whenever a scary event happens to reinforce the terror of
the situation and allows the audience to be scared for the protagonist.
When the main character is grabbed on the shoulder, an extreme close up
is used to convey the dread on her face whilst making the appearance of
the hand a shock to the audience - kind of like a jumpscare; depth of field
is also used to focus on the protagonist's face to make the face blurry,
which makes the appearance of the hand more scary as it's unclear on
what has grabbed her.

4. Passengers
• Sound is used very effectively throughout this short film as various sound
effects are used to emphasise the scary moments: texting sound effects
are used when Jessica is texting in the car in order to convey the danger of
the situation; when the car hits something, the sound is heightened and
selective sound is used to impact the audience by surprising them - this
also happens when footsteps and knocking sound effects are used; the
film also uses silence followed by a loud sound effect in order to increase
the scare factor for the audience. As well as sound effects, ambient sound
such as cliché horror movie sounds (e.g. very high pitched sounds)
combined with the use of a crescendo are used, which I think is a typical
convention of horror films.
• The target audience for this short film is 15+ due to how it's a horror
movie that includes scary scenes and it may be aimed at people who can
drive in order to scare them from driving at night.