Horror Still Shot Analysis

Our shot consists of two shadows, one of a girl, one of a boy. The shadow of the girl is smaller than that of the boy, and shows her hands out in a defensive position, as well as her mouth open in a scream. The boy is taller and has his arms and hands stretched out, claw-like, towards the girl, and he is also leaning towards her in a threatening posture. The postures of both characters in the shot help to create a scene connoting the genre of horror. The fact that it is dark and that the characters are shadows also adds to this.
To achieve this, we positioned the girl further away from the light source than the boy, so that the shadow of the boy was bigger and so more threatening and sinister. We held the light source tilting upwards to elongate the shadows further. The camera was positioned so that the shadows were in the frame but the actors creating the shadows weren’t. We had also gotten rid of any other light sources, in turning off all the lights and closing the curtains.
Our shot is successful in that it’s mysterious because you can’t actually see the figures involved, which makes it more sinister, bringing in the sense of the known. The whole shot is lit by low key lighting anyway, which is conventional of the horror genre. The hands of the boy are claw-like, and because he is so much taller than the girl he looks like some kind of monster. The girl’s expression, which you can still discern, implies that she is very afraid, and that there is something to be scared of, which is a feeling that would be transferred to the audience.
In hindsight, I would have found a more suitable background, but we were quite limited in places in which we could take the shot. Generally, I would have done more with the setting and costume as well, and put in more signifiers to connote a scene from a horror. I would also have tried to make the shot in sharper focus, and have more contrast between the characters and the background so they're more clear.