Further research

Nightmares Nightmares are an unfortunate side affect of our ability to dream. Just as we can recreate the imaginative and the wonderful when we close our eyes for the night, we can also recreate the scary, the horrifying, and it is often our deepest fears that are magnified through our dreams. Nightmares range from the common to the uncommon, but I find myself attracted by the dream of something hoovering sinisterly over your bed. It's a feeling I've had before, when you've just turned off the lights and you have the vaguest feeling you are not alone. It reminds me of the special effects using in Nosferatu the Vampyre, a film by Werner Herzog released in 1979, which is appropriate because very often nightmares are influenced and triggered by the horror films that we watch (against our mothers' advise). I love how it subtly uses the imagination to fill in the blacks just by using a shadow to approach the bed, a concept we are all familiar with.

Experimental response:

This video was quite interesting to make. I enjoyed testing silhoutettes for the best effect. I particularly like how the hand seems to snap awake just before descending on the sleeping figure, and the long, tense wait before the hand appears. I again used different video effects to test how I can enhance it's dramatic effect, and have found I favour 'film, older', as this setting gives the footage an aged effect, but not to the extent that some of the shape of the silhouette is lost.

Psycho is another film that uses the imagination to fill in the gaps, in the words of Hitchcock himself "transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience". It's no wonder it has become one of the horror genre's most famous scenes, as the stabbing motions leave little to the imagination, and the thick red blood speaks for itself. The part with the most suspense has to be when you glimpse the murderer entering the room through the shower curtains, that ominous shadow with the hand slowly but surely reaching out to rip the curtain aside and raise the deadly blade. I think overall it has a great impact. Second experimental response:

Again, I like the long wait before the blade makes it's appearance. I think it adds tension, building up the suspense as the viewer waits for something to disturb the peace. The sharp lights works well in showing the shadow of the knife, giving it extra prominence visually at the centre of the viewer's attention. The slow ascent I think is particularly dramatic, with the shadow cast across the bottom first before it crosses the wall. The fast swoop of it coming down is also particularly strong and dramatic. Experiment 3:

Thinking back on my previous video work post, I decided to include my perspective from that post as an experiment, with the elongated, inhuman skull partaking in the nighttime ritual we all know and love. While it's mostly comical, I like how it's the paranormal meeting the mundane, with the dark creepy silhouette taking part in something as simple and human as brushing your teeth, and it is human, it's very human, you don't exactly see Squirrels brushing their teeth or dogs flossing. Strangely enough it makes me think back to Gregory Crewdon's outlook on his work, where he has the strange and unusual, meet the safe and secure. Photographs which support video work: As well as using film work to show the horror of shadows and silhouettes which leave our imaginations to fill in the blank, I also took some photographs of other items cast in shadow to support my experiments.

I think by doing the photographs in black and white it really adds intensity, from these photos I can really see the effectiveness of black and white films in the horror genre. It adds a certain grandeur, a sinister appeal in that it brings out the dark shadows even further, making them bolder against the sharp, crisp whiteness. It makes the images very clean cut, which I think is significant in emphasizing the tones and shapes which induce fear. The final photograph is a bit of a joke, looking back at other experiments I've done, like the video of the inhuman skull brushing. Putting it in a sinister scene, hoovering over the bed as a dark shadow, and portraying something very mundane is quite comical. While it's different from the other photos in the set in this regard, I think it fits in strangely enough because it makes you look twice, and wonder why it's been put there, which I think is often very important in art work; bringing out questions in peoples' minds.