Film Evaluation - Jennifer's body

As a group we gained some inspiration for our film from Jennifer's body.

Jennifers body is a 2009 dark comedy and horror film written by Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama. The film is based in Devil's Kettle Minnesota, the story focuses on two girls, Anita Lesnicky, a nerdy 'plain jane' and the other focus on Jennifer Check a beautiful subtantially popular cheerleader.

The story of the film is narrated by Anita (Needy) who is shown in a mental institution, explaining how the seductive cheerleader takes evil to a whole new level after she is possesed by a sinister demon, quoting 'she's evil, not just high school evil.' Steamy action and gore galore ensue as the male student body succumbs to Jennifers appetite for human flesh.

Our group mainly focuses on the opening of the movie, which shows an earie tracking shot which appears to have been filmed using a steady cam leading up to Jennifers house, shooting into her window and then up over her bed. As a group we like the way this scene had been filmed as it gave the effect that it was a point of view of someone going into the house which created a sense of suspense. The opening titles appear on screen as the camera leads up towards her house, alongside this is the eerie music which is playing as the seen progresses. Sound effects have been added as the audience hear, hightend sound such as heavy breathing, dog howling and what sounds like someone walking along gravel.
Similar sound effects will be used in our film as it would be succesful in making our opening clip as sinister as possible.

The above photograph is a still shot from the movie, it shows Jennifer rising from the water after being stabbed through her heart.
This shot relates very much to the initial ideas for our main piece as Beth is stabbed through the heart whilst in the bath, it also gave our group some inspirational ideas as the mise en scene in this shot is very effective, especially the word 'hopeless' is a continuous quote from Jennifer when she is killing her victims she states 'i want you hopeless.'
However as we do not have a Hollywood budget, whether we can use the same dramatic mise en scene is questionable.
This shot is also a prime example of the rule of thirds, the rule of thirds is suggested to be one of the main rules in photography/media. It works by drawing imaginary lines dividing the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. Then you place important elements of your composition where these lines intersect. As well as using the intersections you can arrange areas into bands occupying a third or place things along the imaginary lines. After practacing different compositions we found that good places to put elements is third of the way up, third of the way in from the left and so on.