Synopsis

Final Detention

Our intention, when we first set out on this project, was to craft a five minute ‘stalk and slash’
section from a larger film in the teen horror genre – the instantly recognisable and
competently duplicatable conventions of the genre allowed to us to quickly and effectively
assemble a valid and cinematographically interesting sequence, and the immense, dedicated
fanbase provided us with an easily accessible target audience. Also, working on a five minute
section of a film, rather than trying to encompass the breadth of a whole story arc, allowed to
us to effectively ignore narrative cohesion and focus entirely on the pure filmic elements of the
project.

Final Detention is an unabashed rip-off of nearly every other film in the Teen Horror genre.
Taking its lead from films like The Evil Dead and Halloween, the film follows the exploits of a
group of teenagers who find themselves in a seemingly abandoned school whilst they attend
a Saturday detention. Unbeknownst to them, a mysterious and sadistic Killer stalks the
desolate halls. After some intrepid explorers bite the dust in a whole array of grisly manners,
the Heroine discovers the dark past of the school – the murderous spectre of a persecuted
teacher is exacting its revenge upon the descendants of his former pupils. The spectre
continues to dispatch with the teenagers until a final climatic showdown between the Heroine
and the Killer takes place.

Our section of the film depicts the death of the first victim. Our Victim has grown tired of
waiting with his peers, and decides to go for a walk to the toilet. As he works his way into the
bowels of the school, he becomes entangled in the Killer’s web, and is finally, horrifically,
dispatched by means of a Rather Large Drill.

Aims & Rationale

As a group, we decided that the Horror genre would provide an solid and effective base for
our practical application – as Director, I therefore had to familiarise myself with the
conventions of the ‘teen slasher’. As an avid viewer of all genres, I was already comfortable
with the cinematography of this particular genre, but nonetheless, it was a great challenge to
realise and act upon these well-established protocols within the parameters of our time
allotment and budget.

Unsurprisingly, there was little allowance for any individual’s creative variance on the
penultimately stereotypical conventions of our chosen genre. As director, I realised that
making a teen horror was totally unlike making any other kind of film – the function of every
camera angle is paradoxical; they should make the viewer feel comfortable (because the
teenagers like to think they know what to expect from the film) and terrified (because that’s
what they are watching the film for) at the same time. Films such as Scream and Friday The
13th were indispensable in discovering the happy medium for this effect.

Our main aim was very simple – we wanted to scare the viewer. We decided this would be
best achieved through a combination of quick stationary cuts and lingering tracking
sequences, the use of both ambient (diegetic) sound effects and non-diegetic music as
soundtrack and a real-time progression of events, so that the viewer experiences the situation
at the same pace as the protagonist. We aimed to achieve our real time progression through
the use of Steadicam-esque filming techniques, so that the camera never leaves the
protagonists. We also decided that if the camera ever should leave the protagonist, it should
be a strictly diegetic insert.

Mise-en-scene is normally a massive challenge and the subject of huge debate during the
pre-production phase. For us, it was relatively simple. Our mise-en-scene needed to mimic an
abandoned school. To achieve this, we simply filmed in our school when it was empty. Our
location scouting also revealed to us that our school’s underground passages provided a
suitably gritty and foreboding area for the grisly events of the film to play out.
My personal aims for the sequence, as director (with no experience of directing whatsoever)
were to pay homage to the vast numbers of horror films that exist in the movie world. Taking
my lead from directors such as Wes Craven (who encompassed and revitalised the whole
80’s horror movement in his groundbreaking 1996 film, Scream) and James Gunn (whose
very recent film Slither has given new life the near-dead ‘splatterpunk’ genre by affectionately
imitating some of it’s more recognisable films), I aimed to create a suitably frightening film
experience by genially reproducing the effects of some of my favourite horror (and sometimes
non-horror) directors.

Specifically, I aimed to imitate three techniques. The first technique was the use of
Steadicam-esque shots to make the corridors seem endlessly long, as Stanley Kubrick did in
his version of The Shining. The second technique was to utilise a camera style that
empathised with the audience – during the more violent moments, I opted to make the
camera look away. This technique is notoriously famous for creating shocking cinema – Tobe
Hooper made audiences believe they saw a woman lifted onto and suspended from
slaughter-house meat hooks in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, when they really saw no
such thing. I hoped to make my audience believe that they saw someone drilled through the
head. The final technique is the infamous blood splatter – most effectively used by Ridley
Scott in the seminal Alien, and Steven Spielberg in Raiders Of The Lost Ark (when Indy
pushes the official World’s Biggest Nazi Engineer into the propeller of a Luftwaffe Stuka).

Evaluation

In retrospect, I believe the sequence acts as a decently effective piece of trash horror. It met
all the principles of our original aim – to scare the viewer (we know it scared the viewers from
our various screenings) – and, perhaps most pleasingly, the effect was achieved by careful
planning of cinematic technique rather than an opportune discovery on set. It may seem
arrogant of me to constantly refer to our rather pleasing audience reaction, but the horror
genre is one medium of the movie world in which, more so than any other genre, is judged in
its effectiveness based upon the viewer counterpoise.

Our chosen genre was, in my humble opinion, quickly and efficiently established – the
haunting sounds of badly played panpipes and maniacal laughter throughout the opening
shot, and the shocking momentary appearance of a dark hooded figure assured our audience
that they were there to be scared. The opening shot, of the camera following our protagonist
down the hallway, only lasts for twenty seconds or so, but the audience feedback showed us
that they believed it lasted much longer. This, along with the semi-ambient sound tracking put
many viewers in a state of unease. Subsequently, many viewers jumped with fright, followed
by a round of nervous laughter, when the camera panned across to catch a fleeting glimpse
of a retreating killer. The use of a sudden, loud and typically frightening sound at this moment
reinforced the shock factor – and it is viable to argue that the only reason people were
frightened is because of the sound; most horror films are laughable when you watch them on
mute. Thus, in the opening sequence of our five-minute section, we have witnessed the
effective inauguration of the genre type, and managed to squeeze a decent jump-out-of-the-
seat moment in there too.

The later phases of the sequence were plagued by technical problems beyond our
conceivable control, and as director (and actor) I found myself battling increasingly numerous
inconveniences. Harsh light conditions in the underground areas of the school (specifically the
toilets and the changing rooms) and the lack of any equipment to counteract the poor light
intensity levels meant that I had to soldier on with the shooting, and relinquish control of the
brightness to the editor. Similarly, problems with an over-sensitive onboard microphone
meant that some on-set sounds were disproportionately amplified. The best examples of this
are the banging toilet door and the bathroom drier. Both sounds were distorted by their
volume, and several viewers misunderstood what they were supposed to be, thus dampening
the desired effect. All of these problems were anticipated however – we are not professional
film makers, and we have none of the necessary equipment to avoid these common downfalls
of amateur film-making.
Some of the shots I wished to achieve proved difficult. I originally intended to use a quick
insert of the Protagonist’s face with blood pouring from his mouth, following the hammer to
the head. However, whilst recording, we only had access to an anamorphic lens. The nature
of an anamorphic lens is to ‘squeeze’ the horizontal dimension of a shot into the screen. This
particular effect was inappropriate for our desired shot, and without the ability to suitably
frame what should have been an extreme close-up, we soon abandoned the idea, favouring a
first-person-view of the protagonist collapsing to the floor.

The greatest challenge I had was to imitate the humble, yet expensive, Steadicam system.
My attempt to do so involved a wheelchair, a foldable school desk, lots of duct-tape (I learnt
over the course of the production that duct-tape is, simply put, the most useful thing ever) and
a daring camera-woman. The end product of our efforts was surprisingly effective. However,
the motion of the wheelchair and the lack of any motion correction systems or
counterbalancing weights on the camera meant that a slight drifting movement can be
observed in the shots. Whilst the audience, and indeed the rest of the group, commended my
efforts to imitate what is a very equipment-reliant technique, I myself am most dissatisfied with
the end result, and feel that I could have done much better.

My own perfectionism aside, I felt that I generally met the aims of the group, and sufficiently
filled in my role as director. Problems with our video-encoding software during the post-
production stage meant that we irretrievably lost around a minute’s worth of footage. As a
result, the real-time continuity that we aimed for suffered somewhat. The editor did an
astounding job of maintaining a sense of continuity throughout the film with the footage she
was provided, although this does not alleviate the feelings of guilt I secretly harbour over not
being able to go back and re-shoot those two or three shots.

However, I feel that all other factors that were within my control were sufficiently dealt with. I
managed to effectively utilise all the effects that I desired, and as such I have pleased myself
by paying a loving tribute to some of my favourite films within this genre. The collective efforts
of myself, the editor and the crew has culminated in the production of a sequence that, I
believe, is above and beyond anything we could have conceivably expected it to achieve with
the expanse of our pitiful productive experience and our meagre budget; we spent £3.79 on
red jelly, milk, food colouring and duct tape.

As a result of this, the elements that hindered us have now become our strengths. That’s not
to say that our pockets are larger – if anything, they are smaller… but each of us now has an
expanded knowledge of the production process that will benefit us both in our future movie-
making efforts and our private viewing of other people’s films; and if that wasn’t the aim of this
project, what was?