Traces
- 2014
- 4m
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Nice atmosphere set by the visuals but the clunky sound hurts it
This short film was made as part of promotional efforts ahead of an arts event in London where a long disused department story was temporarily opened as a space to recreate the feel of the place as it was. If you know this while watching the film it helps because there are some little hints at this even if it is done in a way which is in the style of a ghost story. The plot sees a young woman exploring via torchlight, catching sight of something moving in the darkness and, too late, getting the sense that she is not alone.
As it is essentially a promo film to get your attention before delivering its message in text at the end, the film doesn't have a lot of need for narrative because it needs to get atmosphere done right as the main thing. As such it does a nice job of lighting it with a torch (or at least what appears to the viewer to have only been a torch), with good visibility of what is going on but not so much that we lose the sense of being in darkness. The film continues this throughout on the way to a Shining moment at the end which at least gives the "story" somewhere satisfying to end and also links to the idea of stepping back into a previous era as per the Traces project.
Abe just has to convincingly look like she is a little spooked and she does that pretty well throughout but the aspect of the film that doesn't work is the sound. The film overdoes the "whispering" thing and also makes this too loud, so it loses a bit of its spookiness when it no longer feels like barely heard whispering. This is added to by some other effects being really poorly done; the sound of crystals while picking up some sort of glass thing is bad, but even worse is the sound of the drawers the character opens. It is such a small thing but the badly done sound really breaks the atmosphere which has been mostly well built by the visuals. It is a promo still though and probably few people will see this as the event itself is in the past, but it is a case of nicely done visual delivery being undercut by the sound.
As it is essentially a promo film to get your attention before delivering its message in text at the end, the film doesn't have a lot of need for narrative because it needs to get atmosphere done right as the main thing. As such it does a nice job of lighting it with a torch (or at least what appears to the viewer to have only been a torch), with good visibility of what is going on but not so much that we lose the sense of being in darkness. The film continues this throughout on the way to a Shining moment at the end which at least gives the "story" somewhere satisfying to end and also links to the idea of stepping back into a previous era as per the Traces project.
Abe just has to convincingly look like she is a little spooked and she does that pretty well throughout but the aspect of the film that doesn't work is the sound. The film overdoes the "whispering" thing and also makes this too loud, so it loses a bit of its spookiness when it no longer feels like barely heard whispering. This is added to by some other effects being really poorly done; the sound of crystals while picking up some sort of glass thing is bad, but even worse is the sound of the drawers the character opens. It is such a small thing but the badly done sound really breaks the atmosphere which has been mostly well built by the visuals. It is a promo still though and probably few people will see this as the event itself is in the past, but it is a case of nicely done visual delivery being undercut by the sound.
helpful•00
- bob the moo
- May 1, 2014
Details
- Runtime4 minutes
- Color
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