Play and Stillness

Theme

Play and Stillness

Method

I recorded several objects I found in my room and put them together to create a ‘scary’ video. There are three kinds of music in the background to make this film ‘scary’. The first is the constant ambient noise that exists across the video, and the second type of noise is the sound effect that happens between each cut. The last type noise of starts to build up when the video is about the end. The change of the light at the end of the video also allows the audience to focus on certain points on the screen and anticipate something to show up.

Context

Independent play was used in this response. When making this film, I was entirely alone, and I use the object around me to create a story. Children also use this to keep themselves entertained, one of the steps on the path to being self-sufficient. They interact with toys and start to move into the independent play stage.

I think the idea of stillness can be presented as a background element to highlight something else. Weird enough, the first thing that comes into my mind when making a video of stillness is the movie franchise Paranormal Activity. Paranormal Activity is an American supernatural horror franchise consisting of eight films and additional media Created by Oren Peli. In the movie, the scares are created by objects moving slightly inside a scene, and it is the stillness from other objects that makes the scene scary. Therefore, I think this is quite effective because this makes the audience pay full attention to every object on the screen and most of the scares are not jump scares. The idea of fear of stillness is also related to Kenophobia, which is a fear of open spaces and voids. In Kenophobia, the person is terrified of open fields or spaces that he or she generally expects to be filled with mountains or people. 

Response

https://youtu.be/wIt4TLH56mM

Reflection

Different from creating stillness in people’s minds with calm music or a natural environment. I think the idea of stillness can be also presented as a background element to highlight something else. In this week’s response, the stillness of the video makes the transition, in the end, more effective. When planning those shots, I was going to use a static shot to present the stillness of the objects, but I think that makes the video less realistic, so I decided to hold my phone to make the video look natural. However, judging by the result, I think this is a poor decision because the video is not as scary as I thought.

References

Why independent play is important for cognitive skills and health (Mama Miri, 2021)

Solitary (Independent) Play – Benefits and Why It Is Good for Kids (Mahak Arora ,2018)

https://www.verywellfamily.com/types-of-play-2764587