Short Film Research: (The Last Note/Mystery)

    Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! In this blog, I am going to look at the mystery short film titled, “The Last Note”. I will be researching by looking at the conventions of the mystery genre across this short mystery movie to maybe help me use those conventions in my short film. 

    So, let’s begin! Immediately when the movie begins the first thing I notice is the music used. The music used in this film was very dark and suspenseful and it stayed at a constant speed the entire time. I also noticed the lighting as well. The lighting was very dark, and it looked like a filter was applied in the editing process. I see that the music is playing through the whole beginning portion of the movie. I see lots of different camera editing done. I see lots of cross cutting between scenes as the talking is happening like when there is a flashback. I notice that when it does cross cutting to those flashbacks the lighting is even more dark than throughout the movie. 

    I see another editing technique used is the concept of voiceover when there is no acting, the voices add to the whole darkness surrounded by mystery genre. There are also sound effects added in the editing process to add to the whole thriller aspect like a heart beating that builds suspense. Furthermore, there was flash cross cutting between different angles to build that suspense of the audience by looking at it from multiple angles. Another common editing used was fades between scenes. I think the simplicity of these camera edits added to the suspense because it made the audience become so focused to wonder what is going to happen next as a mystery genre does. Common angles I see are medium close ups. This made the audience focus entirely on what was going on to continue to put their focus on the scene. There were lots of tracking shots as well to make the audience look like they were a part of the story to make the audience more invested in the storyline. 

    Other shots I notice commonly used were wide shots, over the shoulder shots, and more. Overall, from what I watched I see the key to the conventions of a mystery film is simplicity. I think the point of the overall convention is to make sure that the audience is so focused and paying attention because of how simple it is that the mystery plot twist at the end shocks them completely. What I liked about this is I liked how the story line was told backwards in a way. What I mean by this is there is a surprise at the beginning, with the movie starting with a big mystery. For example, this short film opens with a sequence of a guy carrying a body bag into the lake. But we then learn that the reason that happened was due to him being cheated on, but it ended with the plot twist of her poisoning him before he killed her. I also liked how the title of the movie leads us to the mystery but doesn’t expose the exact mystery, but it’s a title that makes the audience wonder and become invested, it's also dark in a way. This then leads into an explanation which is the plot twist at the end. 

    Nothing about this genre really did not appeal to me. From some other research, I also found some long movie examples of the mystery genre. These include movies like Gone Girl and Missing. Well, that’s it for this blog, the movie that I watched was great, be back to hear about me reviewing another mystery short film!