ANALYSIS OF VAN HELSING

In the first 15 minutes of Van Helsing, it begins where Dracula and Viktor Frankenstein are creating his monster. Once he has been brought to life, Dracula kills Viktor, as he only wants the monster to bring his own dead children to life.

Throughout the first few scenes, they are completely in black and white. This is a good technique as it creates the illusion that it is in the past, which leads the audience to believe that what is about to happen is very important and relevent to what is about to unfold. The darkness that this effect creates also makes it look scary and daunting, as we are naturally afraid of the dark. They also use a technique that has inspired us within the directing of our own movie. When Dracula kills Frankenstein, we only see the shadows against a candle-lit wall, whereas in our movie, the only thing we did differently was pan the camera through some leaf-less trees. The same thing happens when Dracula morphs into his hideous, bat-like self. We only see the shadow of what happens. This is also to keep the audience interested and adds mystery and interest to the film.

Regarding the settings, the location is a stone castle, the room in which these events happen is covered in stone cladding, reflecting the cold, hard personality of the antagonist of the scene, Dracula. The only soft material in the entire scene is the bandages in which the monster is bound in, making him seem good in this story and innocent. He eventually takes Frankenstein's body to a stone windmill, which is eventually burned down by villagers. Across from the stone castle is a cliff where Dracula (in his bat form) and what appears to be his 3 brides come swooping over. They are hazy and surrouded by mist, which also adds mystery. The fact that they're purposly partly hidden tells the audience that they look scary, or that they will be larger antagonists during the movie later.

Lastly, we have used the element of mystery in the beginning of our film, as it creates tension and interest amongst the audience, and encourages them to keep watching. We did this by using black cloth to sweep across the camera to make it look like someone moving quickly behind the character. We also create suspense by cutting between shots quickly. At the end, a mysterious hand drags our main character into a dark allyway, and the shot is promptly cut off, again, to create suspence and mystery.