How does the director create tension and discomfort?

• Camera techniques – angles, shots, movements
• Sounds + music: starts with eerie sounding music, a lone soprano singer, high strings, looming brass.
• dialogue
• setting
• Characters – actor’s body + facial language

The first shot is of a red liquid dropping onto paper, we assume that it is blood. The sound effect of it dropping is loud and like a ticking clock.

For the first minute or so, we don’t see faces, only hands.

The lighting is intended to only look like dim candle/firelight in the night time.

“The Last Will & Testament” – plot heavy, gives us a fair amount of detail on what might be happening here.

The blood is revealed to be sealing wax. Music subsides a little.

We are bombarded with the name Van Garrett, so that it will be remembered when it becomes important.

When we are outside, it is dark and gloomy, with fog. The horses and the carriage are both black. Van Garrett’s facial expression indicates unease and discomfort.

There is lighting seen in the distance. We hear crickets and thunder.

The scarecrow is seen from a low angle.

Rewriting the scene with creative descriptive language:

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

I held her hand as the deed was done. The room was quiet, a deathly glow emanating from the fireplace. He wasn’t perfect in his execution, but someone had to do it. With a shaky hand, he drew the viscous liquid out, one could tell he had not studied the craft in his past. Alas, it would have to do.

Was this the right thing to do? To run away at a time like this? Yes. Sleepy Hollow was a dangerous place to be. She willed me to stay, but I knew I couldn’t, not even for her.

The last candle burned out as we said our farewells. In the witching hour I boarded the swift black carriage, horses whinnying with frightful anticipation.

Consider how discomfort/unease/fear is developed via:

• Camera shots, angles, and movements;
• Colours;
• Sound & music;
• Setting;
• Mise en scene – the way a shot is created/set:
• Lighting.

Establishing shot: Wide shot.. Depth. Black trees hang overhead. Sheep high contrast to rest of shot. Deer heads when you enter through graveyard. The chimneys and the smoke seem to be the source of fog. Deserted. Super monochrome. Cold. The lines are sharp.

The road stretched into infinity. Each step I took raised such an amassment of dust that I was quite sure I would be soon engulfed in a sandstorm of my own creation. It was as though I was some kind of time traversing spectator, observing the ruins of a long abandoned city. Each building on the lonesome avenue stood high and proud, wearing tall hats of stone and thatch: a looming silhouette.

Even the healthiest of the trees were dead, whether by the thick flooding of smog, or the hungry cold that snapped at my heels. The silence was not easing my discomfort. Each dusty step I walked