Dark Skies Preview

1. Dark Skies (2013) was a story about a family who their nightmares become real. A couples with 2 young boys was being visit every night at their house, they thought it was some kind of broken but things get worse and ridiculous. It start from a fridges with all food eaten, then floating food with a sign on the ceiling, and sudden hundreds photo missing. The couple thought it might be their sons who did all these, but the answer they get from is now terrifying the family with the "Sandman". And thing become more weird and weird, they being attack by clog, some sleep walking, sudden blackout, wiped memory and more which they couldn't have any scientific and logic explanation even from the scientist. And then the wife search on the internet and found some similar cases happen around the world, a man who can explain it to them. At the end, they were told that they are being spotted by aliens, and they are observing and making them weak with their fears. And all the weird thing happens to them was a sign of something end, means they will be attacked by aliens soon after. Aliens came by that night and took their elder son away. But end of the story, a twist come out, their son's voice is coming from the other end of walkies talkie, is he still alive?

 

2. Dark Skies is different with other Sci-Fic movie as it was confusing audience with the twist paranormal scene. And the sound effect was directing audience to the horror movie as we might at first thought it is. But end up the story was about aliens and alien's kidnapping. But with the story and those supernatural is more like another movie "Conjuring (James Wan, 2013)" where a story about a family moving to a haunted house. Like most of the horror movie (etc Conjuring), Dark Skies also having the same paranormal scene like bird clog fly toward the house, sleep walking and nightmares. But Scott Steward, Director of Dark Skies used all these scenes and explain it as a Alien's doing, making the movie a horror movie at the first but end up as Sci-Fic alien one.

3. Props and background being used was  so America style. It was using guns and agresive dog to show protection, they board the windows as well. And when they use alarms and CCTV for house protection at first place, it also show how American guard their house nowadays for prevent break in and protecting their family. It also show the family was once rich and affordable for those high tech equipment but debt make them have to cut some and save money.

4.Close-up / extremely close up : the subject framed by the camera fills the screen

Medium close-up :— close-up of one or two (sometimes three) characters, framing the shoulders or chest and the head.

Medium shot : frames a character from the waist, hips or knees up (or down).

Medium long shot : the whole body will be in view in the middle ground of the shot. nor too close or too far from the subject

Long shot : Subject are seen in full in their surrounding environment.

Extremely long shot : the subject or characters are very much to the background of the shot

Shot/reverse-angle shot : (special for dialogue) It consists of two alternating shots, generally in medium close up, frame in turn the two speakers.

5. Cutting style for this movie was involving a lot of genre. Normal cutting such as Match Cut and Jump Cut are used for chronological scene to explain the storyline to audience. But at the same time, there was also Compilation Cut to explain the reason for the twisted ending where the elder son was catched but not the younger son as we all thought. And it used the mother memory to explain by few scene to show us the truth about the story.

Reference:

1. Youtube (2013) The Dark Skies HD Trailer. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9592F2RpRPo

2. Himanshu Deswal (2013)  The Conjuring Review: It's a nice throwback to the moody horror films of the 70s, IBN Live (CNN). Retrieved from http://ibnlive.in.com/news/the-conjuring-review-its-a-nice-throwback-to-the-moody-horror-films-of-the-70s/411493-47-84.html

3. Calum Marsh (2013) Dark Skies. Slant Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/dark-skies

4. Viso Trailers (2012) Dark Skies Official Trailer (HD), retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9592F2RpRPo