Impact of Cinematography on the movie - Essay Example

They find a very old ancient kind of a book having ghastly illustrations, a dagger, which is decked up like the skull of a human and reel-to-reel tape recorder. Initially they are very amused by seeing all this and they watch those things out of curiosity. They play the tape and start listening to it. The recorded message in the tape are the contents from "The Book of the Dead" dictated by the professor. It has the incantations, which have the power of resurrecting the dead and giving them the power of possessing the living beings.

A series of terrifying incidents start taking place the moment the students play the tape recorder. We come to know about the impending danger from the body language of the characters. One of the female characters holds the hands of her boyfriend and the covers her ears with her hands. They all are restless. One of them repeatedly requests Scotty to turn off the tape. There is sudden change in the atmosphere. It becomes dark outside and we see smoke coming out of the ground. This is an indication of something appalling that is going to take place.

The playing of the tape enlivens the demons that are lying in slumber in those thick woods. And thus they rise up and start possessing the students one after the other with vengeance and kill them. Thus the story of the film is interesting and equally terrifying, which makes the audience shiver with terror. The effects of horror, which are the highlights of the movie, have been possible because of the use of innovative techniques of Cinematography by the renowned cinematographer, Tim Philo. These techniques have played a vital role in the creation of horror movies.

Cinematography is a craft, which covers the technical aspects like - the gauge of the film (which ranges from 8 mm to 65mm or even more than that), the filters, focal length, lighting, camera movement, special effects etc. (Wikipedia), while shooting the motion pictures. Although such factors are considered in still photography, this craft was very creatively or innovatively used by the cinematographers for motion pictures. The film "Evil Dead" which was produced in 1981, was a chart buster and became a milestone in the world of horror films.

Sam Raimi who was the director of this movie was trying is hand at creating something extraordinary. This urge of unique creation resulted in the movie, "Evil Dead". To make a horror film was not easy at that time when people were very fond of seeing romantic films or at the most murder mysteries. This was indeed a challenge and Sam Raimi did it in great style. This was a low budget movie and the cast and the crew had to face innumerable hurdles while shooting for the same. But ultimately it was made and it became a huge success.

This film was unique in various ways. It was the first time that somebody had tried to experiment by using superhuman elements and by using animations and by experimenting with different aspects of cinematography. Cinematographer's creation is the mirror of thoughts or vision of the director. He works in a close association with the director, to bring out the aesthetics of the film to the surface and make it effective. He has to take care of the elements of color and light in accordance with the theme and the mood of the movie.

As the name suggests, "Evil Dead" needed to have dark side to its creation. Only script, dialogues, makeup were not going to help. To create that feeling of horror in the audiences, it required