Introduction
The short film we had chosen was an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, The Tell-Tales Heart. This short story was published in 1843. Just as Edgar Poe divulges, the short story is a narration by an unnamed author who recounts a murder he had committed on an old man who had pale vulture-eyes. The group acting and filming the narration comprises my mate Jake and me (Poe, 16).
The film is only 6 minutes long and this makes the film both a success and a failure. One of the aspects of successes we realized was the choice of the narration. Poe’s The Tell-Tales Heart is characterized with surrealism. In this light, we managed to use lighting to unveil the creative ability of the subconscious. For instance, in the instance where the narrator is questioned by the police on the possible or suspected death of the victim, we used lighting and image-improvising. For the latter, we made an image from a heap of clothes to give the impression of the old man’s bed. An effigy was also fit with clothes to not only depict the pale vulture-eyed old man but to also nineteenth century dressing. This successfully warded off the danger of anachronism.
Another aspect of the play and film’s success is based on the length and plot of the actual narration. The plot of the narration is linear and therefore allows for the compression of the murderer’s narration into five minutes. The main milestones of the play were the spying on the old man for seven consecutive nights, his murder on the eighth, the issuance of a report by alarmed neighbors, the investigation by the police and the haunting of the narrator and his confession. All these were compressed into a 6-minute play or film.
The aspect of the play that undermined its success is that there were only two people serving as the thespians in the play and film. These two were Jake and me. Because of this, Jake had to double up as the pale vulture-eyed old man and the neighbor who reported the supposed murder to the police and one of the investigating officers. I also had to double up as the narrator and one of the police officers carrying out the investigations. Because of this, we were unable to display the investigating officers and the narrator simultaneously and as interacting alongside one another. This required that we use a lot of shots in order to help relay the idea that the narrator and the investigating officers were all seated together in the murdered old man’s room.
Our limited number also spilled over to other important aspects of the play and film such as filming and editing. It was obviously very hard for the two of us to act, film, edit and merge lighting and sound. It is for this reason that we had to seek an extra hand, in order to supplement our efforts or shortcomings. This was mandatory since we could not act and film ourselves at the same time. Even with this incentive, it became an arduous task for the extra hand to do the filming, editing and lighting and sound. This explains the absence of continuity in the film shots and the inconsistency in the same.
Works Cited
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Tell-Tales Heart. London/ NY: The Pioneer, 1843. Print
