CAMERA WORK IN THE SRI LANKAN HORROR MOVIE `BANDANAYA': A CONTENT ANALYSIS

Abstract

Camera work is one of the most essential ingredients in filmmaking. All renowned horror cinematic creations have employed great camera shots, movements and angles. Even though, Sri Lanka does not have a larger film industry, directors and cinematographers experiment with this particular genre to a certain extent. However, researchers in Sri Lanka have not explored to understand the Sri Lankan camera work used in the Sri Lankan horror genre. Sometimes pre-planned technical script shots change according to the situation in the shooting locations. Therefore, it is difficult to get an overall idea of the camera work used in the film by looking at the technical script in the first place. The main objective of the present study is to understand the camera work (camera shots and movements) used in the Sri Lankan horror movie `Bandanaya' and it will be benefitted to the researchers and filmmakers to understand the Sri Lankan filmmakers' flavor of the camera shots and movements in the making of horror movies. Video observation and content analysis methods were used. 74 scenes were identified. The unit of analysis was the camera shots and movements used throughout the scenes. 12 terminologies were adopted for the analysis. The study revealed that 1182 camera shots were employed in the entire movie. There were 396 (35%) Medium Close Up shots, which was the maximum percentage followed by 214 (18%) Medium shots, 204 (17%) Long shots, 136 (12%) Medium Long shots, 132 (11%) Close Up shots, 31 (3%) Big Close Up shots, 28 (2%) Extreme Close Up shots, 24 (2%) Point of View shots & 13 (1%) Very Long Shots whereas there are only 4 (0.33%) Extreme Long shots used in the entire movie, which is lowest in percentage. Scene no 65 has employed the maximum number of camera shots and the Pan Left was the most used camera movement in the film. In Conclusion, Sri Lankan filmmakers mostly used Medium Close Up shots and Pan Left camera movement in the horror movies.