House Of Leaves Cinematic Analysis

Would you watch a block buster film like Star Wars Episode 7 if you were presented only with its raw footage? As the audience, you would miss out on the film that regular moviegoers would have experienced, a compact and meaningful version of the raw footage. Editing is the art that improves upon the initial product by coherently refining the film. Without it, the raw product would lack the content structure that would rhetorically impact the audience. While editing our House of Leaves adaptation video, I compiled the raw footage such that an ethos and pathos could be established between the audience, Holloway and his slow descent into madness.
In order to create empathy with Holloway, the audience has to first establish an ethos between the actor and his scenario. Marcus portrayed Holloway in a convincing manner, showing the audience how the character’s madness crept into his conscience. However, the raw shots of a dorm room would lack the ethos necessary to impact our audience in the way a dimly lit room would. For example, in most of the finished film, you can only discern Marcus’ face

In our adaptation video, I strived to gradually decrease that brightness in each shot to convey multiple messages. One of which was, the Hi-8’s battery was slowly draining, signifying the passage of time within the house. I intended this effect to give the audience a sense of urgency for how long Holloway has been isolated from his comrades. The only scene for which this effect is not used is the final shot of the film, where we portrayed a flare in our scene. Secondly, I wanted to make the audience feel lost with Holloway. The low brightness prevented the audience from seeing more than Marcus’ face. However, occasionally a wall would be seen so that the audience could still see he was inside the house. The audience is never explained what is happening, they are just as lost as