Dark Skies Movie Review

1. A supernatural thriller follow a young family - the Barrett family who living in the suburbs. The Barrett family consist of father Daniel, mother Lacy, eldest son Jesse and the youngest son Sammy. Daniel has been out of work at least three months which become an issue they fight for everyday. Sammy communicate with Jesse from their beds via walkie-talkie and reads scary stories about the Sandman to him in order to distract him from their parent's fighting. The family start to experience an escalating series of disturbing events which involving their family safety and peaceful. From that time, Sammy tells Lacy that the Sandman had came to his room. Daniel and Lacy try to brush it off but the incidents become more intense. When the myth become clearer, Daniel and Lacy realize they targeted by an unimaginably terrifying and deadly force. Daniel and Lacy take action to solve mystery of what is after their family. However, they failed to protect their children from being taken away by the Grey - aliens that have traveled millions of light years to experiment on human. Three months later, Lacy realize that the walkie-talkie begins to crackle and Sammy pick up the walkie-talkie. He hears Jesse call his brother's name.

2. Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginative content such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. 

The Dark Skies different from other movie that marked as genre sci-fi because the film add horror genre into it. The director manage to generate some tense and creepy atmosphere in the film such as the ransacked kitchen, some paranormal furniture rearrangement and a convoluted camera monitoring system. Besides that, the director try to create the feeling of terror in this film by using the sound effect. The director first using the quiet scene and suddenly using increasingly loud tension chord to shock the audience. For example, the way of characters banging their head against glass or staring agape into the camera. Despite all these scenes, the director didn't use the visual effect of  the alien " grey" directly at the front part of the movie but his choose to build up the emotion of the audience to feel the tension of the character. Therefore, the Dark Skies different from other Sci-Fi movie such as ET, Men In Black and more that using a lot of imaginative content and futuristic visual effect.

3. The time background setting of the film is 20th century.  We can know that the idea of the film present is 20th century because the convenience of the internet accessible by the character and there is no futuristic setting gadget for the film.

The place setting for the Dark Skies is suburbs - a usually residential area or community outlying a city.

There are a lot of scenes showing that the resident around the area doing activities around the residential area.

Some of the important props that use in the film are

bicycle

walkie-talkie

food can

the dead bird

gun

wood 

drawing paper

4. Here is the shot types that had been used in Dark Skies.

1) WS (Wide Shot)
The subject takes up the full frame, or at least as much as comfortably possible.
AKA: long shot, full shot.

The starting of the movie show that this is an ordinary family. 

2) MS (Mid Shot)
Shows some part of the subject in more detail while still giving an impression of the whole subject.

After Jesse heard some voice that cannot be hear by other, he become unsound mind.

3) MCU (Medium Close Up)
Half way between a MS and a CU.

Lacy was trying to protect her children so she was looking up and down for Sammy and Jess. However, she didnt not realiaze that Grey is standing behind of her. She end up with locked alone inside the room.

4) CU (Close Up)
A certain feature or part of the subject takes up the whole frame

Lacy realized Daniel wasn't in bed and when he found Daniel, she saw Daniel in this expression and later he was nose bleeding.

5) Cut-In
Shows some (other) part of the subject in detail

Daniel realized that he had some allergic symptoms on his left ear in the morning.

6) (OSS) Over-the-Shoulder Shot
Looking from behind a person at the subject. 

Lacy was talked to her client at that time after that she walk to the glass and started to bang to the glass which shocked client.

7) Two-Shot
A shot of two people, framed similarly to a mid shot.

Lacy asked Sammy whether he know who did about the prank of the ransacked  kitchen and Sammy answered her it was done by Sandman.

5. One of the critic of editing style in the film of Dark Skies is that the film using jump cut.
Jump cut is a cut in film editing in which two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary slightly. The jump cut usually have to avoid in the film. However, the Dark Skies using the jump cut well and bring a good effect.
 Here is the comment of the audience about the jump cut that use in the film
"One of my favourite moments is a P.O.V. shot that turns expediting jump cuts into otherworldly temporal blips by amplifying the disturbing soundtrack hum at the point of each edit. It's more effective, frankly, than the one or two awkwardly-rendered shots we get of the "Grays," who are at least used sparingly. "

As a conclusion, if the jump cut use well in the film, it will add a sense of speed to the sequence of events.

Reference

Bill Chambers(2013). Dark Skies (2013) - Blu-ray + DVD + Ultraviolet. Retrieved from http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2013/05/dark skies.html#sthash.ebyhl2Oa.dpuf

Bordwell, David; Thompson, Kristin (2006). Film Art: An Introduction (8th Edition). New York: McGraw Hill. p. 254. ISBN 978-0-07-331027-5.

Shaun Munro(2013). Dark Skies Review: Laughably Derivative Sci-Fi Falls At Every Hurdle
. Retrieved from http://whatculture.com/film/dark-skies-review-laughably-derivative-sci-fi-falls-at-every-hurdle.php.

Kyle Anderson(2013). Interview with “Dark Skies” Writer/Director Scott Stewart. Retrieved from http://www.nerdist.com/2013/02/interview-with-dark-skies-writerdirector-scott-stewart/.

Media college.com. Shot types. Retrieved from http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/.

Rotten Tomatoes(2013). Dark Skies Movie Info. Retrieved from http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dark_skies_2013/.