'Virus' by Simon Hynd...

Recently in class, we were shown a short film called 'Virus' by Simon Hynd, which really struck me in the way that it was written and shot, and found it incredible how the short film built up so much suspense while using no dialogue and no non diagetic sound. The suspense was created using the sounds of everyday objects such as the vibration and ringing of the phone, the grainy sound of the security camera and the colour correction to make the film genre appear as a thriller.

 Here is the film:

I think this short also works well on film as opposed to being a short story. It is common for a lot of short films to be derived or taken from short stories, however this particular example would struggle to be as effective on paper because the film itself is very video-orientated. The man is watching his computer, the security guard is watching the security camera (well he's meant to) and the man is watching a clip of his girlfriend watching the same thing happen to someone else. It is also effective as we are watching this all unfold, so it could appear that we are watching under the same circumstances as he is, being filmed for someone then to watch. This is why I think the film is so clever, and I really like the idea of producing my own short film in a similar style, but it would have to be done carefully and properly for it to work.

We also watched an A Level student film which was inspired by 'Virus', which he called 'Networked', and it achieved an A grade. It was good but it didnt achieve the same effect as 'Virus' did in terms of creating the thriller genre, however, it did bring the film up-to-date by using facebook instead of email on an old computer.

-KW