scream part 1 analyis

note: I have only analysed the opening 2 minutes so that it is an accurate reflection of our own individual piece( as we can't go past 2minutes in our own) but could not find  a shorter opening.

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pFCStOMqpfk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This is one of the shots from the opening sequence where she is on the phone to 'screamface'.
As you can see by her relaxed posture and smiling expressions she is quite comfortable
with the situation reflecting her innocence and youth. It also shows she is quite naive as she doesn't realise he is
stalking her.



Scream begins interestingly by an introduction of loud non-diegetic sound where the films title appears on screen by compression then de-compression, accompanied by repetition of a phone ringing alongside screams, effectively conveying the narrative of the film straight from the beginning with no sense of ambiguity. The title then glows red another typical convention of a horror movie which is often associated with this colour as well as white and orange.I really like this effect of the colour change but introduce the title at the end of the film sequence to subvert expectations. Repetition of the phone ringing occurs again followed by a scream to which the title switches from white to fully red , before it enlarges filling the screen.

This then transcends into a centered shot of an old fashioned telephone ringing on the table, with a hand grasping the phone, though the face is obscured which suggests a sense of anonymity, that perhaps she is quite a shy person who doesn't share confidences with many people. However she answers  a conversationally in a polite manner. Here is a recap of their conversation
( I have only included certain words)




Her- hello?' ( in an inquiring manner)


 
Scream face replies Who is this?'(in a low scratchy voice)
Her- who you trying to reach?
'You've got the wrong number, take it easy'

She then turns around in which we see an over the shoulder shot as her back is turned and the phone rings almost, immediately after  and again has another conversation with him , quite unaware of the fact that this person may be dangerous, chattering away happily before it flows into the next scene of a hunched tree, twisted with a minority of leaves( i like the idea of using trees perhaps we can use it in our own but interact with it instead of just having a shot of it). The lighting here is night of course( typically horror) with crickets chirping in the background noise.( I like the idea of normalalistic background noise which can be warped to convey the horror genre) What transcends is quite a spooky establishing shot composition of her back graden where there is a swing swinging by itself which suggests that there is something lurking in the garden.

From this slow scene we quickly emerge in her kitchen where there is a closeup of her electric cooker before slowly directing the camera up the rest of her body, where she is cooking popcorn.The phone then rings again:
screamface-  why dont you want to talk to me?
what's that noise?
Her- oh just popcorn, going to watch a movie
Screamface-what movie?
Her- oh just some scary movies
Screamface- you like scary movies?
Her-uh huh
Screamface-what's your favourite scary movie?
To end with this phrase is quite obvious to us as an audience that something is going to happen but she is completely oblivious and thinks that he is just a normal person who happens to be curious as to what she is doing. This makes us fear for her safety .

The blair witch project analysis

Note: I tried searching for a shorter opening of 'The Blair Witch Project' but this was the shortest actual version of the film, which is why I decided that even though our own film will be 2 minutes, I still analysed the whole of this sequence. Also you have to click this link to access this opening as embedding has been disabled for this film :
http://youtu.be/gmOLAa-LFNU

The girl who is filmed at the beginning of the film



The famous words used whih is terror inducing and is quite a good technique to use. I like the use of ellsion within this and the emotive language used. Perhaps we can incoperate this into our own construction.

The film begins with blurry amateur, handheld footage ( I like this idea of handheld footage which we can mix with tripod footage)where the camera person at this point begins with a reverse zoom of the girl laughing and  joking which subverts traditional horror movie discourse as usually their is an introduction of non-diegetic soundtrack which emphasizes the horror genre as well as creating tension. These few seconds that are shown within these moments are quite realistic, a representation of everyday life and normality which again is an intriguing method.Perhaps we can use this method of handheld cameras to generate a sense of realism as well as jolty footage, though we don't want to make it seem overly student-like.

 An introduction of dialogue is shown next to a closeup of books  'some essential reading how to stay alive in the woods'. At this point there is implicature that this is not just a camping trip, it's going to be dangerous but at this point of time were not sure as to what exactly is happening.The footage is then changed to black and white( another idea which we could use in our film as it is something which other media students are unlikely to use and we want our film to be unique) for a few seconds as the students are playing around with the camera's effects-showing the youth of the characters which does conform to horror victim stereotypes as they are often portrayed as weak and vulnerable to clash against the dominance of the villain.

The next sequence is in the car where there is an informal atmosphere through the diegetic music playing in the car, whilst the students are all chatting and laughing together ( this could be an example of a slow tension build-up as at this point you suspect nothing) and of course a clash of dialogue as the students interrupt each other. This then transcends into a short supermarket scene where they are shopping for essentials that they need for the trip with a large amount of closeups on the food their buying e.g. cereal/marshmallows, again conveying that they are young and perhaps foolish, that they don't take anything seriously which could imply to us as an audience that this is what leads to their downfall.

There is then a tracking shot of one of the students looking at a window decorated with ghosts and pumpkins in a childish non-scary manner which is a symbolisation to the audience that it is Halloween which may or may not ( depending on which way you look at it) make you feel uneasy. This is especially apparent when accompanied by the student's choruses of 'oooh' which although in itself isn't scary the basis behind it may make you fear for the student's safety.

At 2 minutes 08 seconds ( roughly)one of the female students asks the waitress ' Have you ever heard of The Blair Witch Project?' in which the camera effectively frames the waitresses discomfort and unease at the question being asked,making us think that the Blair Witch must be a legend/myth.It also implies clearly to us the reason why they are camping out in the woods, perhaps to prove or disprove the mythically theory which links into the earlier statement about staying alive in the woods.The waitress then replies ' My older sister went to Blair High School' giving us the ideal that perhaps it is connected with the school or it may just be a cover up for something alot more sinister than that.

At 2 minutes 30 seconds their is an intriguing sequence where they are experimenting with camera contrast into black and white both dark and light( note- This seems quite artistic and I would like to see if we can replicate this in our own film except darker) , which adds quite an eerie effect especially due to the location where it is set- a cemetry. Again you can see that they are quite fearless and not afraid of places of which have many frightning connotations( though as a note it is daytime so these locations are less scary when you can see). This scene could be a representaion of their fate in an abstract sense, especially considering that they are messing around with something which is not within their power.The last shot in this sequence is a pan around a student writing on a directors slate, indicating that perhaps he is the more dominant figure, so in turn being the most likely(in the audiences veiw) to survive.

From here on their is a clear ellsion of time as their is an establishing shot of 'burkittsville' indicating that this perhaps is where they are staying.You can see from this shot that the location is very secluded and isolated as well as a quite old village and their is a good use of camera effect here which is a lighter shade of the black and white effect which looks very atmospheric tieing into the old fashioned feel of the village. The film then turns chilling as it ends with yet another shot of a cemetry with the lexical dialogue 'their is an unusually high number of children laid to rest here' an implication of a dangerous society.

Ideas

I am really looking forward to filming our main task as we work so well together as a group- generating intriguing ideas which are abstract and surrealistic. A mutual agreement  decided that we should  incorporate  a mix of genres which is both challenging and diverse; different to what everyone else is doing. We also thought that we should base our ideas on the sequence that Inception exploits . Inception builds up tension  through the editing process - which i will explain about in another blog - it starts off slow and speeds up through the montage of pictures the engage the audience and make them feel tense. We then had a group discussion where we explored themes, locations, characters, camera shots and movement. We came up with the idea of a dream succession where everything is indistinct and perplexing; nothing is normal. Hannah the creator is drawing a picture of a Chucky look alike( Zoe), which comes to life in my dreams- I'm trapped . Then i wake up  and it ends with a two shot of me and the the doll as i realise that it isn't just a dream. For setting we decided that we would use the school field  and Charley's house. By doing this we can experiment with various effects. This includes adding special effects such as mist , non diegetic and diegetic sound , editing and use of different colours. For example a black and white shot would be deemed extremely effective against the other traditionally coloured shots. I had the idea of a canted angle shot which is complex but i feel it could really establish the genre of the film if we do it correctly. For example Zoe could be at a canted angle and then by adding non-diegetic sound of a click; it can transcend into a closeup. In terms of cameras we felt that unlike our peliminary task we would use a tripod as it is more efficient in terms of what we are doing.

preliminary task

Here is our preliminary task which entails the simplistic narrative of two girls in a fight due over a boyfriend, with no particular genre at all. We just wanted to get familiar with the basics first as neither of us had ever done this type of thing before so we wanted to ensure that everything was easily accessible.

For our preliminary task we had to provide a film which lasted at maximum a minute long. The fundamental task was to show someone walking into a room and then a few lines of discourse dialogue. I loved doing this task as it was a broad genre so we could give it a whole new meaning.  The vital purpose of this task to show different camera shots and how they were used to shape the film, to give the audience a clear ideal of what is occurring. It also gives various connotations of  emotions; whether it make the audience feel sad or makes the audience laugh.  For this task i worked with Hannah, Zoe and Charley where we had a group discussion as to what we would include in our film. After a quick discussion we came to the mutual conclusion that our theme would be betrayal; but how could we branch on from that? As a summary of our preliminary task we decided that me, Hannah and Zoe would be the actors while Charley did the filming . Whilst she was doing this we would  input camera angles and movement that we thought would make a particular emphasis on the ideas that we had. It started with Zoe- the teacher- opening the Main Hall door, using a long shot to lead Hannah up to me. The long shot establishes the setting of where the filming is taking place. It also helps the watcher to identify the characters as well as location. The shot then cuts to a mid-shot where you see me looking weak and vulnerable crying. This makes the audience sympathise with me as it would question their perceptions as to why i am crying. We used a range of other camera angles such as high angle to make a character seem more vunerable and low angle to make a character seem more opposing. The story continued with a row between me and hannah with dialogue such as" i didnt mean for it to happen" or " I hate you"  to give  accentuation to the film. The film ended with me on the floor after hannah pushed me.

Media studies filming

For our preliminary task we had to provide a film which lasted at maximum a minute long. The fundamental task was to show someone walking into a room and then a few lines of discourse dialogue. I loved doing this task as it was a broad genre so we could give it a whole new meaning.  The vital purpose of this task to show different camera shots and how they were used to shape the film, to give the audience a clear ideal of what is occurring. It also gives various connotations of  emotions; whether it make the audience feel sad or makes the audience laugh.  For this task i worked with Hannah, Zoe and Charley where we had a group discussion as to what we would include in our film. After a quick discussion we came to the mutual conclusion that our theme would be betrayal; but how could we branch on from that? As a summary of our preliminary task we decided that me, Hannah and Zoe would be the actors while Charley did the filming . Whilst she was doing this we would  input camera angles and movement that we thought would make a particular emphasis on the ideas that we had. It started with Zoe- the teacher- opening the Main Hall door, using a long shot to lead Hannah up to me. The long shot establishes the setting of where the filming is taking place. It also helps the watcher to identify the characters as well as location. The shot then cuts to a mid-shot where you see me looking weak and vulnerable crying. This makes the audience sympathise with me as it would question their perceptions as to why i am crying. We used a range of other camera angles such as high angle to make a character seem more vunerable and low angle to make a character seem more opposing. The story continued with a row between me and hannah with dialogue such as" i didnt mean for it to happen" or " I hate you"  to give  accentuation to the film. The film ended with me on the floor after hannah pushed me.

horror mindmaps and statistics

A mind map which converses about basic horror conventions

This mind map has provided many inspirations for own individual film project as I like the ideal of the following ideas:

1. The usage of low key  lighting through our scenes as this portrays a sense of ambiguity  and engages the readers attention  which is similar  to the Blair witch project  u

A bar chart off google images which states that 61% males watch horror


Below is the link to where i found this picture

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju-pKDFu3XP6tv_upz81cPnW3z9FRm0AKauJOb40Dy0WiHHQMkVZ3WkeqCV7y0JjRthync67w_fh4VoEabLsoIaI_w32KZFNEZowEzWf5RN-PEOILYCnBWnLQuZGIGaYPruo3nPPfArQY/s320/Horror+Movie+Age+Profile.gif&imgrefurl=http://japproductions.blogspot.com/2010/01/horror-statistics.html&usg=__99Vq_g6GQtxFiSmknGAvfu09Nz4=&h=191&w=320&sz=34&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=9tq9508C14PSvM:&tbnh=114&tbnw=191&ei=DhS7TdP0MpGs8QPlxPnLBg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhorror%2Bstatistics%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1385%26bih%3D713%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=296&page=1&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=99&ty=34



Our chosen film genre/location

I am really looking forward to filming our main task as we work so well together as a group- generating intriguing ideas which are abstract and surrealistic. A mutual agreement  decided that we should  incorporate  a mix of genres which is both challenging and diverse; different to what everyone else is doing, being a mixture of horror and phycological thriller elements so that it challenges us as the constructers of our film, as well as showing the examiners that we are willing to take risks, which even if they don't pay off , will still prove that we are comfortable outside of our comfort zone.

For me as a film consumer I tend to watch comedies, so Horror will be  a new experimentation for me, so I will have to research the genre thoroughly in terms of horror stylistic conventions whether we should subvert or conform the expectations. We also thought that we should base our ideas on the sequence that Inception exploits . Inception builds up tension  through the editing process as it starts off slow and speeds up through the montage of pictures the engage the audience and make them feel tense.

We then had a group discussion where we explored themes, locations, characters, camera shots and movement. We came up with the idea of a dream succession where everything is indistinct and perplexing; nothing is normal. Hannah the creator is drawing a picture of a Chucky look alike( Zoe), which comes to life in my dreams- I'm trapped . Then i wake up  and it ends with a two shot of me and the the doll as i realise that it isn't just a dream.

For setting we decided that we would use the school field  and Charley's house. By doing this we can experiment with various effects. This includes adding special effects such as mist , non diegetic and diegetic sound , editing and use of different colours. For example a black and white shot would be deemed extremely effective against the other traditionally coloured shots. I had the idea of a canted angle shot which is complex but i feel it could really establish the genre of the film if we do it correctly. For example Zoe could be at a canted angle and then by adding non-diegetic sound of a click; it can transcend into a closeup. In terms of cameras we felt that unlike our peliminary task we would use a tripod as it is more efficient in terms of what we are doing.
 So as additional research I shall generate further ideas from films such as the following:

1. The Blair Witch Project
2. Paranormal Activity
3. The Ring
4. The Scary Movie series
5. Dracula
6. The Grudge

list of film genres

• Action e.g inception- I really like the usage of editing within this film especially in the beginning sequence which we could try to replicate in our own.

• Sci-fi e.g alien- this is not a genre which i feel we can access but we can take the elementsof supension used within.

• Horror e.g the last exorcism- The mise-en-scene is very steroetypical which I feel can be replicated. e.g use of costume which is ragged and quite animalistic. This can be used for Zoe's character.

• Fantasy e.g Twilight

• Adventure e.g Indiana Jones

• comedy Meet The Fockers

 

• western The Good, The bad and The Ugly

• crime e.g Scarface

• drama e.g. atonement

• historical e.g The Other Boleyn Girl

 

• musical e.g. The Lion king

• war e.g Boy in the striped pajamas

• biographical e.g.The  Blind Side

• chick flicks e.g. The Notebook

• detective e.g. Sherlock Holmes

• disaster e.g Titanic

• film noir e.g. Killer's Kiss

• guy films e.g A team

• melodrama e.g The Elephant Man  

• road films e.g. Road Movie

• romance e.g. Dirty Dancing

• sports e.g. Rocky IV

• supernatural e.g. Dracula

• thriller e.g. Silence of the lambs

Top-Grossing Genres 1995 to 2011

		Movies	Total Gross	Average Gross	Market Share
1	Comedy	1,660	$43,569,612,564	$26,246,755	24.11%
2	Adventure	473	$35,137,149,580	$74,285,728	19.44%
3	Drama	2,909	$32,477,614,906	$11,164,529	17.97%
4	Action	522	$30,563,339,366	$58,550,459	16.91%
5	Thriller/Suspense	505	$13,675,133,352	$27,079,472	7.57%
6	Romantic Comedy	375	$10,706,108,434	$28,549,622	5.92%
7	Horror	303	$8,734,442,849	$28,826,544	4.83%
8	Documentary	936	$1,987,886,265	$2,123,810	1.10%
9	Musical	108	$1,701,737,726	$15,756,831	0.94%
10	Black Comedy	76	$745,487,865	$9,809,051	0.41%
11	Western	36	$685,648,298	$19,045,786	0.38%
12	Concert/Performance	38	$277,520,880	$7,303,181	0.15%
13	Multiple Genres	16	$6,191,891	$386,993	0.00%
14	Genre Unknown	5	$1,685,983	$337,197	0.00%

As you can see the most popular genre is comedy an unsuprising statistic considering that it has the second highest numerical figure in the table ( In terms of the films generated each year).However 7th on the list is horror which I perosnally thought would be higher on the list but I think it might be because generally horror films are given high ratings e.g. 15 as an average age rating , meaning that it is not accessible to the whole population. The most popular film rating is 12 which is usually associated wit comedies.



Bar chart which I found on the internet created for personal use which subverts the national statistics said above as it states that Horror is the the highest one, with comedy being second highest.