Textual Analysis - Charlotte Woodward

We were set an assignment in which we have to produce a 2 minute movie, of the opening scenes of a film. To achieve this goal, we must plan our movie beforehand to achieve the best results. So far, we have been researching movie clips on Youtube to get ideas and how to produce our final movies. When given this task, I found after looking on Youtube, that I am most interested in the horror/mystery genre. I looked at 4 different kinds of films, getting an idea of the effects and how and where the scenes are set. I then narrowed it down to two of my favourite films, ‘The Strangers’ and ‘Scream’. I studied both of the trailers for these films, taking into account how the camera angles, lighting and audio produce such intensity and the dramatic effects.

I chose ‘The Strangers’ because I watched this film around two years ago, and I remember thinking how good it was and the effect of how ‘jumpy’ it is perceived. It is based on true events also, which adds to its chilling and unnerving intentions. It concerns a young couple staying in an isolated vacation home are terrorized by three unknown assailants. We instantly know that this film is not a happy film by this description. However, the start of this film does not begin abrupt with gruesome deaths and eerie scenes; it firstly explains the characters and how they got to this place. However, when watching the trailer, I was then able to discover in this two minute clip of how to produce my movie in the same amount of intensity as this film. I think that it mostly depends on the audio you use, and how to produce close up angle shots to portray such a dramatic effect, which is exactly what, has been used in both of the trailers I have studied. This film has been shot with the use of many different types of camera shots. What I had noticed in the trailer, was many mid-shots and a few long shots. This way the viewer can see the characters surroundings, which is essential in this movie. In more frightening scenes, close ups extreme close ups have been used to increase the intensity that is portrayed throughout this film.

I chose ‘Scream’ because it was an older film, yet I felt that it had the potential to remain as frightening as it was years ago. I remember the first time that I watched this how I would have continuous nightmares of how the killer in this film would be chasing me. This is the reason that I wanted to base my 2 minute movie, on the opening scene of ‘Scream’. This film concerns a killer known as "ghost face" begins killing off teenagers, and as the body count begins rising, one girl and her friends must push themselves beyond the boundaries of what they thought themselves capable of in order to survive. As this film was released in 1996, the music and other audio’s are dated, however this isn’t a major concern as the sound effects are perceived as eerie and shocking, whereas the music in this film includes the POP and Rock genres, as this film is based around youths. These types of music are used in this trailer to make the viewer aware of what this movie entitles. The majority of the close up and extreme close up scenes in the film have been extracted into the trailer to enhance the terror and drama, making the viewer enticed into the film and on the edge of their seat.

I have decided after this research that I am going to combine these two ideas to produce my final 2 minute opening scene of my film.