An analysis of The shining.

The shining

The scene initially starts with a close up of the door and an open lock, the doors design is wooden, this could tell us or give meaning that the is something bad with in the room, because an upside down crucifix( the basic design of the door) signifies evil and satin making the room appear dangerous and evil. The unlocked door could be foreseeing that is going to happen later on in the film, that they will have to or need to lock this door, the use of mise-en-sen to me makes this scene seems negative and makes me think about what is going to happen throughout the scene. The use of close ups in generic in the horror genre not only to exaggerate a characters emotion but shown here to emphasize the importance of the lock and upside-down crossed style door.

As Danny enters the room there is a close up zoomed out into a mid-shot I think that this was done to emphasize the isolated nature of the film I think that with the use of this shot Danny appears to be in danger and seems to me to be almost trapped in that room this is also emphasised because of the low key lighting in the room, this makes the room seems smaller and I think that this was shot this way to almost drown the actor and the scene with the fact that the film progressively persists in showing the isolation that the family is in.

A quick camera pan to jack could show the shock of Danny that his father is still awake, and the fact that jack isn’t facing the camera he is glaring at the wall could indicate that he has been awake for some period of time, the mise-en-sen shows this because jack is wearing a dressing gown this backs up the idea of jack being awake for a period of time and hasn’t just been woken up. The camera has jack completely in the middle of the shot this could potentially indicate his level of sanity knowing later in the film that he shifts slightly out of centre shot this could have been done purposely to make the audience believe that jack, although staring at nothing, has some aspects of sanity.

After the initial sight you have of jack in the bed room you see him turn his head toward Danny (the camera) I thought that this gives the audience an insight of what is going to happen in the film, I found that the slow head turn as well as the non-diegetic high pitched strings that this action gave the scene a unsettling feeling to it, like something was about to happen. Instantly after this there is a jump cut to the other side of jack where you can see jack, jacks reflection in the mirror and Danny, I think that the director did this to maybe symbolise the split with in jack the line between sanity and insanity, the idea being that you aren’t the person in the mirror the reflection in the mirror is not you, I think that this was used well as you can see the lost expression on the actors face but can also see the reaction of Danny this to me gave the audience a clear insight of what either character was feeling therefore letting me interpret what is going to happen next, this is a convention of the horror genre; letting the audience imagine what is going to happen, depending on your imagination this scene could potentially scare you just with what you think is going to happen I think that this technique was used thoughtfully and very well.

The camera stays in the same position and then jump cuts to a mid-shot of jack looking at Danny, this shot doesn’t have the mirror reflection in it and also features jack gesturing Danny where to go, almost like he is reaching out to him and that his sanity is being restored because of the lack of the mirror in the shot. The music throughout this scene is no-diegetic and is repeated high pitched stings which is also a convention of the horror genre, the music indicates that there is still danger in the scene, to me this makes the scene still appear unnatural and creepy, the way that jack calls his son over is also very unnatural, its very nerving the way that things are said, it’s as if the character jack is using his words to taunt Danny or make Danny feel uncomfortable, this performance really adds to the effect of the scene and gives further meaning to the film, by the audience being able to detect abnormality’s within  a characters voice.

Danny walks into the shot slowly, like he is reluctant and is placed on jacks knee slowly with no change in the facial expression of the actors, this again could signify jacks insanity (repetitiveness is also a generic convention of the horror genre) or the unnaturalness of the situation, the way that both the characters are acting is almost like the character haven’t done this before, because of the awkwardness shown, however as the scene progresses jack seems to relax more and be more comfortable with what he is doing whereas Danny has no expression and is tense making you think that its Danny that’s awkward and doesn’t want to be in that situation, this makes you think that there could be bad history between them or jack did something that Danny didn’t like. As this progresses the camera jump cuts to face the front of the actors, the camera also gets closer this could have been done so that you can see the emotional barrier between the characters.

While the characters converse the non-diegetic music gets higher in pitch and more repetitive, the make tune played over and over again, this is a convention of the horror genre and I think that it was used to make the conversation more and more intense like something is about to happen that will make you jump but it doesn’t. within the conversation the character repeats the words forever and ever and ever, these words are said earlier in the film by two twin sister girls that were murdered in the hotel, this makes what he is saying seem almost spine chilling, the repetition of the words creates for me a tension because I know that Danny has heard what his dad is saying from two dead girls, to me this makes this scene one of the best scenes in the film because you can really start to depict the mentality of the character jack.

Molly Ryan.

Haywire group analysis

Group analysis

group analysis

'Haywire'

The sequence starts with an eyeline match, showing both the characters perspectives when they look at one another. There's no speech, just glances at one another; it could be implied that the two characters have had a dispute of some kind, we experience a little tension within the car. The shot is taken at eye level as though its through the car windows, thus the shot is slightly blurry, and the lighting is low key; this could be symbolic of the distance between the two characters, their relationship is blurry, not entirely in focus and the lack of distinguishable facial features due to the low key lighting reveals how the mood of the situation may be quite dark. This sequence makes me feel sympathetic to the two characters, I'm left guessing what could have happened and how the relationship could have became distant, as a result the mood of the whole situation is dark and a little daunting, if the characters feel distant, I start to feel distant.





Transitioning to the next shot, we are shown a pieces of a broken mirror, laying on the floor. This could imply how the characters we saw in the previous shot are themselves broken. The broken mirror is the main focus of the shot, in the background there is a body being dragged but it and its surroundings are blurry, the effect this has is that its establishing conflict, such as the dead body in the background shows a physical conflict, and the broken mirror revealing metaphorically the mental conflict. This makes me feel more sympathetic towards the characters, its almost as if the characters cannot see it themselves, instead we see it through their actions and surroundings; in turn this makes the characters more relatable, we all have our own conflicts.

In the next shot, we se the same body that was dragged trough the room, lay in a bath tub with the tap water running, the non-diegetic sound of the guitar cords and the diegetic sound of the water running create a strangely soothing, it seems calm and relaxed, which juxtapose's what the sequence shows entirely: there is a dead body yet i feel relaxed. This shot could show how the female character may also feel relaxed, she can certainly take a shower and do her makeup in a relaxed fashion, which leads me to believe that the killing was almost a relief, before we saw the conflicts both characters had with one another, now the conflicts have somewhat been resolved; the atmosphere is calm and collected, and we are at a peace of mind.

The next sequence shows a low angle tilt showing the character looking in a coat on the floor, to which she finds a mobile phone, transitioning to her POV: a close up of the phones screen as she rings the last number called on the phone. Parallel editing reveals the character on the receiving end of the phone call is sat at a dinner party in a high key lighted area, he then determines who the caller is and moves onto a low key lighted area. This as a result looks rather secretive, he leaves the table to go and speak to the caller in a dark area where he cannot be seen; this makes gives a rather sinister atmosphere and in turn i fell a little intimidated.




The receivers actions in the next shot to me suggests he knows the caller and is probably fully aware of the situation she is in. The conversation reveals that the female character and the male character were in a relationship, the receiver asks "is the divorce final" *pause* " where are you?", to me this looks as though the receiver has concluded that the female character has murdered her partner; to which the female hangs up the call, and for the first time we see the female panic. Again we are introduced to yet more conflict: now the receiver knows about the murder, naturally he is opposed to it making him a threat to the female character which in turn creates physical conflict; and in hanging up the call in what seems to be a panic to me could suggest that she for a brief second contemplated whether it was a right move of a bad one, thus creating  mental conflict



Eyeline match is used as the female character leaves the building she is in to reveal an man across the street, we are unsure of the identity of the man, but its possible that even the character wonders the same. We can see the conflict of her guilty conscience as she follows the man down the street, she even tilts her hat slightly to hide her own identity from the man. Further down the street as she comes to traffic lights, she ignores the red light telling her to stop by crossing the street; this highlights the conflict that the character faces and could also forecast later happenings. If indeed she is suspicious to the man its possible the truth get revealed and she is taken to prison, in which case the red light indicates caution.

Why the fault in are stars became a box office success.

Why the fault in are stars became a box office success.

The fault in are stars made 266 million in the box office and won the golden trailer award for best romance this obviously made people want to go and see the film because of the awards that it was given. The movie got the number one hit at the box office over its opening weekend proving that it was a success and that people really enjoyed the film.

I think that the reason the fault in are stars became such a massive hit was because of the popularity of john greens brilliant book. I think that the book influenced the amount of people that went to see the movie basing their judgement of the quality of the film on the book. The book was really good this made the success of the film larger I think because a lot more people wanted to go and watch it to compare it with the book.

Another reason why the movie was such a big hit is the huge mass of effort that went into the marketing of the movie, there were lots and lots of trailers that all looked good and sold the movie well to people by showing some of the good parts of the film that gripped the attention of the audience/ target market. The trailers made people really want to go and see the film and I really think that this defiantly pushed people to see it and helped a lot towards the movies popularity and fame.

As well as all that you can really empathize with the characters because it is a realistic thing that could happen and it’s a thing that does happen because of this lots of people can relate to the film and can understand the characters more than if the story was unrealistic. The film is directed differently to most of the new films that have come out recently, this is because of the low budget, there are no special effects and the film looks very simple however I think that this makes the movie stand out more making it more desirable to go and see it.

I think that the film was a success because it generally made people feel for the characters and the audience reacted how they should have, laughing when something was funny and crying when something was sad because the actors made you feel and emotion you could tell that the movie would have instant success the acting was exceptionally good this made the romance between the characters extremely realistic because the acting was so convincing and the directing was done really well with the low budget, this made the film really enjoyable to watch making it such a brilliant.

The horror genre

The horror genre.

The horror genre started in the late 1980s when the film le manair di diable was classed as a horror. Horror films effect an audience by making them feel uncomforting or displeasing emotions they do this by presenting basic or complex human fears for example in the movie Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds as well as the sudden and unexpected jump scares there is also the fear of the unknown by this I mean that you never learn or understand why the birds did what they did and you will never know, the audience is then left to their own accusations and imagination to what may have caused the birds to attack because of this everyone can interpret the movie in their own different ways and this can be scary for some but not for others this is what makes the film so good as well as the jumpy nature of the film there are no facts and you are left thinking about what they might be.

Other horror films such as silence of the lambs by Tomas Harris effect you psychologically it sets of certain fear triggers that instantly make you feel uncomfortable these feelings generally come from basic fears or fear of the unnatural or fear of harm. Personally in silence of the lambs the reasoning for it to be scary to me is the acting skills of the Antony Hopkins who plays the role of the famous Hannibal Lector, the way that he projects his voice and moves around is unnatural. I think that the reason it scares most people is the thought of a human eating another human, its wrong and it makes people cringe almost at the idea of cannibalism. Buffalo Bill is also a main scare for people because no one understands him and he is very gory getting this title by skinning his victims, this is upsetting and puts people right on edge because the villain is so bizarre and disturbing this makes the film way scary knowing that you know nothing about the villain and the only one who does is a also a terrifying villain.

Another terrifying horror is Akira Yumaokos silent hill, this film is completely out of the norm and it plays on the way people see things. A lot of the things that can only be described as creatures are deformed and move in unrealistic and strange ways the movements aren’t human like and freaky to look at, considering a lot of these creatures have the same kind of body structure as a human and walk on their legs and use their arms and hand it grab things it makes them seen more human like this then makes the film unnerving to watch because of the fear of the disfiguration and the questioning of why the creatures have human similarity’s. Things are scarier when you don’t understand them, it makes you wonder how something came to be like that and that can be upsetting to think about making the film significantly scarier.

The grudge written by Stephen Susco and directed by Takashi Shimizo takes a different approach it again like other horrors use unnatural events to scare people, however they do this by the source or centre point of the fear being a supernatural being, in this film there is a seriously large amount of jump scares, a lot of the time you know that something is about to happen and make you jump and scare you, you can usually tell this by the music or lighting of a scene the thing that’s scary is you know something’s going to happen but you don’t know the exact moment, I think that the anticipation that you are going to be scared makes the fear larger than what you would have initially thought if you hadn’t have been aware that a jump scare was approaching.

A recent horror that personally affected me was the horror the conjuring written by Chad and Charey Hayes really upset me with fear, the idea of something possessing something or someone was strange and frightened me the thing that scared me the most was the possession of the doll at the start of the movie it’s not that the scene scared me but the thought of something nice that I used to play with as a child like the doll turned into something twister and sinister, I think that that is how horrors get really scary, when something in it sets of a personal or particular emotion that not necessarily everyone would have or feel, this effects peoples personal fears I think and makes the film a good horror.

Scott Pilgram VS the world

Scott pilgrim vs the world.

Scoot pilgrim vs. the world is a live action and computer generated film made in 2010. Scott pilgrim vs. the world was directed and produced by edger wright and is based on the comic books written by Brian lee O’Malley.

In my opinion the cast where perfectly casted and suited all of their roles to perfection in relation to their characters in the comic books I saw this a lot in the main character Scott pilgrim ( Michael Cera) who not only looked just like the character in the book but acted almost identically to the character I also so it in Scotts roommate Wallace wells (Keiran Culkin) who played the role beautifully the whole acting cast was really good  and stood out to me in the film, I truly appreciate the acting it was done perfectly, the casting couldn’t have been chosen any better.

The directing was good throughout the film and was done well for the comic book likeness of the film like the special effects and the brilliant scene changes however there where some things that I didn’t enjoy like the scene after being at Ramona’s where they have an open audience reaction in the background to things that are said and I do not think that this fit with the rest of the movie to me it didn’t quite go right with the comic book theme and it didn’t look as good as the rest of the film.

The special effects where outstanding and were exceptionally perfect to the film and were timed well especially in the first fight scene with Matthew Petal the timings were all to perfection and none were out of time and the scene looked really good. All of the directions were good all the way through the film, the effects were wacky and fun and they were suited really well to Brian lee O’Malley’s comic style which made the film even more in sync with the books.

What made the film so good to me were the quirky little details within the special effects there were a lot of really good excellent special effects for example the hearts and x`s in the street lights on the bus ride when Ramona and Scott first begin to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Some other great effects were the comic like words when someone gets hit or when the phone rings; I really liked these because it really brings out the theme and the comic book qualities of the film.

The whole film was scripted really well all the way through the film and helped make the film really good and enjoyable to watch, the script included parts of the books but also added key little things that helped make to film great like the funny little remarks that scoots roommate Wallace wells makes it just gives the film that little bit extra, it also made the characters come out more making them stand out to the audience and made the audience relate to the characters more.

The silence of the lambs.

The silence of the lambs.

My analysis is of the scene where agent Starling meets Hannibal Lector for the first time. The first impression we get is that agent Starling is scared and/or uncomfortable, you can tell this not only from the dialogue and acting but from the low key lighting and the small, compact area that the scene is set in. the camera mainly focuses only on the actors and blurs out the background this to me makes everything else in the shot seem insignificant  and makes the characters conversation more personal making the background blurred when to begin with is so small creates an illusion that the area is even smaller this could make the characters seem trapped which is a good technique to use because the setting is based within a maximum security prison.

There are a lot of close ups in this scene making the actors emotions more known, I think that this technique also bought the characters closer because the camera mirrors each actor, if one actor has a close up the o her character has a close up, you also get a better understanding of the characters because you can see more emotions and how the characters react to things as the scene progresses.

I think that the most intense part of the scene is when Hannibal Lector gives his analogy/ perception of agent Starling, I think that this is because what he is saying is very personal and the way he says it is very quick paced, another thing that makes it more intense is that as the scene progresses the camera zooms in more on Hannibal, this makes the scene even more suspenseful because the mane focal point Is Hannibal, there isn’t anything else to focus on making Hannibal appear creepier. The non-diegetic music also adds to the suspense, the repetition of the low notes make the scene just a little bit creepier.

Another thing that is quite scary is that the actor that plays Hannibal Lector doesn’t blink very often, because his blinks are so rare it become obvious that he isn’t blinking often and people can up on it, I think that the actor has done this because it’s very unnatural which makes watching the actor upsetting or strange, the fact that he doesn’t blink often may have more than one meaning, for example Hannibal Lector hasn’t seen a woman in eight years this may be why he isn’t blinking he could find he attractive or maybe he hasn’t blinked that much because as a psychologist he may want to analyse every emotion that Starling shows as he speaks to her, he especially doesn’t blink when he talks about personal things so this may well be the reason, I think that this really adds to the whole feel of the scene and again makes the scene even scarier to watch.

I think that the scene worked really well. The mis-on-scene, camera movement and sound worked really well together and all together made the scene scary and suspenseful and made me as the audience feel very edgy, the acting was also well done and to me I think bought everything together and made the scene flow.

By Molly Ryan.