R23 - Analysis: 'The Purge' Opening Titles and Soundtrack

The screen fades from black to an extreme close up shot of the Earth. It starts off with a loud bang and softly echoes on. Then distorted music is heard as the Universal sign appears. The eerie music continues to get louder as the rest of the production companies are presented for example Blumhouse Productions and Platinum Dunes. The sound effects added sound like very disorientated deep breaths and the music gets more suspenseful. 

Drumming sounds get louder and then quieter before it all becomes quite soft as this text appears on screen:
"America. 2022.
Unemployment is at 1%
Crime is at an all-time low.
Violence barely exists.

With one exception..."

The text then fades to this text on screen where it says:

"Blesses be the New Founding Fathers for letting us Purge and cleanse our souls, Blessed be America, a nation reborn"

Perhaps insinuating to the audience that the America in 2022 is more different to the one that we know. Also it could suggest that the dystopian future we could be living in.

The type of font used represents the typical font used for data which is what the information is, therefore it would be safe to say that the correct type of font has been used. The fact that it is yellow though, could be queried into as to why specifically yellow. It stands out against the black but perhaps it was to link it to the main titles. 

However the music that follows on is asynchronous and enampathetic. There is a sort of irony to the music as it sweet yet melancholy. Though the music is dream like, smooth and soft, the clips presented are from cctv cameras which have captured moments of crimes to do with murder, arson, breaking and entering etc. The opposing, contrasting music to the image, gives the connotation that all these things happen in daily life, yet people stay oblivious to it, therefore when it happens on a massive scale, people suddenly wake up to the horrors around them.

There were also mid shots of a girl with blood all over her, wide shots of groups of people vandalising/beating as well a man being shot. 

However after series of disturbing images, the scene changes to a normal man in a car with a non diegetic voice over. This evidently shows that the movie starts off with an enigma which follows on by an equilibrium where it is a normal day. 

  He is presented on the phone talking to a lady. She ensures he checks that he is "locked and tight" and they both bid each other a 'safe night' as opposed a 'good night' implying there is a disastrous event which is going to occur soon. He then turns on the radio where the radio presenter says that "the poor cannot afford to protect themselves" alongside asking "how do you plan to protect yourself?" in an interview. The normality of this insinuates that 'bad' is something they just have to deal with however the more wealthy do not care as they say "nothing's bothering us tonight". He then turns the radio off as the presenter wishes a "safe night to everyone". 

When the car door shuts through a close up shot, as soon as the sound effect is heard, the screen switches to the titles of "THE PURGE". A loud boom/crash can be heard and the eerie suspenseful music arises again. 

Here, the font used is almost like a stamp on a warehouse, as it is big and bold, alerting everyone of what is about to occur. The main focus is on the centre of the frame, where the outer corners are more darker and turn black. There is also an effect on the background of stripes running across the titles, giving a more 'commonly' effect - giving a real representation of society not being perfect. The colour of the font is a faded yellow, as it doesn't boldly stand out, but is just enough for the audience to see. Unlike the other text, this one had no transition or any effect, it was simply cut onto this, giving the connotation that perhaps, where the others needed to be read, here, it is making a statement about this day, therefore the audience should already be expecting something from the horror genre. 

R22 - Narrative Theories

R21 - The Shining (1980): Observation & Analysis with Target Audience

To find out the sort of reactions we should be receiving, I asked four friends to watch a clip from the The Shining as opposed to the whole film which unfortunately they wouldn't have time for. This allows me to have an insight into what scares them, what makes the jump and what they find interesting. The reason as to why I have chosen this film is because in this clip especially, it plays on the psychological aspects of the mind, which is what we also incorporate in our film. To get an idea on the effect it'll have on the audience, I chose this film to see my target audience's response.  

The clip starts off with the camera following a little boy on a small tricycle. As it is following him with the use of a mid shot, there is a slight high pitched sound which gets louder. However the suspense builds as the camera following him slows down and he gets further and further away. This got the audience ready for a shock which they didn't receive and therefore kept them on edge for the next part in case it appeared there. 

The setting also made the audience a little edgy as it looked like a old institution with flickering lights. The dirtiness of it made them wonder why a little boy was there in the first place and why he wasn't with anybody. With the camera behind the boy yet still following him through the passage, this long anticipated journey continued to add suspense to the audience.

As he turns the last corner, he comes to a dead end and a symbol crashes making a loud sound. Two girls are waiting at the end of the passage making them jump and laugh at their stupidity of the simplicity of the clip (and how it wasn't actually scary at all). The boy immediately comes to a halt and a close up shot is used on his face showing the dear in his eyes. Cut off's and establishing shots are used between the boy and the two eerie girls to show his fear and their sinister attributes. The camera then uses a point of view shot zooming into the girls with the music getting louder. 

With the shots going back and forth, it got the audience used to a rhythm that they were used to but were waiting for the moment it would change. Yet suddenly, the normal back and forth shots abruptly changed to the two girls murdered on the floor with blood all around them. As the audience were unaware of this happening, they had jumped at the sight of it. 

However this time, the back and forth shots were between the little boy, the dead twins and the normal twins. As the shots appeared in a random order, the audience were frightened at when the bloodied version appeared as well as the normal one as it was unexpected to them.    


Comments from the participant:
"I normally don't like horror films so I was already scared to watch it. The beginning of the extract was creepy because it felt like the camera was focused on the little boy riding on the bike for so long and then when he turned the corner, you was expecting something to jump out at you but it didn't. Even when he was still riding his bike, nothing was happening for a while so when the two girls appeared suddenly it made me jump because it was the last thing I expected. Even after that the music didn't help because it was so scary! When the clip was shifting with the boy and the twins on the floor with blood, it scared me because one minute the scene was so normal - well not normal but you know it was something you'd expect to see, and then without anything even happening they were dead and then back alive and then dead again. Even though it's from the 80s it still scared me" 

Second participant:
"When the clip started, it took a while for me to get into it. He was just going on for what felt like ages but to be honest that did build up some anticipation inside of me because it could've been any minute that something popped out at him or that he could just keep going for ages. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't as into the clip until the end, but even at the end it was just repetitive because he either saw the twins slashed up or they were fine. There was no plot to it, so I can't say it did make me excited to watch the next bit."

Third participant:
"That was weird you know! He was just riding for ages and then comes to a dead end with some scary looking twins. The building looked so creepy man, it looks like it's really old and that but it's actually not, it's just because the films old. Oh, that's why it so much more creepier for us. For an older film, I can get why it would scare people, but now, because we've seen so much more scarier films, we used to seeing all these special effects added in and loud music and that. But that film, it was so quiet and all you were watching was just him riding his little bike in these empty corridors. You didn't know why he was there, why why there was nobody else there, so you knew that you were going to be scared at some point. That's why you start get nervous, because anything can happen. When I first saw the twins, it didn't effect me, because I thought they'd just start walking towards him, but when they were all covered in blood and blood was on the wall, it was the last thing I was expecting so yeah, it did make me jump." 

R20 - Picture Analysis: The Last Exorcism of Emily Rose

The Last Exorcism of Emily Rose is a true story about the death of a 19 year old girl (Emily Rose) who was thought to have been killed by a priest called Richard Moore from inflicted wounds and malnutrition. He is then charged with negligent homicide and is told to please guilty so that the incident can be covered up. However a lawyer named Erin is hired to help Father Moore to negotiate a plea deal but Moore still insists on pleading innocent. At the trial, expert opinions agreed that Emily was possessed by an invisible creature in which after a few days from suffering a seizure, the demons attacked again and infested her. 

Father Moore gained permission from the bishop to do an exorcism, but it ends in failure. Ms Rose breaks her and screams in Aramaic, German, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Before she faints, she reveals that she is possessed by six demons: Cain, Nero, Judas, Legion, Belial, and Lucifer. Later, according to a last letter she wrote, she was visited by the Virgin Mary, who explained that the demons will never leave. Ms Rose declines the Virgin Mary's offer of immediate death, and accepts her suggestion to suffer further so that the world can believe in demon existence.

In the end, they find Father Moore guilty, but give him no prison time except the time he already served waiting in jail.

Mise-en-scene & Camera Angle

• The focus of the picture is shifted on the disembodied girl towards the right centre of the picture
• The use of the barn gives a creepy element as it is evident that it is dirty
• The girl in the picture is completely upturned
• Wearing a white, dirtied nightgown insinuating that she is a more traditional girl
• The blood is mainly on her lower body towards her legs
• Her eyes have rolled white giving the more 'possessed look'. 
• The girl looks young giving the impression she is a child/teenager
• The use of the lighting is coming from the top, therefore as it falls on the girl's face highlighting the more 'scarier' parts giving the impression of a sinister look
• The top of the barn is completely dark and the lighting falls in the middle front of the picture 
• The picture fades out to dark

R19 - Short Film Analysis: 'The Night Shift'

Mise-En-Scene

thefreshprince

The Night Shift is about a day in the life of a security guard. However this is not just any ordinary day. The school he is watching over has been taken over by zombies. Whilst on his patrol of the school he finds a school girl (Emily) trapped, after she and her friends thought it would be a good idea to break into the school after hours. Emily's friends have all been eaten by zombies, only Emily and the security guard remain. Will they both make it out alive?

The short film starts off with a stereotypical 'British' grim scene of a security guard working a night shift in an office. His use of costume portrays him as a low-paid working class man in a high visibility jacket. His setting shows that he is in an area that he is used to as the table has a whole load of paperwork on it. The normality of this implies that it starts off with an equilibrium, as everything is fine and he is minding his own business, until there is a disruption where the lights start flickering. This then conforms to the typical conventions of a horror genre, because the flickering of lights insinuates some sort of supernatural interfering with it. 

However in contrast to the previous setting, he walks out of the room into a dark corridor, which seems to look like a school. For the audience, it is effective as school is almost a daily 'norm' therefore to associate it with horror, can immediately inject fear into them. For example personally by watching this, I would feel uneasy by walking into school with all the lights switched off. The dark lighting creates an essence of unawareness as to what could occur, because as a security guard, he should be protecting the school however in this instance, he is doing the opposite - he needs protection. 

The scene then suddenly blacks out as he reaches a classroom, which a person appears with blood all over him and with a pale face in a low angle. His use of costume and body language connotes that he is some sort of deformed, zombified school kid as he is wearing school uniform. The security guard's torchlight then moves around which is the only light visible when the scene blacks out again even though there is hardly any lighting coming from the blacked out windows. 

He moves into another classroom with very dim lighting although it is easier to see the surroundings and the location than the previous lighting. His luminescent jacket and the torch briefly stands out however his face is hard to see as the lighting continues to be in the dark. He passes the corridor doors and the non diegetic sounds of him breathing can be heard as a sharp ring (heard in Psycho) that comes to a silence. He aims the torch around and suddenly a pale schoolgirl can be seen shaking on the floor hugging her legs; frightened in a low angle. She exclaims "Help me!" in a scared diegetic tone of voice as a low over the shoulder angle shot is used. Her costume portrays her as a weak, feeble girl who needs protection which is the general negative stereotype used to present women. 

The door then opens and the zombified school boy drags himself in with a limp neck and body wounds with blood all over. The ambient sounds of a deep bang of a drum can be heard to illustrate the sound of a heartbeat. Through the dim lighting you can make out this figure walking towards the camera in a neutral eye level shot. When the main character gets hit onto the floor, a point of view shot is used to present the zombies getting closer all with bloodied costumes on and white faces as well as rotten teeth making the audience eager to see how he will overcome this situation and create a new equilibrium.

The short films ends with a rotten zombie suddenly appearing just before the end with a loud growl at eye level making the audience jump before a blank screen of the credits come up.

R18 - Social Media Responses & Analysis

R17 - Roles in Film Practices