MICRO ELEMENTS

Title Screen

The first frame of the film is the Title “Scream” that flashes in red and white before fading into the first scene of the film. Non-diegetic sound can be heard, it is the sound of women screaming. This indicates before knowing anything about the film that it is a horror. The red text helps supports this also by connotating blood and violence that’s to come in the film.

Close-up

The Close-up of the characters facial expression in this shot shows that she is scared, panic is starting to settle in as she looks around frantically. She is the only character in the shot, and also is the centre of attention because the audience will be looking at her and nothing else as she is scared.

Medium Shot

A medium shot of the character locking the door to keep the killer out, we can see that she is in her night clothes, showing the audience what kind of character she is. The audience could be feeling remorse for the victim and hoping that she survives the ordeal.

Long Shot

This long shot of the house shows us the location of the scene. The audience also know that the time is at night. However this shot doesn’t give us information of what genre the film is, that has already been done by the previous shots. This shot is typically first as the establishing shot, which would have been an extreme long shot.

High Angle Shot

As the phone rings again the victim reaches for it, this shot is showing the audience that this is not right for this to be happening.

Zoom

The zoom out here shows that she alone in her hallway showing the isolation of the victim that she is genuinely alone and helpless

Zoom The zoom in this shot is used to show the emotions of the character changing from settled to unsettled as the diegetic sound of the voice on the phone saying “I want to know who I’m looking at”. This allows the camera to capture the facial expressions of a smile change to a worried look of unease. The non-diegetic sound of music starts to play as the emotion felt by the character change, a firm piano note is played once as the camera moves.

Sound • Right at the start of the opening screams can be heard

whilst the title of the film is being shown.• The victim and the killer are talking and he says

something then the music changes drastically as if something has gone wrong, then it changes again once the killer mentions the victims name.

• The music is continuously changing to fit what you can see, the music changes upon the character’s emotions and feelings, so when she is beginning to get frightened the music becomes more intense.

Mise en scene• In the first couple of shots the mise en scene is

recognisable and the audience can tell the film is in the horror genre. The location is in the middle of nowhere, with a woman by herself talking to a stranger about scary movies.

• The occurrence in scream films are the phone calls, the very first thing you see in the film is a phone being answered.

• The victim’s expressions shows that she is scared and doesn’t know what to do. It is shown in the opening of the film many times and ways that it is a Horror film.

Mise en SceneIn this shot you can see a major horror genre convention being the knife in the wooden knife holder. The conventions of a horror film are present but not in the same context, by this I mean the knife is not wielded by someone about to attempt murder, but she is just occupying her hands by fiddling with the knife as she’s on the phone.