Sound

Sound

The opening scene in Jaws uses a lot of musical techniques are used to make the music contrast with what is happening. For example:

• Crescendo: Build up of music
• Diminuendo: Gradual 'die away' of music
• Sforzando: Sudden sharp sound
• Diegetic: Within the scene
• Non diegetic: Added afterwards in post production

This is used when the woman goes swimming in the opening scene. She leaves the safety of the warm fire and music (which is diegetic) it slowly dies away. Therefore isolating themselves from the others. When she gets in the water the build up of music makes the audience anticipate something is going to happen (crescendo), and the music builds pace making you feel as if the shark is becoming faster. This type of music is non diegetic. Once she finally gets dragged under the music makes a dramatic stop and looks like nothing ever happened.

 

Watch: https://youtu.be/P-mAQ1uq2d8

                                      



In the Godfather when he kills the man in the restaurant just before he shots him, there is a sound of a train gradually getting louder. This is an example of a crescendo and is a diegetic sound. As it is happening in the scene as it happens.

Watch: https://youtu.be/kSQqv2UuvC0

Editing

Shower scene is Alfred Mitchcock's Psycho

In the film Psycho by Alfred Mitchcock he uses lots of editing or cutting to give the scene more pace and more tension. When the woman is being stabbed in the shower the cuts make the scene seem more exiting and faster, and this also rules out any nudity and allows the viewer to see the knife stabbing the woman. Once the killer has left and the woman falls to the floor and extreme close up shot of the eye slowly zooms out, resembling a slow end to her life. The camera then focuses on the water flowing down the plug hole, another way of her life slowly leaving her and all her sins being washed away. this is because before this scene happened the woman had stolen lots of money.


Watch: https://youtu.be/0WtDmbr9xyY

Basic camera shots

Extreme close ups




Close-up


Medium close up


Mid-long shot





Long shot



Extreme long shot or wide shot



Over the shoulder shot

Opening scene of Jaws

Mise-en-scene opening scene of Jaws

• Shark POV as it swims
•  We hear non diegetic low stringed music - this is associated with the shark
•  Camera tracks passed kids around camp fire
•  Fire is a source of light
•  Girl and boy are at edge of the group
•  Medium close up shot of the girl, fence bars suggest she is trapped
•  High angle shot suggests that the kids are vulnerable and thy run off into the darkness
•  Music fades away
• Moving away from fire into the darkness
• Sunset symbolises that there life is ending
• Cut from a long shot to a short shot so the audience is in the action
• Long shot of girl swimming and sharks POV
• Shark not shown to keep suspense
• The sound stops as soon as the woman dies as if she was never there

  

  
  

 

Mise-en-scene

Everything within the frame-setting,lighting,costume,framing and composition, colours and expression

creation of the mise-en-scene can influence the way in which the audience reads the scene

Semiology- The study of signs/symbols-helps create depth in the scene

The Woman in Black

The Woman in Black

In the Woman in Black the audience can anticipate what is going to happen to the character just by who they are or the situation that they are in. For example, in this film he is in an abandoned old house and is all alone. This indicates that something is going to happen to them because they are left so vulnerable.

 

The character himself can also give away thing that are going to come. If they are alone and have no other company this also makes the viewer feel this way and insecure. There are rarely any horror films in which many characters are together, this make the viewer feel safer than if it were just one person.