Short Film Analyse 2

This film is very clever because at the beginning of the film it makes it seem like the boy is the killer through the way he approaches the old people and presses the fact he wants to do some jobs for them and the title being the boys name is the title of the film. When the title is on screen the effects used make it seem like Frankie is the killer. The first shot is of the boy as he asks the old lady if she has any jobs for him to do the camera does a shot revers shot between the two characters as they talk. Even though the old lady says she doesn’t have any jobs for him he still pushes that he can do anything, the old lady lets him in and the camera goes to the boys point of view and we see an old asleep in a chair. At this point the boy seems harmless but you wouldn’t think that two old people could kill someone so the audience assume the boy is the killer. The house he walks into has very low key lighting when outside it seems like its the middle of the day, so it sets the atmosphere that something bad will happen in the house. we then see a low angle shot of the boy racking leafs and in the background the old lady is looking out of the window at the boy, non-diegetic eerie music starts and we can also hear diegetic wind. The camera changes to a low angle medium shot of the old lady to make it clear to the audience that the old lady is watching the boy then changes to a high angle shot of the boy looking up at the old lady showing he knows that she’s watching him. I think the camera angles show there power status again giving the audience more reason to think that the boy is the killer. When the old lady comes to tell Frankie she has to go out and there are drinks inside she tells him to call her grandma at this point the non-dieigtic music starts again and it seems a little strange or this old lady to ask this boy she has just met to call her grandma. The audience starts to question the old lady now weather she is what she seems to be. We then see the boy walking into the house the eerie music still playing, he opens the fridge and the camera angle changes to a close up of and empty fridge as it pans up and down. The eerie music goes up in pitch and gets louder, the boy close the fridge and the camera changes to a point of view shot but we don’t know who of, but they push the curtain aside with a walking stick so it makes the audience think its the old man because we saw him earlier with a stick. The camera goes to a close up of the boy but we can see that the old man is standing behind him, the boy turns around and the man suddenly hits him. The screen goes black then slowly the picture comes back and the old lady is sat in front of the boy. She seems to be putting some sort of cream on his bruise, the boy says he wants to go home and wants his mum but the old lady tells him that grandma will look after him then gags him. The audience now know for sure that the old couple are the killers in this film. We then see a close up of the boys face all bruised the camera zooms out to a wide angle shot and we can see the boy sat next to the old people tied up as they watch TV. The boy starts to cry and the old man tells him to shut up but he continues to cry and the man then starts beating the boy with his stick. The way the camera work shows the stick coming down then the boys pain on his face really makes you think hes being hit and its bad when you see a innocent adult being beaten and can’t do anything about it but when it happens to a child its really traumatising for the audience. The camera then goes back to the same wide angle shot and we see the old to people not caring that they are beating this boy. The next scene is between the old lady and the boy, the camera work is just reverse shots between medium close ups of the two characters. The old lady unties the boy and tells him she has a surprise, Frankie sees this as his opportunity and tries to run away but the old lady catches him. When she does we see a medium shot of Frankie looking at the old lady as she forces him to walk back and we can see the old man stood behind him. The camera angle changes to a close up of the old lady holding a knife and eerie non-diegetic music starts, the old lady grabs the boy and the music starts to get faster and louder we see a low angle shot of the old man looking down at the boy telling him ‘This wont hurt a bit.’ The camera changes to a shot of the old lady holding the boy and we see the old lady make the arm movement to look like she has just cut his throat but we also see the boys face so we see his facial expression which makes it seem more realistic. She drops him and the camera changes to a shot looking down at the boy as a pool of blood forms around his head, the camera then cuts to a closer look at the blood and when it does the non-diegetic music makes a sound which makes it seem even worse. The screen blacks out and the music stops, the next shot we see is of the old lady checking her mail and she stops at one piece of mail and smiles. Then we see them on the table and it was a person missing report for the boy.

This film is good because the killers don’t seem to be who the audience immediately thinks and because the victim is a child it makes it ten times worse. If I compare this film to the other one they are very different but i can use techniques from both. From the first film i can use the idea that the person has some sort of obsession with something and has a split personality and the killings. From this film I can take the impact it has on the audience when a child is killed and the false thought on who the killer is.

shot film analyse

In the first scene we see four people pull up to a hotel, as the two men unload thee car the two women go to sign in. The blond woman is a typical attractive blond woman that you would see in a slasher film. The camera changes to a close up to a of a tomato but out of focused in the back ground we see a mans hand stroking a bunch of tomato’s, straight away the audience feels unnerved by this man, we can also hear quiet non-diegetic eerie music. The tomato in front is bigger then the once that are in a bowl which the man is stroking. The camera angle changes to a medium shot of the man trying to write but ends up just going but to the tomato’s. This tells the audience that this man has some obsession with tomato’s and this makes him seem strange and makes the audience feel a little scared of him. The girls come in to sign in and the man jumps up but looks back at the tomato’s, i think its like he’s making sure there ok. As the woman are signing in the man says ‘the other guests will be happy to have some company.’ However, when they pulled into the car park it was completely empty and we haven’t seen any signs that anyone else is staying there. I think he is comparing the tomato’s to the other guests. The two men come in and one of the men sticks his head through the widow and asks when food will be. The scene changes to a wide shot of what looks like to be a very small canteen or kitchen, the man in the gray shirt (the one who asked about the food) walks around the table complaining about the food and the camera goes to a medium shot of the blond girl asks her boyfriend to say something. The man in the gray shirt then picks up one of the tomato’s and high pitched eerie non-diegetic music starts, the owner tries to stop him and his friends say that there not for them but he doesn't listen. The owner seems very upset when he takes one of the tomato’s, the man grabs a knife to cut the tomato. The next few shots are all hand held close up of each of the visitors eating the tomato but the shots are all in red, representing blood of the tomato, and they smother there faces with the tomato. The camera techniques used in these shots make it seem like the visitors are brutally murdering the tomato and that they are the ‘bad guys’. Another technique that is used in this scene is the editor has fast foreword the shots and more non-diegetic music that sounds like a tape is being fast foreword has been added on top of the eerie music. The camera goes back to a medium shot of the owner trying not to cry, the man in the pink shirt asks if he wants to sit down, the camera goes to a shot of both of the girls looking confused about this man who just started crying for no reason. The owner says he hears one of the other guests and walks out looking very upset. The camera changes to the owner sat in his office holding the biggest tomato and quiet non-diegetic eerie music starts. He calls the tomato ‘Precocious’ then smalls it and licks it but its very meaningful like he is in love with this tomato and again calls it ‘My Precocious’. The tomato then starts to talk, the audience now know that we are inside the owners mind and this is when we start to think that maybe this man has a mental issue. The camera changes to a close up of the tomato and they have used editing techniques to put a face on the tomato. The camera goes back to a shot high angle shot of the man asking the tomato how will he kill them. Then the camera goes to a black and white old film reel effect and a tilted low angle shot of the man but instead of him looking scared and gentle he he looks very mean because of his facial expression, the angle, the camera style and his voice has been made a lot deeper and this makes him come across as this mean, scary man. The camera then goes back to the high angle shot and the camera style and his voice goes back to normal. This shows the mans split personality, the way i see his two personalities is that one is the owner of the hotel who is generally a very nice man and the other personality is the tomato who hates everyone that eats tomato’s and this is the stronger personality. He has a conversation with his two personalities and the bad personality convinces him to kill the visitors. This scene reminds me of the scene in ‘Lord of the Rings’ when ‘Gollom’ is talking to himself about whether he should kill ‘Frodo’. The scene changes and we have a wide angle shot of the cabins and we can tell the time of day has changed because we can hear diegetic night sounds and the lighting is low key. The camera changes to a medium shot of the brunette in a dressing gown looking down and the camera changes to a high angle shot of the her boyfriend passed out on the bed. The other couple knock and say they’ll see them at dinner and leave, the camera then changes to a shot of the girl in the bathroom turning a tap on, then a over the shoulder shot of the girl washing her face. The camera then goes back to the low key lite room were the owner is tying up the girls boyfriend up and gaging hm so he can’t scream. The camera goes back to the bathroom as the girl takes off her dressing grown and this scene is very similar to the bathroom scene in ‘Psycho’ there are a few different shots but the main difference is there’s a shot of a tomato in the soap holder its almost like its watching her. There is then a point of view shot as the owner walks into the room and the killing uses the exact same techniques as they use in ‘Psycho’ apart at the owner doesn’t just stab her like the killer does in ‘Psycho’ he cuts off her arm making this killing scene a lot more brutal the the scene in ‘Psycho’. The scene changes back to the room where the boyfriend is tied to the bed and the owner is stood over him, unlike before the room is now high key lighting which is strange for a murder in a horror film. The owner asks if he like to drink the blood of his tomato’s making it sound that he thinks his tomato’s are alive. He then puts a tube in the mans mouth which has tomato juice in it and the mans stomach slowly gets bigger and bigger then we see a close up of his stomach as it explodes and blood splatters on the camera. The camera changes to a medium long shot of the owner laughing. This makes the audience even more scared of him. The shot then cross fades into the other couple as they are outside there room, the man goes to get champagne and the girl goes in the room. As he walks down the corridor he stands on a tomato and there’s a close of him doing so. He looks around and the owner hits him over the head with a fire extinguisher, we see a close up of his blank facial express when he hits the floor the camera changes to a high angle shot looking down at the body. The owner picks up his arm off camera and we hear some sort of power tool and the mans hole body shakes. The camera goes back to a shot of the mans face and we can a pool of blood on the floor from his arm. The woman pops her head out of the room and the power tool stops and non-diegetic eerie music starts, the woman calls her boyfriends name and the camera shows a shot of the empty corridor the camera does a shot reverse shot to the medium shot of the topless woman as she comes out of the room into the middle of the corridor then back to the corridor. The owner slowly pocks his head round the corner holding a knife and a sound of a violin being plucked the camera goes back to the woman as she backs away and then when we next see the owner he is closer to the camera and we hear violin plucking and the owner moves the knife to the plucking of the violin. Then the camera shows us a close up of the woman’s facial expressions, but this shot wasn’t done properly because the shot isn’t in focus and this spoils the effect. The then back to the medium shot of the girl and the owner is suddenly behind her, this doesn’t make sense because no where in the film have we seen the man disappear and appear behind his victim. The woman notices him there she turns looks at him screams and runs away we see a close up of her slipping on a tomato then a shot of her on the floor with a pool of blood forming around her head. This shot continues but we hear foot steps and then a bell and the shot changes to a straight on medium shot of the owner standing in the window to his office, he kisses a tomato and talks to the camera. This film is a good film for my to look at because it ticks all the boxes to be a slasher film and it uses a stimulus (the tomato) which we would usually relate to something funny but this film makes the audience relate them to death. This is because every time someone dies there is a tomato.

Genre Development (second draft)

Over the years the horror genre has developed from films such as ‘Psycho’ (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) to some of the most resent horror films such as ‘Halloween’ (Rob Zombie, 2007). If we compare these two films the most obvious difference are the killings in each film. In ‘Psycho’ during all the murders you never see the knife have direct contact with the victim only sound effects and splatters of blood, the film being in black and white also means that we never actually see the colour of the blood we just assume it is. This allows the film to spend less time on making up the stab wounds and the BBFC could drop is to a 15 so the target audience would be of a wider range. If we then compare the killing from ‘Psycho’ to the killing of the boys step farther in ‘Halloween’ it is a lot more visual, we see the boy cut the neck and the blood pour out of the cut as he slowly dies. We can see how over the years the brutality of killings in horror films has slowly gotten gorier. A horror film which I didn’t use in my analyses demonstrates the point I am making, the Saw films are all every gory to the point of not being able to watch, for example in ‘Saw 5’ (David Hackl, 2005) the final test they have to do is they have to put their arms into a power saw and fill the a bowl with their blood. During this scene you see all of what happens, the saw cutting their arms and the blood pouring into the bowl and when the bowl is full and they take their arms out you see the man’s arm cut in half from his hand to his elbow. ‘Psycho’ was the first slasher horror film ever and it couldn’t have as much blood and gore as ‘Saw’ for example because the audience weren’t familiar with this type of film, so ‘Psycho’ took the ideas and storyline of a slasher film but showed no over the top blood. Between the times ‘Psycho’ was made and ‘Halloween’ there has been a lot of other slasher films released such as ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ (1984) this film is a lot more gory and plays with your mind more. For example, at the end of the film when the boy gets pulled into his bed there is an excessive amount of blood used for one person and we as an audience relate our bed as a place of safety. Another film that shows gore but isn’t to over the top with the amount of blood is ‘Scream’ (1996) we see the killer kill his victims in this film like ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ but the blood level used in ‘Scream’ is more realistic which makes the film scarier. This shows us how slashers have changed over the years going from no blood and gore to over the top then back to more realistic. The realism in films attracts audience because when you go to see a film you will enjoy it more if you believe that it could happen. For example, the film ‘Mirrors’ (Alexander Aja, 2008) is a good film but the idea of monsters being inside mirrors doesn’t scare me, it may have a different affect on someone else but I don’t think its scary at all because it’s so unrealistic. If we compare this film to ‘Saw’ the storyline is a lot more believable and realistic and this makes the audience think that this could happen to anyone and this makes it scarier.

Even though the more resent horror film show a lot more gore and have more brutal killings in ‘American Psycho’ (2000) they use the same technique as in ‘Psycho’ even though the killings are more brutal the audience never sees the murder weapon make contact with the victim. When you finish watching the film you sort of understand why this techniques is used because the killer doesn’t actually kill anyone he just thinks he does because of the mental state he’s in. Even though we don’t see the weapon hitting/stabbing the victim’s because the film is in colour and we as an audience fill in the blanks the effect of the murder has a bigger impact then the murders in ‘Psycho’. Another thing that has become more popular in horror films is non-diegetic music to build up tension, if we look at ‘Psycho’ there isn’t that much non-diegetic music for tension building but in the more recent films like ‘Halloween’ and ‘Scream’ non-diegetic is used all the time for tension. A common occurrence that we see in all of the films i analysed is the time of day the murders are committed, all of them are done during night, apart from ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ (Tobe Hooper,1974). This is a very symbolic stimulus of a horror film because night time is always scarier and when there is non-diegetic music it builds up the climax and being a horror film the audience is expecting something to happen.

It is interesting looking at the people killed in slasher films, in ‘Psycho’ the first to be killed is the woman that stole the money from her boss but the detective is an innocent man and was just doing his job. If we now look at ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ all the children that he kills are all children of the parents that killed him this being his motive. In the film ‘Scream’ there is a part where they talk about how to survive a horror film, one of the things is ‘no sex’ and if we relate this to ‘Halloween’ he killed the couple on the sofa as the were about to have sex and killed his sister after she had sex and a few other people after they had sex. So in this film it seems that if you have sex you die as the boy says in ‘Scream’.

Looking at the music used in the films i have analysed i have found out that it has changed over time. In the classic film ‘Psycho’ and ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ the music sound more like its from a musical score. Then compared to some of the more recent films ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘Scream’ the music sounds more like rock music than a musical score. However, there are still the typical tension building, high pitched music. I think the music of films has changed over time because the music industry has changed and the audience can relate to the music.

In conclusion even though over the years technology has updated greatly depending on director, rating and type of horror slasher film will depend on the amount of gore shown. In my case because i don’t have a high budget i wont be able to do much blood and gore so the technique used in ‘Psycho’ may help me a lot. In every film the killings have always been in an isolated place for example, in ‘Scream’ the killer specifies that they are in the middle of know where and it would take ages for anyone to get there.