14. Analysis of Opening Sequence of Scream

The opening scene of Scream starts inside a small house, the first character to appear on the screen is wearing a cream cricket jumper, with grey/white facial make up and dark purple lipstick, the make up and costumes look dated in comparison to the modern day, however, they look modern in terms of it not being anymore the fifteen to twenty years. You cannot tell what class they are, but they are nicely dressed and live in quite decent houses. The furniture looks old and dated compared to modern day too. The lighting in the house looks dimmed and quote gloomy. The characters face changes expression as she speaks on the phone due to what she’s saying. When she’s on the phone she looks comfortable, however she becomes very upright, scared and frigid. When she begins to get scared things around the house, such as the popcorn she’s cooking starts to burn and set fire. The lighting alters a lot and becomes dark then bright, it becomes bright when things get more tense. The action of the film moves outside the house. The mood of the film changes drastically within the first ten minutes. The lighting remains dark, however, the characters are well lit up throughout. The costume of the killer is simple, and a typical horror movie costume, it’s a black cloak and a scream mask in white, which stands out in the dark. The genre of this film is horror. The shots vary a lot depending on what is happening. There are lots of long shots to show the character being attacked. There are lots of medium close shots to show the different characters facial expressions, and medium shots to show body language. There is a lot of panning in this film in the opening scene to show the area, which surrounds the character and what is in the background which also has darker lighting as its meant to be somewhat intimidating and frightening for the audience. Much like many other horror movies, there are sound effects, which are placed in whilst editing, in this film there are sounds added in including screams.