The Ring is a 2002 American psychological horror film directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson. It is a remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring. The first 2 minutes starts with the Dreamworks logo, and the man fishing from the moon. There is a variantion from the oirginal version of this though, when it is on the man, the moon flashes into a full moon, but the middle is empty. This is the logo of the film.
The First scene then fades in 26 seconds into the scene, the shot is of a Creepy looking house in the dark, the sound is like a staticy sound that the audinece assumes is rain. You then hear someone talking about televisions, it is a girl and has a slightly american accent. It then flicks to a wide shot of 2 girls, one is on a bed and the other is sitting on the floor. You then realise that the girl on the bed is the girl you heard talking about televisions. The lighting is quite dim, and you can see they are staring at something and the way the light on them changes very often suggests that they are watching a television. The camera slowly zooms in on the 2 girls allowing you to see there faces very clearly. This suggests to the audience that these 2 are the main charcters, or they are about to get killed. Then the other girl gives the girl on the bed the remote and asks her to choose something to watch. It flicks to the television and you see it get turned off. It then flicks back to the girls. Up until this point in the film if you didnt know that the film was a horror, you wouldn't be able to tell that the film is a Horror as not much fits into the horror cliches or conventions. But the black haired girl starts to set the scene and tell the other girl a spooky story. It then uses the 180 rule to flick from one girl to the other while the story is being told. This tells the audience that the film is definantly a Horror film. The camera slowly zooms in on the girls as they speak. You can clearly see that the girl on the left seems very scared by the story, it looks as if tears have come to her eyes. She then asks her ffriend where she heard the story from and the friend replies that she doesnt know and asks why. Then the girl says that she has seen the tape. The audience then realises that the girl will die. The other girl tries to tell her its just a story but she doesnt belive her. This is the end of the 2 minutes. There is no music while this is happening just the rain in the background, the television when it is on and the voices of teh two girls. The lighting stays the same throughout the scene, dark to help give off a spooky vibe but light enough so the audience can clearly see the girls faces and expresions. This is quite a good start of a Horror film, as it builds tension within the scene and also hooks the viewer, making them want to stay and watch more.
Titles
The first titles you see are the New Line Cinema titles, there is nothing different about the usual New Line Cinema title they usually show. This title is from 0 - 6 seconds. The next title you see is a piece of skin covering the whole of the screen, a cut across the middle appears, with blood dripping out of it. Then in quick succession many other cuts all over the screen appear. And then soon after that the skin falls in chunks into the background. Some of which fall into the middle to create a blood red New Line cinema, this then starts to liquidize and it looks like it turns into blood. It falls towards the screen, covering it and turing it black. It then cleverly wipes off to reveal another layer of skin which blood is thrown on from the left. Once the blood has settled on the wall of skin, the title of the film then raises forward. A large cut appears down the middle and the two sides fold out respectively. This is quite a good title scene as it involves many clever effects and gives the audience all the relevant information and also clearly lets them know that the film is a Horror.
First 2 Minute Analysis
The first 2 minutes of Freddy vs Jason starts of with the first title then cuts too a scene set in a basement like area. The camera is slowly panning the scene, it passes a red furnace which is lit, the light coming from this is almost reaching out grabbing the camera, you then see the door be opened very quickly by a hand, and what looks like a doll is thrown into it. The door is then slammed shut. The way the hand comes from beneath the camera almost makes it feel like a Point of View shot. The shot changes to a young girl, clearly scared looking at the camera. It then flicks to a long shot of a man sharpening something metal on a grinder. You hear a deep mans voice talking, he says "My children". This is very weird and is used to help scare the audience. I flicks to a closer shot of the man sharpening something, and it appears to be claws of some kind. It then shows a close up of the doll burning, the doll looks like the girl you saw, making the audience assume that this man is going to do what he did to the doll, but to the girl. It then shows the man turning around with a claw on his finger while the voice says how he is called the "Spring wood Slasher". You see thee girl backed up against the wall, the camera looks down on her, showing how weak she is. Then a tall featureless shadow is seen on the wall. You see the shadows hand move up in an aggressive manner and claws come out of the fingers. All of this suggests to the audience that something is about to happen. The little girl seems to kneel down in front of this man, the camera the flicking to the doll which is completely melted now, suggesting the action is about to start and you hear a girls scream in the background. This makes the audience assume that the man has killed the girl. This is scary as the weapon is something the audience has never seen before and you do not see the killing happen, allowing the audiences imagination to vision it. The camera then shows a man with a cigarette and a picture. He seems to be stroking the picture, when people do this it usually shows there love for the person or object in the picture. He then turns the picture over allowing the audience to see it is a young girl, the audience doesn't assume that this is his daughter due to what just happened with the other girl, but another victim of his. It then shows a close up of the mans face, he looks wantingly at the picture and licks the back. this is very scary as it is something people don't usually do and you assume that he is a sick and twisted killer. He then puts the picture in a book of children's photos, the viewer assumes that the other pictures you can see are other victims, the book itself is about half way open, suggesting that he has killed many. When it shows the photo album you hear him say "My rein of terror, was legendary. Dozens of children would fall by my blade." This is creepy as it is like the killer is telling the audience the story. You then see a extreme close up of the killers face, allowing you to see teh little emotion and then he laughs, as if his killings are a game. You then hear him telling more of the story, he says about how the parents came for him. While he is saying this you see a woman light a molotov cocktail and through it through a window, from what he is saying, you assume that the window is that of his lair. You see many people watching as the building goes up in flames. A news story is seen burning, maybe suggesting the end of the killings. The voice then says about after they killed him, they created something worse. Then a face is panned onto shot, the face itself is disfigured and disgusting. You see the face moving as you hear him talking, suggesting it is him talking. From hear you now assume the killer is talking about his past to you. You then see some bloody hands, strung up like a puppet and then also some feet. You then see a large tower with a scarred man, who you assume is the killer has his claws up as if he's puppeteering then slices this fingers and a boy jumps out of the window, this suggests to the viewer that the killer is no longer in a psychical state but a mental one, this is scary as there is no apparent way to kill or capture him. A girl then wakes up as this happens, suggesting to the viewer that he is in your dreams. You see his face and then it pans to his stomach, you see him rip off his T-shirt and you see tiny mouths suggesting that he either absorbs his kills or feeds off them. You then see a boy get pulled seemingly through his mattress into a hole and lots of blood come flying back up through the whole, making the audience believe he is dead. You then see some skin, like the titles I reviewed earlier this post, is cut in half and his face comes through it towards the camera. It then pans out and you realise the skin was a boys stomach and the killer, walks out of it, killing the boy. You then see the killer jump out of a bath and then drag a girl into it, you guess that he is going to drown her, and then you see a girl being eaten by a slug which has the face of the killer on it. The first two minutes ends here. Overall the first two minutes of this film is very different to normal horror movie starts as it almost seems like a trailer the way it quickly flicks from shot to shot. But it is good as it helps explain to the audience who he is and a basic story line, but it doesn't seem to catch the eye of the viewer and makes them want to watch it as the action is too quick for the viewer to get interested in.
This scene was created by Sam De Almeida, Extras and Myself.
This is my third attempt at making a short scene which looks professional and works well. In this scene we decided to film a few short clips which could have been the start of a fairy-tale. I chose to do this as I thought I could incorporate some effects and shots which I thought would work well in a fairy-tale. As both of our other scenes were based on the Action genre I wanted to see if changing the genre changed what camera angles and shots I might have used. The scene is set on the stairs and outside a building, around midday. The first shot is the first title page; this is a page with the words "Fairy-tale" on. The background I used for this is an old fashioned book, which is quite colourful, I used this as I thought it helped show viewer that the story is a fairy-tale aimed at children, the bright colours would help attract attention of young children. I then used a transition from one shot to the next, I decided to use the effect as I remembered that I thought it helped make the Scene look professional if used well, so that is what I tried to do here. I used a transition which looks like a page turning, I decided to use this effect as the scene is based on the genre of a fairy-tale and fairy tales are usually written in books, so I thought it would help the viewer to understand the genre of the scene. The next shot I used is another title scene, but on this one I have written a vague description of the story, helping the viewer to understand what is going on. I think that this worked really well as it helps the viewer to understand what is going on; especially of the target audience is young children. The background is again an old fashioned book as this fits in with the storyline. It then turns the page but this time to an actual shot. This shot is a wide shop it helps to set the scene as the location is easily established although it doesn’t show a clear shot of the characters face, but this is made up for in the next shot. I decided to use a panning movement while filming this as to keep the action in shot. The angle is looking down on the character; this could suggest that the character is weak. In the next shot however it is looking up at him, there is no transition from the last shot to this shot. In this shot I keep panning to keep the character in shot but I also tried out using zoom, I zoomed in on the characters face, this helps introduce the character to the audience. I do not really like the effect zooming gives as I think it looks unprofessional and the quality lowers the more you zoom in. However it does help link the current shot to the next shot. It flicks from the previous shot to this one and in the current shot it is an over the shoulder shot as the character is moving so the camera follows, this is clever as it isn't used very often used within scenes. I also like the way as he walks out of the door and the contrast of the shot and the way you can’t see any detail just the shape of the character. The next shot is a basic wide shot to get the action in, a group of people start pointing and laughing at the main character making him cry. I like this as all of the other shots are quite complicated and it makes the scene easy to watch. In conclusion I really like how to scene turned out, the one thing I would change is the shot where it zooms, to a plain close up.
