Thriller Research - Scream

This is the opening to the film 'Scream'. I viewed the opening 3 minutes of the clip to help me with the understanding of how thriller openings usually work.

Sound

• When the title fades in, it makes a banging noise, this suggests that the film will contain action.
• There are non-diegetic sounds of a phone ringing and a woman screaming whilst on the titles, this sets the genre and gives some idea of the plot.
• By using diegetic sound of the other person on the telephone, it creates suspense as it puts the viewer in the same position as the woman, in not knowing what the caller looks like.
• The dialogue "I want to see who I'm looking at", turns this film into a thriller and creates a lot of suspense as it depicts to the audience that he has been outside and watching her the whole time

Camera

• Tilt from the phone up to the woman answering it. This corresponds with the titles before hand where there was non-diegetic sounds of a phone ringing and a woman screaming. This implies that the two are connected and gives the viewer the impression that it will be this woman screaming.
• As she walks around the house the camera follows where she goes. This suggests that she is being stalked, as most of time when she is not on the phone the camera is steady.

Editing

• The title fades in from a black screen, and then gets smaller and bolder, after a while the text then changes from white to red. This suggests that the thriller is based on horror as red is the colour associated with blood and gore.
• A cut from the titles to the phone ringing shows that it was that phone ringing at the beginning and suggests that she may be the one that was screaming.

Mise-en-Scene

• When she is on the phone discussing scary movies, she is playing with a block of knives. This implies that the thriller is based around horror as she is playing with something that is used as a weapon in most horror films.
• The setting of her home has many glass windows and doors. So when she discovers that she is being watched it adds tension to the viewer as they are kept guessing where he was looking through