Research: Scream Analysis - Miss Begum

In the opening of Scream there are many moments where it portrays common conventions of an opening which I will be analyzing, cut into two sections, from the phone call to her locking the door showing her fear and discomfort. As a traditional thriller ‘Scream’ has a slow build-up of which there may be an act or piece of dialogue which may consist of a character saying a common antagonist phrase like ‘Hey Arnold’, the cheesy side of thrillers involving a classic line and the tension in the scene builds up with the use of several different micro-elements and Mise En Scene.

I will analyse the use of editing in this first section, the best use was the use of straight cuts. Straight cuts were used many times and was effective in the scene to create a fluent response from the audience as they witness the slow torture and horrible distress that this girl is being put through as she is forced to look on as her boyfriend is moments from his death. In the first half of the scene one can also see the damsel/protagonist on the phone followed by a straight cut to her moving to another part of the room here as she continually converses to the antagonist on the phone. This is conventional as it creates the momentum that it leading to the rising action as of described in Aristotle’s theory and is just building to the climax. Aswell as using straight cuts, they used close up and medium close up to send a message to the audience to understand more on the characters role and appearance, further leaning on the characters damsel in distress or victim role, this is conventional to a thriller opening as many thriller openings identify the opening characters struggle or journey in a short period of time for the audience to understand the situation even though the movie hasn’t finished yet.. The zoom was used several times to follow the character with a steady hand in order to capture her emotion as she tries to escape her current predicament. During her scene in the kitchen you see her walk around the table once without a single cut but having the camera following her close-by as if to show the audience that danger is lurking and following her which is conventional to that of a thriller opening to keep the camera set on the character. In the first section I think the director used editing very wisely here. A panning shot of the protagonist/victims house halfway through the first section is used to great effect to show the audience where this scene is taking place and to help us understand what kind of scene this may be, this is conventional as it is similar to that of other known thriller films in that it likes to establish the setting of the current scene.

In the opening sequence they use off-screen sound to make it clear to the audience that she is currently engaged in a phone call with the antagonist, so we can take from that part that the antagonist knows the protagonist but she doesn’t know the antagonist which makes the use of sound an even more effective use of the micro-elements to add sound and tension to the scene in order to gain a psychological response from the audience which is common among many other thriller films, e.g. Se7en. The use of Mise En Scene was effective in the first part of the opening sequence as they show her body language and facial expressions very clearly, through the use of close ups and medium close ups, this is important as it tells the audience that she is currently very relaxed, comfortable and in safety as nothing has happened yet, the scene is still calm an effect commonly used in thrillers to keep the scene at a constantly average level in order not to give away too much.

In the second part of the opening sequence the use of iconography shows us the popcorn cooking on the stove and she isn’t looking after it, this can be significant in terms of her current situation, it went from calm and normal to over-boiling because of the fact she isn’t looking after it. For her in the scene the use of settings and iconography shows her problems over-boiled like the popcorn and she couldn’t handle it. This is very good as the audience can understand what she is feeling, as a result of the drastic cutting of the scene from object to object. Also the use of body language is used to an effect as you can see her quicker body language represent her panic and emotion. She is distraught and worried for her safety, as the scene develops you see her start to breakdown and with the use of zoom we can see her current emotions allowing the audience to infer from this what is happening in the scene and how it affects the character.

The cinematography used in this scene was zoom, and was used to show us different aspects of the protagonist in different angles, but always an inferior figure in that scene. This is an effective use of editing as we can see as an audience that her situation just went from manageable to hopelessness, her boyfriend could die for their actions and she is forced to watch. Her facial expressions in this scene can give the audience the understanding that she is broken and stressed over what is going on.