Textual Analysis

Inspiration from other movies always played a key part in our production, due to the fact that we worked off some particulary good pieces of film. The movies we fed from included Frank Miller's 'Sin City', Victor Flemming's 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' and the brilliant 'Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles' (2002).

All 4 films were used to the maximum extent when it came to inspiration, with all sorts of shots used, mirroring ones from the movies themselves. The style used in our piece was influenced also, by the storylines and characters themselves, adding depth to our piece. This helped make our film gain more of a standing, therefore improving its quality.

Firstly, 'Sin City' was the first movie to come to mind when we all thought of effects for the film's introduction. Sin City's black and white effect was of a great interest to us when we first started to get it to the drawing board, so to speak. Sin City's colour scheme was a great attraction to us all, with it's compete black and white personna, with certain, vibrant colours standing out. With that in mind, we decided to make our introduction also in complete black and white, not greyscale. I believe that this was extremely effective because it gave it a more haunted look - therefore creating the desired effect.

When influenced by 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', directed by Victor Flemming in 1941, we decided to pick at certain aspects of the story line when putting our piece together. The idea of a split personality, or schizophrenia in other words, played a huge part in our own plot - with the un-named widow suffering from the condition. This is seen at the very beginning, with the diary entry. The condition will be used throughout the film as we look back into the widow's former life and see how the condition eventually led to her downfall. In this sense, we took from the movie of 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' on the condition of schizophrenia and how it drastically changes peoples' lives.

We chose 'Pyscho' because of what an influenctual horror it had been when released in 1960. At that time, Alfred Hitchcock was the best regarded director around and nicknamed 'The master of suspense' and for good reason too, 'Psycho' was one of his many films which thrilled and terrified audiences across the globe. I decided to work of 'Pyscho' for the reason for why I worked off 'Dr. Jeckyll...' because it had a plot about the disease schizophrenia, as well as being a brilliant horror film. We can also relate ours to it because of how ours looks. 'Psycho', being made in 1960, was set in black and white and because we were trying to work off 'Sin City', ours was too. This made the two more relateable and our piece a lot better for it.

Lastly, a great influence which worked its way through to our piece was 'Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles' directed by David Attwood, made in 2002 and broadcasted over the BBC. This is my favourite adaption of the Hound of the Baskervilles purely because of its intense take on a Sherlock Holmes classic. The version fell into our piece due to the surroundings of the plot - with the whole story taking place on Dartmoor. The moors were done in a very spooky way, increasing the tension to the film. We wanted the same effect throughout our film, so we picked a church to film the introduction and the death of the widow. This gave the place a timeless setting, and with the 'Sin City' black and white effect, it worked extremely well. Also, the rest of our story contained a detective, a detective modelled on Sherlock Holmes. The Sherlock Holmes in the chosen film was found as a very solid adaptation to base our detective around. This is what we took from the brilliant adaptation of a very original and very spooky story.

Mise-En-Scene

Continuing on from the work 'The Widow's Death', I am going to talk about the use of costume, voices and location and explain why all three were such huge factors in our piece.

First off, I believe it is important to mention that our particular film is based in the 1800s. Therefore all the above hold even more significance in our introduction as they are really important to set a dated mood.

The use of costume was the most important factor when it came to Mise-En-Scene, due to the fact that the costumes would be the first thing the audience look for to tell the time of which the movie is set in. Alice - who is playing the widow in the opening sequence - is wearing a plain black dress with black high heels, symbolising her lack of weath. The black dress also fitted in with the black-and-white screen shots - making it look more creepy and setting the mood to the maximum effect.
The murderer's costume was also simple. He wore a black cloak over him with simple dark clothes underneath. This showed the simplicity of a complex murder, contrasting brilliantly.

Although we didn't have many props in our 2 minute introduction of 'The Widow's Death', the props that we did use were extremely important. The diary at the beginning is vital towards the end of the movie as it explains who the murderer is and what is wrong with Alice's character; the widow. The diary was made up of the Complete Works of Shakespeare with two blank pages with a script on, written on it is parts of what the widow says in the opening credits. Another prop was the Axe which features heavily in the film because it is the constant murder weapon used by the unnamed murderer. This short axe added an even bigger spooky feel to the film and it helped the audience relate back to other horror movies, such as the Shining, and therefore it improved their horror experience due to its intertexuality.


The Diary -
















The Rose -

















The Axe -

The tone of voice used in the 2 minute opener was also very important towards the feel of the introduction and Alice used her vocal tones brilliantly. Dialogue is used straight away in our introduction - with Alice's voice heard as credits and a piece of film is seen. The shots in the opening sequences are Alice writing a diary. The voice-over (also done by Alice) is reading out the diary for the audience. Alice used a very high-pitched, errie voice, which, along with the creepy text, adds to the feel of the piece. A rendition of 'Ring A' Ring A' Roses' is later heard when the murder is about to take place, also done by Alice. In her beautiful singing voice, a slow version of the song is heard, cutting out all other sounds in the film. The tone of this performance is very important to the feel of the movie and I believe it worked out perfectly for our introduction.

The Location was also very important when it came to setting the mood of the piece. We picked an old fashion church to film in and around because it was both dated and easily accessible for filming. We had to pick a location which wouldn't have to the public swarming around it, and I know the Priest, so permission was easy to come by. The church grounds had a lot of warn-down graves, which was perfect for the dated mood we were hoping to set. We used a grave which Alice referred to when praying - Setting a religious feel to the Satanic piece. The inside of the church also looked dated which helped our 1800s piece look even better and this way, it set the mood.


Great Missenden Church -
















The Omen Church -

















Everything mentioned helped to set the mood of the piece hugely and it therefore made our two minute introduction more successful due to the chosen location, the tone of voice used for both the voiceover and the singing and the costumes used. All of this made it a very good introduction to the film.