Textual analysis - The pact

Textual analysis

The pact analysis

The location of this opening scene is in a old furnished house. I’m not to sure where the scene is based but I can that she lives alone in an old dim house.

At the very start of the opening scene I can hear breathing, the screen is dark. All of a sudden the camera jumps to a very close up of an eye. The eye has a green pupil then blinks changing to a blue pupil. The camera then jump cuts to the hall way giving the audience a long shot of the room. The camera begins to move towards to door at the end of the hall this gives the audience a clue into what is about to come, possibly being based on that hallway or the door.

The girl then wakes up giving us a close side shot of her lying in bed. The camera then moves to a mid shot as she exits the bed, picking up her phone as she leaves the room.

The girl the walks down the hallway on the phone to possibly her sister. The camera is behind her as she walks towards that door then taking a right into the kitchen. She picks up the kettle filling it with water then replaces it back onto the cooker. She then walks around the house whilst on the phone and sits down, here we get both side and front close ups of her showing her paralinguistic features as she talks.

Whilst the girl is on the phone the camera moves to long shots of each room of the house giving the audience a view of the house and what rooms are in it. This creates tension as the rooms are all empty and old fashioned leading us to think something is about to happen. The kettle begins to whistle and the girl gets up to make her drink, the camera is behind her at this point slowly moving up towards the light looking down at her. The light flickers.

Later on in the scene it becomes night time creating a dramatic atmosphere in the house. The girl is making another drink in the kitchen. The camera then jump cuts to her sitting in a different room on her computer, the camera is over her shoulder. We can hear breathing and then all of a sudden she jumps as if to say something had just touched her. The camera jumps again to her looking out into the hallway. All these jump cuts create tension as there happening so quickly.

Throughout the opening scene this is no diegetic sound being played, this is when a sound/music is being played in the background, the audience can hear this but the actor cannot.

During the start of the opening scene there are titles being played only being played for roughly 20 seconds. The titles show the film production team and name of trade marks.

The characterisation is evident in this scene, we only see the one woman throughout the opening. The women looks young possibly in her early 20’s. she lives alone so we can see she is not in a relationship. I know she has relations with her sister as she is on the phone to her throughout the scene.

The mise on scene of this sequence shows low lighting in areas e.g. the hallway is dark and dim but the kitchen and the bedroom are fairly bright. This could mean that something’s going/gone on in that hallway. The props lead us into thinking about the genre and the narrative of the film as the old furnished house and the dim hallway are conventions of a typical horror. The colour and tone of the film are both bright and dim. The films starts in daytime but goes into night time as the scene goes on showing us that that things can happen during the day too.

The camera angles and shots throughout the opening scene change frequently showing editing skills. In terms of editing the editor has used fast and slow jump cuts in and out. This makes the fast parts dramatic and the slower parts more tense. There camera shots and angles change a lot throughout the opening scene giving us a look into her life and her house.