Task 2: Research into existing products

Analysing an opening sequence of a horror film: Halloween 1978


Halloween is set in 1978 and is an American independent horror fil set in the fictional in surburbia town of Haddonfield, Illinois, USA on the night of halloween.
Halloween starts of with non-digetiec sound of a theme tune, the tune is iconic because the director John Carpenter acutually wrote the music and it is the only piece of music in the film, it just repeats all through the film at tense moments.
Whilst the music is playing the screen has a slow zoom in of a pumpkin tieing in with the halloween theme, the writing on the screen is yellow and then it turns red, this is a connotation of halloween and death and blood.
After the title screen goes off, there is more non-digetic sound of children singing halloween songs which leads up to a tense opening, also by children singing it shows the sound of innocence and happiness, something that the main character Michael Myers does not have.
The camera angle of the majority of the scene is a point of view shot from Michael. The camera is hand held hrough most of it, to give the effect were in michael's eyes and walking around the house.
When Michael gets the knife (prop) out of the drawer it is a high angle shot, which gives the illusion of him being an adult when infact he is a child, which is the twist at the end of the opning scene. This would shock the audience as a child would never or very rarely ever murder anyone, especially their own sister.
The set of Halloween is a real life location in a fairly affluent area of surburbia, with natural lighting.
When introduced to his parents, they are introduced as a middle class normal couple. The director gives this impression of a perfect family living in surburbia with a mum,dad,daughter and son. The significance of this is to not give a reason for why Michael is doing what he's doing in the essence of he's not from a dis-functional family or does'nt have any abusive past.

Editing wise there is only two edits, this is because its all from Michael's point of view and then the other edit is at the end of the scene where we get to see Michael for the first time on a reverse crane shot. The reverse crane shot gives the effect of being shocked to see that Michael is just a child in a halloween costume, holding a carving knife with blood on it.